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An exciting century from Ricky Ponting and some excellent bowling from Daniel Vettori helped the Rest of the World comfortably defeat the Asian XI in the tsunami charity match yesterday. But the real news is again the generosity that people have shown in the wake of the tsunami. The match raised another $14 million for World Vision. This comes just two days after over $20 million was raised by the Reach Out concert. Brilliant. It’s not possible for too much money to be donated to the tsunami appeal, since aid agencies such as World Vision will use excesses in other disaster struck regions of the world.

After finishing A Pair of Blue Eyes, I read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, which I thoroughly enjoyed. First published in 1954, Fahrenheit 451 predicts a bleak future in which firemen start fires instead of putting them out, where books are banned, mechanical hounds track down criminals and where the walls of the "living room" are large television screens. Guy Montag is a fireman who becomes disillusioned by the state of things, and rebels. A fantastic book.

In Melbourne I bought a copy of The Commanding Heights – the battle for the world economy, which I’ve since begun to read. I didn’t get to see many episodes of the PBS series on SBS, so I bought the book instead. It documents the history of the world economy and presents the reasons why the economy is the way it is today; i.e. why capitalism gained the ascendancy over communism, and why the "commanding heights" (those industries – such as oil, mining and the utilities – which are critical to the economic health of a nation) have been relinquished by governments and swept up by the market. It starts out in the aftermath of World War II, where it highlights the key people and the important decisions that led to the immediate revival of the European economy. I’ve not read any further than this, but so far it has been written with clarity and purpose; even at this early stage in the book it’s possible to see the general direction in which the book is headed. The authors, Daniel Yergin (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Prize) and Joseph Stanislaw, write in a style that maintains the reader’s interest when it would have been all too easy to present the material in a much drier fashion. I get the feeling the authors are probably in favour of completely open markets, so it’s unlikely I’ll agree with everything that’s said, but it ought to be a good read anyway.

Karen and I spent the first week of the new year down in Melbourne. It’s the first time I’ve had a really good look around the city, and I must say, I was very impressed with what I saw. It was somehow very European, with all the little cafes built along the alleyways, the numerous parks and gardens, and the old style buildings. Despite it feeling like the middle of winter in the height of summer, and a tendency for it to rain just as you step out of the hotel, I found myself really beginning to like Melbourne.

Among other places, we visited the Royal Botanic Gardens, Acland Street in St Kilda (where all the cake shops are), the Dandenongs and Phillip Island. We were frequent visitors to Myers and David Jones, which were a short walk from our hotel on Little Bourke Street. Even visiting those two stores was a novelty due to their enormous size and their vast gourmet foods sections.

There are more photos from our trip here.

More photos here.

There’s an abundance of new life around the university lake at the moment, including ducklings, dusky moorhen chicks, a dabchick chick or two and baby lizards. I was in at university today finishing off the introduction to my thesis (only the conclusion to go!). Karen went to see Somersault at the Schonell Theatre.

On our way back to the car, we found a little wood duckling which had been separated from its family. It was chirping and looking very lost.

While Karen kept an eye on the duckling, I wandered around for a bit trying to locate its family. I managed to find a family of wood ducks with ducklings that looked the same age as our lost duckling. We picked up the duckling and took it to its family. I was delighted when the parent ducks, upon hearing the chirping duckling in my hands, started running towards us. We hung around for a little while to make sure the duckling really was from the same family. It wasn’t long before all the little ducklings, including our little duckling, huddled under their mother. It’s quite amazing, but there are about seven little ducklings underneath the mother duck in the photo.

There are more new photos here.

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At about ten to seven last Thursday evening, the Dutton Park Ferry terminal on the St Lucia side collapsed into the Brisbane River. Apparently nobody was injured. At the moment the ferry is using the St Lucia CityCat terminal. The first photo below shows the collapsed terminal. The second one was taken this morning and shows a repair crew starting to rebuild the pontoon.

I’ve been a little slack in reporting the movies I’ve watched of late. Last weekend I saw Bad Santa at the Southbank 5 (which, by the way, has very nice cinemas and the cheapest movie tickets in Brisbane at $6 for an adult during the day). This movie was pretty much what I was expecting after seeing the reviews. Billy Bob Thornton stars as a permanently intoxicated Santa Claus who robs the department stores that hire him. An odd friendship (if one can call it that) develops between Billy Bob’s character and an eight year old kid, who lives with his grandmother. There’s also an appearance from Lauren Graham (Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls) who plays Santa Claus’s love interest. An amusing film, but not one of the best of the year. Don’t watch it if you’re offended by profane language.

Karen and I also hired out Prozac Nation last weekend. The film, starring Christina Ricci, is an examination of the depression suffered by the lead character, and her eventual use of the widely prescribed drug called Prozac. I liked this film. Ricci played her character, Elizabeth, brilliantly, and was ably supported by Michelle Williams and Jessica Lange. The movie highlighted the ways depression can affect friends and family, and the manner in which one can suddenly slip into depression and just as suddenly slip back out. This movie is worth watching at least once.

This weekend we rented Imagining Argentina, starring Antonio Banderas. In Argentina, more than 30,000 people went missing between 1976 and 1983. These people were kidnapped and executed by the fascist military regime. Imagining Argentina has got to be the strangest take on this sordid period of Argentina’s history. Banderas plays Carlos, a stage director for children’s plays in Buenos Aires. His wife, played by Emma Thompson, is kidnapped by the junta after she writes a provocative newspaper article. In the following weeks, Carlos discovers he has clairvoyant powers, and can see the fates of those kidnapped by the junta. Weird. When Carlos begins making problems for fascist regime, his daughter and colleague are "disappeared", and he foresees their fates. He follows clues found in his visions in order to try to find and rescue his wife. This film definitely has its moments, and it builds up tension. Some of the fantastical elements work, and others don’t. All in all, I guess I kind of enjoyed the film. Also, not having seen any other films or read much about this period of Argentinian history, I learned a few new things.

On Saturday, Karen and I hosted a pre-Christmas picnic for some of our friends. It also doubled as a birthday and sending off party for Ryan, who is leaving for Vietnam (in fact his plane is probably taxiing out to the runway of Brisbane airport as I type this). He’s spending a few weeks over there on a holiday. The picnic, which was suitably held on Picnic Island at Southbank, went very well, I thought. Picnic Island turned out to be a great spot, and we’ll have to do something there again some time.

It seems like I’ve been reading A Pair of Blue Eyes for ages. This is probably to be expected given that I’ve been working hard on my thesis of late. Well, I finally finished it, and in the end it was a much better read than I originally gave it credit for. Of course, it ended more or less in the same manner that all Hardy novels end: sadly. A Pair of Blue Eyes is the story of Elfride Swancourt and two suitors, Stephen Smith and Henry Knight. I haven’t given any of the story away by stating this here: as much is written in the blurb on the back cover of the novel. But I won’t say any more, except that, as I have come to expect of Hardy novels, this book is very much a character study of the protagonists, more than it is a romance between characters. Another excellent novel from one of my favourite authors.