It's alright, God's on my side

The purveyours of all things Godly, religious, and spiritual - John Safran and Father Bob Maguire - gave us a shoutout on their show (and podcast), Sunday Night Safran. In, like, the first three minutes.

You see... In Australia, Mr Moi and I fell asleep every night listening to the radio, usually ABC Newsradio, which, during the night, switches over to NPR or BBC. Here in Kyiv, we fall asleep to podcasts.

Mr Moi and I survive Kyiv on podcasts, and every Tuesday we download the podcast of 'Sunday Night Safran'. It's a radio show on Triple J with John Safran (an Australian Jew) and Father Bob (and Australian Catholic priest), who previously collaborated on a funny show about religion, 'Speaking in Tongues' (look at those competition winners).

Last Wednesday, I woke up feeling absolutely buggered, because Mr Moi and I could not sleep for the entire duration of the hour-and-a-half podcast the night before. We were laughing too hard at Safran and Father Bob to think about sleeping.

Imagine Mr Moi's surprise last night as we listened to this week's podcast and heard Safran and Father Bob greeting their podcast listeners in Ukraine. And explaining the concept of drought for listeners in Ukraine....

Little does Mr Moi know the mischief a bored wife with broadband and an email account can create. Fan mail (stalking?). It obviously works.

You can download the podcast here or, for the next week or so, stream it through the program site. Funny stuff.

Dear Augie March - is it over between us?

Happy Australia Day. You'll have to excuse me if this is a lacklustre post, because I've written it three times and managed to delete it three times too.

Aussies observe a number of traditions on Australia Day:
1) Lots of icy cold beer
2) A couple of snags on the barbie
3) The Australia Day one-dayer from Adelaide Oval

and the left-wing hippy student minority observes the following tradition:
4) Listening to the Triple J Hottest 100 countdown.

Now, number 4) has always been a rather fringe exercise. Not only would my parents not tolerate the Hottest 100 being played in the house, but they banned us from using the car if we ever left the dial on Triple J.

(I still classify number 4) as one of my traditions, as I hang onto the last vestiges of my student days. And my twenties for that matter...)

So I was rather surprised when I rang my brother's house, in hippy left-wing paradise, and heard my mother in the background not only tolerating, but listening to and enjoying the Triple J Hottest 100.

And when they annouced that Augie March's 'One Crowded Hour' won the number one spot, my mother postively squealed with delight.

Augie March has long been one of my favourite bands. Their style can best be described as 'avant-garde' rock, and there's very few cool people I've met who know the band, let alone my mother being a fan.

Later today, I logged onto news.com.au and was shocked to see the band staring at me from the most prominent photo-spot on the page. I took a screen shot as I'm not entirely sure it's not a mistake.


Since when have the Australian masses cared about who won the Triple J Hottest 100? Never mind the Murdoch Empire plastering the winning band on their flagship Aussie news site.

But the heftier question is: can I continue to love a band that my mother has acquired a taste for? Her taste and mine parted ways in 1990 (not before she could instil a love of Billy Joel in my young, impressionable mind). This time a year ago, she was singing the praises of James Blunt, so I'm struggling to determine whether her taste in music has improved, or if Augie March have just become mainstream crap.

I guess you can listen yourself and decide if the song is any good.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get any Aussie branded beer here, but we figured чернігівскье преміум was close enough (well, it tastes like beer). In order to keep our Australia Day beers cold, Mr_Moi and I have popped them on the balcony where they're cooling down in a balmy minus six degrees.

Advance Australia Waltzing Matilda Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi. Happy Australia Day.