WHAT'S COOKING?

We may have to buy a new oven as our current one may not be operating properly. I have to put it to the test tomorrow when I make pizza.

The Old Girl cooked a delicious lasagne last night but the bottom layer of pasta wasn't cooked through properly. I suspect that the bottom 'hidden' element isn't working properly. I have neither the tools nor the expertise to mend an oven element and besides, it's bloody dangerous fiddling around with these. If it is faulty we might as well buy a new oven as repairing one might be half the cost at least of a new one. We need to be able to present the kitchen as fully functional when we list the house for sale.

At least our oven problem comes within the normal range of problems and isn't downright weird like Richard's whose oven door 'blew off' a couple of years ago. I prefer to think that the oven decided to self-destruct because of some strange dish he was asking it to cook.

I'm not sure if Robert has had any oven problems but no doubt, if he did he'd go to Bunnings and buy a slightly shop-soiled one for $10. He'd paint it with that $1 paint he bought as well.

"And it only cost $11 all up."

It's hot here today. I'm skulking indoors after driving the Old Girl to the airport where she went to Auckland for two weeks. I have to do some garden planting (flowers in the deck pots) but will do that in the early evening when it's cooler.

LIFE IMITATING ART

Yesterday I noticed the late afternoon sun coming through the Venetian blinds and creating patterns on the floor, table and wall.

It reminded me immediately of Bernardo Bertolucci's 1970 film The Conformist.

The Conformist (Italian: Il conformista) is a 1970 political drama film written and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, based on the 1951 novel by Alberto Moravia. It stars Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio, Fosco Giachetti, José Quaglio, Dominique Sanda and Pierre Clémenti. Set in 1930s Italy, The Conformist centers on a mid-level Fascist functionary (Trintignant) who is ordered to assassinate his former professor, an anti-Fascist dissident in Paris. His mission is complicated after he begins an affair with the professor's wife (Sanda).

Bertolucci used light and shadows to great effect underlining the conflict the protagonist undergoes in trying to 'conform' to the current norm of fascism, suppressing his intellectual aspirations. As you might expect I wrote a previous post about this film: OUT OF THE SHALLOWS

The Curmudgeons Inc. endeavours to bring culture and sensitivity to the barbarians who live in Lower Hutt (one of them has an alter-ego describing himself as a Philistine!). It's a thankless job but someone has to do it.