Checking In With A Bare Minimum Of THINGS:

Went to see P.S. at some point recently. I think it was almost two weeks ago now. I liked it. Sometimes I was baffled, but mostly I had a sense that it was a quality thing. I very much liked that it wasn't hideous and smug in that Oprah-esque "oooh, she's older than him. Isn't that DARING? And really, ABOUT TIME! You go girlfriend" way (more on Oprah being shit later). However, despite accomplishing this amazing feat in our otherwise hideous and smug modern times, Leah still really really hated it, and I'm sure she would like her disapproval to be widely reported. Guy, however, liked it. But do NOT tell Leah that. If you do see her, what you CAN tell her is that she gives good gift (and somehow manages to find inspiration for potential cottage industries at the same time).

Guy also gives good gift. This time it was Kate Bush's Hounds of Love/The Ninth Wave, which made Leah roll her eyes. She has been on the receiving end of Kate Bush a few times, and is not yet converted. I however have no complaints, being already converted, and having enjoyed Guy's sound gift-giving record for years now, beginning with Bjork's Vespertine, then Christina Aguilera's Stripped, then a Bjork music video DVD, and now this fine Kate Bush album. I love it, by the way, mister. Especially Under Ice, Waking The Witch, and Watching You Without Me (that one is totally my favourite).

Two Bad Things:

1. Leave Kate Moss alone! She's pretty. Her boyfriend makes flies undone into fashion. And you're all hypocrites.

2. Watching Oprah. It's violently enervating, don't you find? There must have been a time when I watched it because I enjoyed it, right? For the CONTENT and such. But now... JESUS it's intolerable. Whatever her values were, they seem to have disappeared up her butthole. The show is totally self-and-wealth-absorbed. This has been creeping in for a while, and I have of course had a scathingly low opinion of her for ages now, but watching that 20th season launch show the other night made me think, "Come on. Even the slavish devotees must be having their doubts now?" I mean, she has crap taste in everything, and is generally completely lame. She had Jennifer Aniston on and managed to talk about NOTHING AT ALL (of consequence). Not that there was much to be getting on with or anything, but if you're going to make a point of how you got the first exclusive TV interview or whatever, why not, I don't know, ASK about what's been happening - ie. the reason this is such a fucking exclusive in the first place. Did anyone else notice that no-one said the name "Brad" once? That’s weird, yo. And who fucking cares what Jen’s favourite drink is, and that Oprah’s been hanging out for the past few days with her and her girlfriends, who are ‘wild and crazy’ (highly doubtful. Oprah's boundaries permit the getting of THREE new puppies to be the craziest thing she ever did). Anyway, I was groaning throughout that whole Aniston portion of the show, curling my lip in derision and generally saying cutting and dismissive things about Oprah and how crap and inane she is. But that actually turned out to be the most tolerable part of the show. Because what followed made me think, “WOW. Oprah. Is. A. Brat.” There was the puppy thing, where she made the HUGE decision not to resist the urge to take another cute puppy home. And she kept repeating how with THREE new kids to add to her family she understands what mothers go through. Her dogs are cool and all. She just really really isn't. Anyway, I got a bit excited when she flagged that she would be dealing with the Hermes thing. Finally, we were going to get The Truth. Except that it was INSANE. She began by saying, “Shame on you if you thought I would demand to get into a closed store. I’m not like that. I know the difference between a closed store and a store that is in the process of closing.” Right. So, she obviously doesn’t get it. Even the Hermes president she brought in to beg for forgiveness managed to retain more dignity than she did. It was kinda funny that her attempt to set the record straight and lay a smack down on all the haters instead showed that her version of events was exactly the same as the version everybody else was already working with. It was amazing, the lack of self-awareness there. So anyway, to cut to the chase of this gripe, Oprah is getting crapper and crapper, and she seems to have no idea. In fact, right now my brother is watching an Oprah re-run, and he just muttered, “Oprah is so clueless.” This has been going on for quite a while now. Why does she not get called on it?

Three Good Things:

1. Ohmygod LimeWire. Have become slightly obsessed with it in the past week. I now have Word Up by Cameo on my iPod. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? HOW EXCITING!

“This thing is revolutionary,” said Elanor, just as it was about to be defunct.

2. New Cronenberg film with Viggo Mortensen and SEX... I haven’t seen it or anything, but it is unquestionably good.

3. Arrested Development returning to our free-to-air television screens tonight. At 11.20pm. On channel Seven. I would be shrieking with joy right now, except that I bought the DVD ages ago after they cruelly robbed me of the show last time. Okay well, I am shrieking with joy anyway. But I can’t help it. I love this show so much. Do watch it. Because it’s like, THE BEST SHOW EVER. Everybody is HILARIOUS. Just try to resist the particular hilarity of Buster, Gob, Tobias, George Michael, Mom. Also, Portia De Rossi is very very good in it. I’ve decided she has massive credibility and is amazing. That’s the power of this brilliant show – it makes you decide that changing your name and your accent isn’t a completely dodgy and weird thing to do. These things should no longer be held against her in polite society. DO YOU SEE HOW POWERFUL THIS BRILLIANT WRITING IS? Anyway, evil channel Seven has for some reason chosen to ‘return’ to the first season at a point where it has only about five episodes to go. Which means ignoring the whole middle stretch they’ve never aired. I’ve decided this can mean one of these two things: 1) they’re using these last episodes of Season One as a lead-in to Season Two, which they plan to air immediately after, 2) they want to stop the bitching, so they’re gonna show the end of Season One so people feel some kind of closure, without it having to take up too many slots of precious space. Bastards. Anyway, even if you have no idea what’s going on, tonight’s episode is TOPS. Keep an eye out for the way Jason Bateman gently moves a bowl of peanuts out of the way of Julia Louis Dreyfus' emphatic hand. It's the details that make the thing.

And One Final Thing, Of As Yet Undetermined Quality:

1. The ABC’s new arts show, Vulture is also screening tonight. I really want it to be good. Because I LOVE ME A GOOD ARTS SHOW. And I have been suffering quite severely from the lack of one, as, honestly, HOW ELSE am I supposed to keep abreast of the considered worth of books I’ll never read and plays I’ll never see? THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. So I really need Vulture to work. From what I have been able to gather from the promotional materials, it seems to be an attempt to mix the sensibilities of Critical Mass and Mondo Thingo into the one show. As I said, I hope this is successful. However, even if Vulture ends up working and being intelligent, provocative, brilliant and so forth, I just want to put it on the record that getting rid of Critical Mass and Mondo Thingo was a crime that will take a lot of Great Arts Chat to paper over. You hear me?! A LOT. So, no pressure Fidler. But you gotta do good.