The crawl

Amelie knows how to roll. She just chooses not to. Crwaling however is something she's not at all fussed with. I even dressed as a commando to inspire Amelie to do the commando crawl, but she wasn't having any of it.

Solid as a Rock

Amelie's adventures in eating solid food are progressing nicely. We've tried her on a wide range of food now, and hasn't been made ill by any of them. She hasn't even disliked any of them. So she's eating mixtures of three foods now. This morning she had pumpkin, chick peas, and avocado puree.I can't explain the pride of watching a baby keep a tiny spoonful of mush in her mouth without her dribbling it down her front, but it is a beautiful moment for me.

Amelie at six months

The Possibility of an Island

Just finished reading this book, and it lingers in my mind. I wouldn't say I actively recommend the book, partly because the main character is so unpleasant, sexist, and details his sexual exploits in very graphic style. A friend once told me he never looks at people the same again if they lend him a book with a sex scene in it. In addition, there was an awful lot I disliked about this deeply pretentious book. And yet, it lingers...

Written by French author Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island is the story of Daniel, a successful, but not remotely funny, comedian. Daniel is a vile character, who dresses up his views on women in pretension, satire and philosophy. His story records his bleak outlook on life, love, and humanity, and charts his personal decline through his sexual relationships, and his involvement in a religious cult. But through the bleakness you see that he refuses to give up on the possibility of love.

What makes the book interesting is its structure. Between every 'Daniel 1' chapter is a commentary by 'Daniel 24' or 'Daniel 25' - his clones living 2000 years later in a post-apocalyptic future and trying to understand the remote concepts of love, sex, and humanity through reading Daniel 1's story. But it is the development of the cult, with its promise of eternal youth through imprinting its members brain patterns in a clone in the future, and the way this taps into the decline of civilisation, which I found most fascinating, being a sci-fi nerd. The two parts of the story are linked in theme as well as in narrative, and Daniel's bleak outlook has stayed with me.

Chewbacca much taller than Darth Vader, but both scrub up nicely

Star Wars cast ready for a fun night out. No-one invited poor C3P0. They secretly hated him. Alec Guinness was meeting them at the bar though.

Amelie in Queensland

We took Amelie to the motherland this month - Queensland. The state her mum grew up in. Here she is, happy to be by the sea on the Gold Coast.
Her Nana and Grandad were delighted to see her again, and give her a cuddle - they hadn't seen her since she was a week old. Amelie also met her Uncle Drue for the first time. We were a little worried she might be scared of his beard (Lord knows, I am sometimes), but she warmed to him immediately.

Masterchef Australia - the final wasn't fixed, but the last eliminations probably were

Australian TV's zeitgeist series of the year finished last night - Masterchef Australia. The final was the most watched show, excluding sporting events, in Australian television history.

The show is based on the UK version, but expanded with elements of other shows. It has the Pop Idol audition process (complete with amusing bad food) that boils down to a Top 20 who are evicted one by one. It has The Apprentice's team-based tasks. And for Iron Chef fans it has both the high-tension grandiose treatment of the in-studio cook-offs and the most flamboyantly dressed judge/host since Chairman Kaga - Matt Preston. Much of its success is put down to the heartwarming 'return of niceness' in these kinds of reality shows. But going too far to achieve this may have been its undoing, in terms of credibility.

The final four contestants were probably the best four in the competition. Then it all went wrong. Justine - the second most consistently-good chef in the competition - went out (finishing 4th) on a terrible decision. The best chef in the competition was Chris - unfortunately he knew it. Through his own arrogance and some selective editing, he became the only villain on the show. So he had to go. In a task where the cooks had to plate-up food that would look great in a cook book. Bizarrely he lost to Julie, who didn't even finish her dishes. I suspect the judges were influenced by the Channel Ten producers who wanted the fan favourites to get to the end, and the final winner to be the one they thought would sell the most cookbooks.

So we had Poh, the artist who decided she would ignore a chunk of Matt Moran's recipe to recreate his dish, beaten by Julie, the 'simple home cooking' specialist, who didn't know the difference between onions and shallots. Everybody's families came on at the end, the judges were all in tears, Channel Ten is counting the money, and I loved it right up to the second from last episode. Especially the Croquembouche episode - now the whole country knows what that mountain of profiteroles is called.

Winter wardrobe

Amelie is now 6 months old. She weighs 7kg (about 15lb) and is 64 cm long. The Melbourne winter is dragging on (though not like a London winter) and Amelie has her little seasonal uniform - top, tights, pinafore dress, cardigan and this hat (which Claire added the flower to).

Radio defection

There comes a time in life when you change radio station allegiance. Its when you become an old man. We recently abandoned Triple J - the ABC's 'youth' station in favour of Triple R - one of Melbourne's community stations. This was a similar defection to one we had in the UK from the commercial indie station X-fm to BBC 6 Music. In both cases it was a combination of being irritated by grating, trying to be funny DJs and becoming bored with the playlist. In JJJ's case, the 'talking over the top of each over' style of the breakfast show made it unlistenable, the Australian hip hop has always been unlistenable (sorry, I've tried), the repetition of Kings of Leon made it boring, and the elevation of Foo Fighters to kind of god-like position only The Smiths should occupy was just strange.

So over to RRR. It gives you a warm fuzzy feeling hearing a mix like Jarvis Cocker, Leonard Cohen, the Pixies, Jeremy Jay, Dolly Parton and TV on the Radio. The nerdiest show even played the theme from the 90's X-Men cartoon as a musical track. This week's 'album of the week' - the new one from Dinosaur Jr - who else would do that? The worshipping of Bob Dylan and Neil Young isn't quite my tastes - my musical traditions go back via the Pulp> Smiths> Punk> Bowie > Beatles route - but at least they acknowledge songs recorded before Nirvana broke up. The chat is very local, and entertainingly amateur. Not too fussed on the speciality music shows, but the talk shows about film, food and medicine are strangely compelling. We like it so much, and felt guilty enough listening, that we paid the subscription. Now all we need is a competition win and our commitment is sealed. God, I'm old.

First tooth!

Amelie has her first tooth coming through! Just a sharp edge of white at the moment. She doesn't seem to be in much distress about it. Just loving shoving things in her mouth. ...and she's still sleeping beautifully...