Boy wonder

Why travelling with my son was the best

MY FRIENDS! There is much to discuss!

I have returned from Japan, albeit with a plane lurgy that I am dragging around like a toddler’s blanket.

Nevertheless, I have gathered some exotic trinkets to share with you because I have missed us.

Travelling with my nine-year-old was an unexpected joy. I delighted in his excitement over the *theme parks (*too many theme parks) but it was how he coped with the hard bits that really impressed me.

Footsore and freezing, he would turn into a robot that was powering down.

Hungry and tired, he would cavort on the kerb.

His happiness, easily bought from a convenience store, was a buoy to my flagging spirits.

Turns out that it’s hard being solely responsible for your child in a foreign country. I have never paid such close attention to Google Maps, navigated such large crowds or fretted so much about keeping Joey safe as I did in Japan.

The hyperawareness of travel becomes somewhat fatiguing when it’s x 2. Culturally, Japanese people are much more polite than Aussies so it was stressful avoiding multifarious offence.

But gosh, what a wonder it was to see my son navigate the wider world with such panache.

Nothing phased him. Not the unusual food, the packed trains, nor the extremely long days of queuing for rides. He was as cool as a (pickled) daikon.

So I come to you deeply exhausted but deeply relieved. He’s going to be just fine when the time comes for him fly on his own.

Watching

Bugonia

If you’ve watched any of Yorgos Lanthimos’ films, you’ll know that conventional narratives are not his thing.

But this is new, even for him.

With elements of Slingblade, Misery and even Silence of the Lambs, this is not a pretty film. It’s dark, twisted and beautifully acted by both Emma Stone, who plays an abducted CEO, and Jessie Plemons who plays her disturbed captor.

Did I like it? I still don’t know. Is it worth seeing? Absolutely yes, if only for the ending.

Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning

This is a terrible, terribly long, terrible movie.

Like a 2am kebab, it’s bad in a familiar way and it will fill a (large) hole in your viewing schedule.

I watched it on the plane, half asleep, and it was perfect for that. Bit of chasey, bit of splodey, lots of absurd Tom Cruise stunt scenes.

Rooster

The 40-year-old virgin has become the 60-year-old virgin (notwithstanding the fact he plays a father).

Steve Carrell is a total dork in this father-daughter on campus dramedy.

I didn’t make it past the first ep because my husband wasn’t convinced. I would keep watching but with one eye open.

Scarpetta

I read all of Patricia Cornwell’s novels in the ‘90s. From The Body Farm through to Body of Evidence, the paperback bodies stacked up and I loved them all.

For every mouldering Jane Doe, there was the noble Dr Kay Scarpetta, ciggie lit and science at the ready.

But this show? What have they done to her?!

Nicole Kidman? Absolutely not. Jamie Lee Curtis? Go back to The Bear where you came from.

I can’t see past the absurd casting. Just cannot.

Get excited! S2 Deadloch is streaming now on Prime, Kitty Flannagan returns to ABC comedy in Bad Company this week and Jon Hamm is back in S2 Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple TV this Friday. YAY!

Listening

Kevin Abstract and Dominic Fike (that guy again - I LOVE HIM) made this dirty but cruisy track.

I’ve missed you, my darlings. How have you been?

Loads of love,

Em xx