Anyone remember the group food blog I started called 'Thus Bakes Zarathustra'? Well, I took that name to be my very own and started a second food/research blog at the beginning of the year, that's about, well, food and the things I read about in the name of my PhuD. It is called Thus Bakes Zarathustra also, and even though the 'about' blurb at the bottom if still full of faux latin nonsense there's lots of content up, so you should go visit. And comment. It's lonely over there.

I am a fair skinned blonde, and at the best of times this makes me a bit twitchy about the sun. But it's so hard to avoid the searing kiss of the radioactive sky ball, and there are so many parts of the body which are easily overlooked. For me, it's my head. I first realised I had a problem with head-burn when I went away to the coast with the foreign man earlier this year. After a walk on the beach he told me my scalp was sunburnt. 'Like, blood red,' he added. 'It's really gross.' Since then I've noticed the skin along the part is consistently a lurid pink, and I fear a dirty great melanoma is soon to emerge. Short of plastering sunscreen onto my scalp, I really must wear a hat.

The problem is hats make you look stupid and, to avoid a truly vicious scalp cancer, I'd have to find a hat I can wear everyday without wanting to kill myself. It's a rare person who can nonchalantly wear a hat and not look like, to use primary school vernacular, a try hard. Furthermore, it's a really rare woman who can pull off a hat. I mean, there are plenty of great male hat wearing role models, such as:

But hat wearing women? Not so much.

And then there are hats that are simply too awesome for me to handle.

So I'm at a loss. I don't want to come down with cancer of the head, but hats leave me cold. Anyone have any hat suggestions?

By a serendipitous turn of events I found myself with a free ticket to the BDO on Monday, which made my little heart so very, very glad as all I've wanted since I was 14 was to see Bjork play.* However, that also meant that I would have to actually, y'know, go to the BDO, which I didn't want to do for the following reasons:







I do not like festivals. In fact, it would be fair to say I hate festivals. Hot sun makes me actively, whiningly miserable, I have few practical outdoors clothes, I resent port-a-loos, dislike warm, flat beer in plastic cups, and a music festival really is the worst place to actually watch music. The crowds are restless and chatty and the sound is not so good. But the worst thing about music festivals is they contain the kind of people who actually like music festivals, which is to say the kind of people who like getting drunk and sunburnt before 5pm and ruining everyone else's attempt to actually watch the fucking bands.

So I waited until an hour or so before Bjork's set before venturing out to Flemington. I dressed neatly, wore sensible shoes and held my bag high and tight across my body. When I got there it looked like a kind of refugee camp for escapees from Corey Delaney Worthington's last party. Fortunately, I ran into a friend of similar height and attitude, and we resolved to go straight to Bjork's stage and stay there until she came on, then leave quickly after. It took a lot of shuffling around to find the right spot, but when we did we were determined to stay.

Bjork came on with her Bjorkestra, and I went weak at the knees. When she spoke thousands doubled over, as though punched in the gut by the charisma radiating from the tiny woman. It wasn't the best of circumstances, but she was everything I'd imagined and more. I was so entranced that I didn't realise Will Anderson and (apparently) the members of Tripod were standing right next to me until the end of 'Earth Intruders,' when Will Anderson said, loudly, 'Bjork sure is weird, hey?'

And it continued. Will Anderson and Tripod kept making comments about Bjork being 'weird.' They made fun of her dancing. They made unfunny jokes about the ReactTable, saying it was Bjork's radar or something, which doesn't even make sense. I kept shooting pissy looks over my shoulder, but I reckon Mr Anderson just thought I was a bit star struck.

No. No, I wasn't. I wasn't going to let you ruin Bjork for me, Mr Anderson, but I was very, very close to peevishly asking you and your middle aged crew to use your inside voices. Honestly, you call yourself a comedian and you didn't even notice that the organ player looked like Melbourne gangland killer Carl Williams. You are not funny, and it was not appreciated.

Douche.


* The person who gave me said free ticket pointed out I mustn't be much of a fan if I hadn't bought tickets to either the BDO or the Sydney Festival side show. There's some truth in that, but also I am always, always very slow on the uptake when it comes to music.