Handmaids Down Under

Quokkas, I really enjoyed The Handmaid’s Tale. Both book and (2017) adaptation. (The ’80s movie is streaming on Stan – do we need a liveblog? Maybe we need a liveblog. But we’ll also need wine. I mean, I’ll need wine.)

One of the things I enjoyed is that, like a lot of Canadian science fiction — sorry, Margaret Atwood, speculative fiction — it leaves space in its worldbuilding for the rest of the world to exist. Even within the narrow confines of book!Offred’s perspective, we know that Japanese tourism and gender relations maintain the current status quo, or something close to it, and the wider perspective of the Hulu series gives us glimpses of Canada and Mexico.

Sometimes I wonder what that kind of extreme patriarchal dystopia would look like in Australia, given that we were colonised by Georgians and Victorians instead of Puritans.

And other times I wonder, well, while the USA has collapsed and Gilead has formed out of its ashes, what’s happening back home?

Continue reading “Handmaids Down Under”

White foodie bingo

Stephanie discovered an amazing cafe in my area the other day, and when I googled it, one of the first results was A Certain Local Food Blog I Sometimes Like To Hateread.

And so this bingo card was born: things white foodies say about ~ethnic~ restaurants and cafes.

(We didn’t set out for this to be a week of food politics. We just really enjoy food, and also food politics.)

Continue reading “White foodie bingo”

Shark in the loo

This week’s Doctor Who episode (Liz liked it a lot! Especially Bill “greatest companion since the last one you really loved” Potts!) has a beat where the Doctor clears out a Sydney cafe by emerging from the toilets and shouting, “Shark attack!” For plot reasons, obviously.

But it’s frankly ridiculous that this ploy would work, so here are a couple of short listicles.

Continue reading “Shark in the loo”

No Award’s 2017 Resolutions

bulldogcat3APPARENTLY research shows that you should only make resolutions after having a nice epiphany on a nice holiday. But it’s Lunar New Year on Saturday, and Liz only just went back to work last week, so it seems like a good arbitrary time to talk about things we’d like to do as individuals (and a blog) over the coming months.

Post features pictures of cats.

Continue reading “No Award’s 2017 Resolutions”

It’s always #cephalopodweek somewhere

According to the internet, #cephalopodweek takes place either in June, or right now. Or maybe it’s both! Can we properly appreciate cephalopods in just a single week? DEFINITELY NOT.

I have a lot of feelings about cephalopods, to the point where I can no longer eat delicious calamari. So it is my great honour and privilege to share with the world my Top 5 Best Cephalopods Ever.

Continue reading “It’s always #cephalopodweek somewhere”