Monthly Archives: September 2012

If there’s one kiddies’ show that amuses La endlessly, it’s Peppa Pig. Love it sick. This is the old classic where Grandpa Pig fights his wife’s introduction of dozens of gnomes into his immaculate vege patch.

Saturday finds la famiglia caravan in front of the parental media control console, in the old homeland of Los Brisbas. (I refuse to call it BrisVegas, as every Queenslander worth their togs and cheerios knows the Vegas epithet belonged originally to Rockhampton.)

The JCCs are doing their usual north-of-the-border sleeping trick: the 4am wake up – and it’s not even a different time zone yet.

Male JCC chose a fab earrings-and-scarf combo as a belated birthday present for La Mamma. He has my genes.

Then he took to the sofa with his uncle, L’Auteur, for some bongo lessons. L’Auteur is very musical.

Things went somewhat downhill from there, as the JCCs piled in and grilled L’Auteur over the recent demise of his relationship. His girlfriend had been an object of much admiration among both la male and female loin fruits. L’Auteur isn’t giving much away about la break-up. Probably for the best.

Spotted some extremely cute bedside tables in Kova Interiors. Sarah Terrific-Home, are you reading? They were fab.

Wrapped the day up with dinner at 1889 Enoteca, or Enoteca 1889. Good either way. Claimed to be Roman, but there was a noticeable absence of pluck and gizzards on the menu, so La thinks not. For the second time today, probably for the best.

Buona notte.

No, not that kind.  La plastique kind.

Does anyone else think Baz has had some?

Let’s face it, he’s looking a little Hoges-esque.

And Hoges is looking more and more like Donatella Versace.

And Burt Reynolds?  Let’s barely go there.

It’s that almost undefinable softening about the browbone, something mysterious going on about the lids, and the reach-for-the-sky brow, à la Ms Minogue sr.

All in all, not manly.

What would Clark Gable make of all this?

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn…for man fillers.”

Or Greg Peck?

Atticus Finch didn’t care about eye baggage!

Or La all-time man of dreams, Jimmy Stewart?

“What is it you want, Mary? You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey, that’s a good idea. I’ll give you the moon.”

Look at those forehead lines, each one earned through years of throwing earnest, beseeching looks in the direction of his on-screen ladyloves.

Triv could be off the money here, but I suspect these Hollywood gents of old would be horrified, horrified by manwork.  All they had to rely on to disguise the effects of ageing — if they chose to do so at all  — was a vas-smeared camera lens and some manual touching-up of their piccies by studio publicity wonks.

We’re all victims of our own vanity to some degree.  But is it sexist to find it more  distasteful when it’s done by fellas?

Ciao.

Cop.  A.  Load.  Of.  This.  Landed in la inbox last night.

Yep, it’s la very first invitation to a Paris show.

So the question was posed to Seriousimo:  could I go?

His laughter is still ringing in mine ears.

How did I come to pledge my troth to such a man?  He just does not get it.

Longtime Triv reader and Wordporium sister-in-arms KSimm suggested I do a quick whip-around.  And book a flight fast — show’s this Friday.  Maybe I could squeak into Charles de Gaulle and hotfoot it (in BC shoes — a challenge for the most heel-fit of women, but if anyone could do it, I could) to the Tuileries just before showtime?

A girl can dream.

Don’t be fooled by the title — sadly, this is not a post about a new boutique cashmere label or a funky Williamsburg co-operative brunch destination.

Seriousimo dropped me at his work this morning, and — after fighting my way through the jungle of archived legal briefs and back up into the open air — I walked to the Wordporium. I find this a good chance to take in the happenings about the Harbour City’s retail shopfronts.

First up, a wander past one of La currently favourite retail whipping boys, Jigsaw. They tell me A-line floral skirts are back.

Srsly, for whom? Tucker’s Daughter?  Ploise.

Sussan had a really quort norce electric blue blazer — only just shy of a hundred spondoolies. Great with the skinny yellow belt.

La passegiata also took me past the windows of Country Road. Said windows told me CR was having a mid-season sale. I replied, “Who cares? You make us Wide Brown Land ladyfolk some stylish threads and I might start.” Caring, that is. Then I scuttled off in shame, realising I’d been talking to a window. Was too embarrassed to take a photo.

Things looked up at Bally, with these gorgies whispering someone’s name.  Sadly, not mine though, in these frugaltastic times.

Do you happen to be in the market for a quirky, jute-knit lampshade?  I know, me too!!!  Brunello Cucinelli’s our man.

Spotted these lovelies at Fairfax & Roberts. Sure, this window looks fine now, but that was before the drooling began in earnest. (Seriousimo — are you reading?  Do you believe in blogs yet? Hello? Bueller? Anyone..???) LATE-BREAKING UPDATE FROM SERIOUSIMO:  apparently these will adorn los lobes and La decolletage when “a salthouse full of prosciuttos take to the skies on gossamer wings”. Bah humbug to you too.

Mila Kunis may well be the current face of Dior, but La can’t help but feel she’s having a Moment, one that will soon be Over. Sure, she gave good twirl as a saucy, lady-loving swan opposite NatPort, but now that she’s dating former cougar fodder Ashton K (who seems like the ultimate kidult to La), I’m not so sure she’s a stayer.

Now, this is what no Tiffany ever wants to see — a “prime site for lease” rental firesale scenario next to its zone of duck egg blue serenity.

One thing La loves about this Harbour City is unexpected pockets of green. It’s comforting to know there’s quality amounts of photosynthesis going on so close to the Wordporium.

As far as vertical gardens go, this is a cracker.

And so ends our little tour of the quartier bordered by Market and Bridge.

Happy Monday.

Et voila, La Triv Media Control Console, where the knob-twiddling magic happens

Since I created La virtual palazzo here on the interwebs, I’ve been quiety fascinated by the back office business of blogging.

Didn’t think I would be — where are the shoes?  And it’s worth noting that when I call the Wordporium’s IT helpdesk, it goes thus (assume highly agitato vocal tone): “My thingo’s popping up and flashing the box doovy and then that whatsy disappears and it goes blue.  Wasn’t doing this yesterday, I don’t understand — oh, hang on — it’s stop…AAARRRGGHHH!?!!  It just did it again!!!  Bloody hell I’ve got s***loads to do — oh, wait a minute…” (assume highly sheepish tone) “…my cable’s unplugged.”

Srsly, those guys down in their dark cave cannot get enough of me.

Anyhow, despite La extensive tech-savvy, it was news to me that when you have a blog, you can see all sorts of info about how people find it and where they live.

• In the past week, people arrived at latrivialista.com (either on purpose or not) by plugging many different search terms into the deity Google, including “big va-jay-jay (I paraphrase)”. Do they know something I don’t? Sure, neither JCC came out of the sunroof, but I didn’t think things were that bad.
• People also arrived here after searching “why do Jamaicans do the finger gun” — hopefully they were satisfied when they found Usain.
• Perhaps due to la use of the word intifada on the “about” page, we now have a reader in “Palestinian Territories, Occupied”?  Welcome, new friend!  We wish you peace in your troubled zone.

Of course, you all know we’re getting big in Europe.  And points further afield.  Was becoming highly conceited excited about this, until seasoned blogger (read: experienced in these matters) and blood relative (read: pulls no punches) sistywinks said this was only because La namechecks loads of labels. Shallow? Moi? Has she not noticed the name of this blog?

Guess things could be worse on the sisters-telling-it-like-it-is front: when a friend of La was pregnant, her sister looked her up and down and declared, “You’re definitely having a girl — she’s stolen all your good looks.” Ouch.

This growing reach makes me think I must resume work on the Triv Manifesto (perpetually a work in progress), so the growing power of this blog can be used for the greater good.  World peace?  Should be a doddle.

After all, you know what they say: if you want a job done, give it to a busy woman.

It’s that time of the week again… the time when you’re well on the way to becoming the best informed and sparkiest person at this weekend’s luncheons and soirées.

Harper Beckham Thighs Now Almost Same Size as Mum’s.  All that California locavore tucker is doing great things for this srsly cute little chubalista.  And her mum put on a great turn at NY Fashion Week.  The frocks were gorgeous, but — and this is up there with those Harry’s-really-James-Hewitt’s-son conspiracy theories — La Triv still suspects Roland Mouret’s her ghost designer.  Just because you’re a top shopper doesn’t mean that — with absolutely no training or experience — you become a top fash designer.  But all power to Posh, who’s up there with Madonna and Kylie as a mistress of reinvention and a triumph of determination over raw talent.

Yoko Ono Presents Peace Award to Family of Imprisoned Pussy Rioter.  As you know, La is loathe to say much against Mother Russia on this blog, for fear of retribution / assasination (what with latrivialista.com’s amazing global reach and all). Similarly, you’re unlikely ever to land here and see pictures of the prophet Mohammed.  However, the PR sitch is really quite fascinating, and I particularly love this mini-Rioter doing her robot dance as Yoko spreads the love.

Steve Jobs Returns for Launch of iPhone 5.  Check this dude in Tokyo.  Not sure that La would have picked this as a Steve Jobs mask; perhaps if Steve had been the lovechild of Fan Bing Bing and a Japanese salaryman..? What are your thoughts on the 5? As you know, La firmly believes Last People Standing always, always have it over Early Adopters, so I’ll hold out til my 4 suffers a terminal infarction.

“Does my neck look big in this?”

Daphne Guinness Looks Uncomfy in Stretchy African Neckpiece.  Well, that’s one way to hide a turkey neck.  Longtime fash stalwart Daph looks like she’d prefer to be in a waterboarding room than at a premiere in NYC in this bling. La’s a huge believer in suffering for fashion.  Recently, while watching a B-tween movie with the Female JCC, a warm fuzz-bomb of recognition went off when a character said of super-high shoes, “If they ain’t hurtin’, they ain’t helpin’.”  But this?  This is a furlong too far, even for La.

“Two more years of these tax rates, and I’ll have — hang on, let me count — three, four billion…”

Mitt Romney Pays Only 14.1% Tax on 2011 Investment Income. That’s it, I’m ditching Palazzo Trivialista — I want to go and live in the Romneyverse.  From the point of view of an outsider, what these incredibly-wealthy, high-profile people pay in taxes in the US is obscene. (A point of view reinforced by another viewing of Waiting for Superman beneath the dusty rafters last night.) Reg readers will know we’re no Mittfans here at the Palazzo. He just seems like a bit of a goose, really.

And that’s it for now — dasvidaniya.

This was our old Trivialista famiglia homestead in Los Brisbas.

And this is what happened to it after La Mamma and Il Pappa took to it with cricket bats in a fit of pique, utterly done in after years of ordering us to tidy our bedrooms.

So I guess you could say I come from a broken home.

Ha ha!  Not really — they built a new one.

…which is very noice.  It’s all finished now, but I’ll stop short of posting a pic of it finished because I don’t have one I want to protect their privacy.  It wouldn’t be right if La Mamma was having a topless sunbathe on the front deck and a nasty lensman equipped with $20K worth of snapper gear compromised her dignity, all because one of her five loin fruits was the venerable La Trivialista (she’s Big in Europe).

The Trivialista-Seriousimo caravan is off for a Brisbas mini-break next week, to see the MammaPappas, Galloping Gourmand and L’Auteur, and catch up with chums like Macster, Lali and Ms Whis. If La Mamma is reading this (which she should be doing out of a sense of maternal obligation), heads up that La’s expecting a house-made brioche and freshly-distilled strawberry jam if time permits.

Australian politics can be a particularly stinky sinkhole much of the time, but yesterday it briefly rose above the subterranean level at which it normally chooses to reside.

PM JG thanked parliament and Wide Brown Landers for their support since the recent death of her father, John Gillard.

7.30‘s Chris Uhlmann summed up these three highly unusual Canberran minutes thus:

CHRIS UHLMANN: It’s all too easy to forget that our politicians are human, but the Prime Minister bade farewell to her father, revising Dylan Thomas’s famous entreaty.

JULIA GILLARD: I grew up…listening to Dylan Thomas saying to his father to rage and rage against the dying of the light, to not go gentle into that good night. The last thing my father taught me was in the life of a man, there is a moment to go gentle into that good night, and so it was. Thank you.

CHRIS UHLMANN: And just for a moment hostilities paused.

TONY ABBOTT: Could I again acknowledge John Gillard, who has done his country proud in producing such a daughter. It is a remarkable parent who produces a prime minister of this country.

CHRIS UHLMANN: It would be good for everyone in Parliament and in the nation if we saw the human face of politics more often.

Well said, Julia, Tony and Chris.

And speaking of dignified politics, how about the latest shenanigans of that horses’s ass, Mitt Romney? Los Obamas — of whom we are enormous fans here beneath the dusty rafters of Palazzo Trivialista; we’ve even met and cuddled Bo, the presidential pooch — must be sitting back thinking their work on this here campaign trail will soon be done.

Rake tonight.  Happy days.

Ciao x

Do you get this Harbour City Ladurée mania?  Me neither.

Lords know La appreciates a macaron as much as the next overweight sweet-tooth, but when Signor Seriousimo — who loves nowt more than delivering La a news flash — announced Laduree was opening in Sydney, my first reaction was, “Well they won’t be fresh.”

And so La Smugalista gives you this from last weekend’s Sunday Tele:

“They were made in Switzerland in May before being frozen and shipped to Australia to be stored in a warehouse in Alexandria, but Sydneysiders have gone mad for the world’s most famous macarons.”

Srsly?  And people are lining up for more than 45 minutes to pay $3.30 each for one of these formerly frozen morsels, sold here under license?

We have some great home-grown mac-makers, including AZum and Mr Baroque in the Roques.  So it seems like yet another triumph of marketing over common sense. La cultural cringe lives on.

And everyone knows Pierre Hermé makes the best Parisien macarons anyway.

That said, on our recent jaunt to Paris, our hotel was across the road from St Germain’s Ladurée, and all members of clan Trivialista-Seriousimo scoffed at will.  Pierre was a whole three blocks away; sometimes convenience just wins out.

And so to the Boyfriend.

Don’t fret — Seriousimo hasn’t yet been usurped by a toy boy.

I mean the Current/Elliott Boyfriend.  I have these jeans and, particularly for those of us built for comfort rather than speed, they are outrageously nice to wear.  They can be hard to come by on the interwebs, but here they are on My Wardrobe (good, trustworthy UK site, but not free returns last time La looked — i.e., they’ll refund or exchange for you but you’ll have to wear the cost of posting the goods back to those Great United Kingdoms).

Male JCC, who’s 4, announced yesterday his career goal is to open a laundromat.  “You just have to put the clothes in the machine,  then pull them out and put them in another machine.  It would be really easy.”  And this from the boy who took great offence when two girls at gymnastics told him he was lazy for taking a load off in the middle of class.

Next he’ll be telling me he just wants to open a Ladurée franchise.  “You just defrost them and put them on the counter, then take people’s money. It would be really easy.”  Hmm, he may be onto something…

Miss A, of meat fruits fame, continues her role in La life as peerless coolhunter.  She’s been twiddling some knobs of her own over there in those Great United Kingdoms, and found us this.  Prepare to feel misty.

And just so you can look chic while you give your lover some time, los old amigos at Tallulah & Hope tell me they’re offering up to 60% off their gorgeous kaftans, it being the dying days of the Euro summer and all.

Here’s my lovely friend, Ms Whis, posing in her T&H ‘tan in St Tropez this past Euro summer.  As you do.

La bank of blog stat multiscreens tells Triv that, in the past week, readers in France, Belgium and Spain have cast their English-reading peepers on this humble blog.  Who’d a thunk it?

Thank you, Euro types.  May you know that I am La huge fan of your part of the world, and I wish you all the very best that you may overcome your fiscal troubles painlessly and sharpish.

On the other  hand, if you’re just some random trawling software trying to pass yourself off as Euro-sophisticate blog-munchers, then I wish a pox on both your mainframes.

On that note, happy Mardi.

Yesterday, female JCC and I embarked upon what’s known in the trade as a family fun run.

Here she is, contemplating the beast that must be tamed.

And here are nos tootsies, raring to go.  Yes, she has raided a local lavender bush for luck.

Boy, there were a lot of sport-billy punters at the starting line.

“Look Mum, no hands cars!”

It was around this point that the female JCC spotted a chum and left La in her dust.  Off she ran, with her little friend (thanks for supervising them, Mr Shasta Daisy — a good man and a fellow TAL fan), while I maintained what I thought was a top-shelf walking pace.  I must have overestimated my speed, however, as I was overtaken by one woman in a wheelchair and two bumblebees.  Lost sight of female JCC within two minutes.  Slightly scary.

Here’s the view from the road outside the Wordporium.

I was so far behind the pack at this point — and tired of all the course volunteers shouting, “Come on!!!  You can do it!!! Great work!!!” at me — that I contemplated hopping the fence and lying down for a rest on the stones of HarbourHenge to hide my shame.

JCC finished six minutes ahead of me, then we walked through the Botanic Gardens.  This is for Faux Fuchsia, in case she ever reads La blog.

As we waited to be collected by Seriousimo and the male JCC, I longed to lie down in the back of this and rest.

But Seriousimo fought the closed roads and piled-up traffic and took us to Zinc for a restorative omelette.  Yes, salt was liberally sprinkled.

La was very proud of the female JCC, who still only has very small legs, but was lonely.  Might have been La debut and finale “fun” run all in one.