MAN ABOUT TOWN

1. People who talk in the movies. In fact, most people at the movies - they talk, drum their fingers noisily on the plastic lids of empty drink containers, rattle ice cubes at inappropriate moments or otherwise create jarring sounds that distract me from the film and drag me out of that sometimes-transendent cinematic experience. Bastards! 2. Stupid idiots who stand in the doorways of trams, oblivious of the fact that A) there's lots of room further along the aisle, and B) that they're inconveniencing other people who are trying to get on and off. Fuckers! 3. Noisy packs of schoolgirls. Thank fuck I was never a heterosexual teenage male: I would have been totally intimidated and driven to beserk, school-bag swinging rage by the high-pitched squeals, the chattering, and the choking death-cloud of over-applied perfume, hairspray and other assorted products that emmanate from packs of schoolgirls on public transport. As it is I'm often forced to get off the tram and catch the ...

I attended the only Melbourne media preview of the new Star Wars film on Wednesday morning... You can see the film yourself next week, if you can be bothered. * * * The culmination of decades of work for writer-director George Lucas, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith completes the epic space-opera sextet which burst onto our screens in 1977, and brings the tragic story of Jedi knight Anakin Skywalker and his transformation into the iconic villain Darth Vader to a close. The film opens with a battle in the upper atmosphere of the planet Coruscant that sees juggernaut spaceships pitted against tiny fighters, in a deliberate and contrived echo of the opening scene of the original Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope . Jedi knights Anakin ( Hayden Christensen ) and Obi-Wan Kenobi ( Ewan McGregor ) weave their ships through a barrage of explosions and enemy fire, intent on rescuing Supreme Chancellor Palpatine ( Ian McDiarmid ), the political leader of the galactic Republic from ...

I just found out that the SF and fantasy writer Andre Norton has died. I first read her work as a shy country boy, when one of the weekly highlights of my life was the visit of the Mobile Library to our small town of Trafalgar (in the Latrobe Valley) was one of the highlights of my existence. Read an obituary for Andre Morton here: http://www.sfwa.org/news/anorton.htm Tomorrow I'm going to go out and buy, steal or borrow some of her books, which I haven't revisited for far too many years.