-
The Labor Party won the Australian Federal Election by an unexpectedly large margin (ABC News). The Labor Party was not in quite as bad a position as the Canadian Liberal Party and so it’s a little simplistic to chalk it all up to angst generated by Donald Trump’s administration but that seems to have been part of the story. I do worry a little where this leaves the Australian Liberal Party (which is, confusingly, the main conservative party in Australia). The right faction has dominated the federal party for years and one result of that has been an almost complete evisceration of the Liberal Party from the inner city urban seats that used to be its traditional heartland. Maybe that’s fine but if you believe democratic governance works best with large moderate political parties, it should be cause for concern.
-
It was Golden Week. It’s the second year where the days line up rather poorly so that rather than a five-day weekend, we only get a four-day one. That, and our reduced bank balance, is my excuse for why we didn’t do more. That said:
-
On Sunday, I took Emma and John to see A Minecraft Movie. As I wrote on Letterboxd, this could have been something really great and I left disappointed with how much potentia was wasted. Emma and John had a good time and that is of course the most important thing.
-
Monday was Children’s Day and I tried to do something for each of the kids. For Emma, I bought a second-hand cookbook showing how to make various pastries (this is her current dream job). The same shop—the delightfully named Book-Off—also sells used video games and for John I picked up a reasonably priced copy of Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope.
-
Rather than get Rowan something, I instead took him out again to Odawara. I did that last year on my birthday but this time we went on the also delightfully named Romancecar (Wikipedia). Rowan was a little disappointed that we were sitting at the back of the panorama section for most of the trip but just before we got off, I took him right down to the window seats and he was very excited. We came back on an N700A shinkansen but I’d forgotten Golden Week is a notoriously terrible time to buy tickets for the free-seating cars. The train was absolutely packed and I ended up having to hold him for the hour trip back to Shinagawa Station (we continued on to Tokyo Station but fortunately could sit down for that last leg).
-
-
I neglected to mention back in April that Pope Francis died (ABC News). The biggest surprise for me was being reminded that Francis had been pope for 12 years whereas Pope Benedict XVI was pope for less than 8. I would have lost money betting that it was the reverse.
-
Did you realise that Rihanna essentially released an album a year from 2005 to 2012? I didn’t until listening to the latest Hit Parade podcast episode. ’S.O.S.’ isn’t her best song but the episode did help me appreciate how important it was for establishing her as a bona fide pop star (Apple Music).
