trilogies

Compare the box office position of Star Wars (1977), Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983) with Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), and Smokey and the Bandit III (1983).

todays learnings

• Advance Australia Fair has a difficult second verse.
• They sell jelly beans to kids to raise funds for diabetes research.
• If by the end of Active April you did fifteen activities, you can go online and type them in and download yourself a certificate.
• The latest issue of RACV magazine Royal Auto features an article about Caulfield.
• Hipster is a style of women's underpants.

Active, Passive, Impassive

Attach the prefix in- to an adjective and you make it its opposite. Opportune, inopportune; regular, irregular; passive, impassive. This last pair seem more twin suns than polarities, semantically. To be active is not being passive, when one is inert, submissive, without resistance. But to be impassive is to care not, it's an alternative to being passive without having to take action. A cricket, a reed, a stone.

We unearthed a mole cricket Easter Sunday. It was light rusty brown, with small wings across its back and terrified our son. When he had calmed down enough, we looked a little closer at the cricket as it dug itself back into the dirt. I've moved the polystyrene box its burrow was under; I hope it has found a spot for a new burrow. I've been listening out for singing, but there's been none, and it's been raining besides.

autumn pic

St Kilda Road,
the bluestone barracks
black under Virginia creeper red.
Leaves spatter the walls.
A cordon, arm thick, midway
across a block of stairs.
Is this illegal to photo?

odd one out

Tattoo parlour
Massage parlour
Funeral parlour
Pancake Parlour

Buffalo Bill
Barnacle Bill
Riverboat Bill
Electricity bill

new flavour at the frozen yogurt parlour

Peanut butter.

ice cream

With a drumstick in one hand and a cornetto in the other, both unwrapped, could you tell which one was which?