Cloris Leachman has Epic Sex with Gene Hackman

I love unexpected celebrity pairings. And I love it when older women let rip about things they did when they were wild and free.

Cloris Leachman has revealed in her autobiography that she once had "epic sex" with Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman!!

"[S]he recalls bumping into Gene Hackman while both were shooting movies in San Francisco in the 1970s and dining with him at their hotel.

"As we moved into the main course, it was as if a cosmic wind enveloped us. Some giant space magnet was pulling us together," Leachman writes. "We didn't finish the meal. We went upstairs, flew into bed and made love. It was epic. And the next morning, Gene went back to his film and I went back to mine. I haven't seen Gene since that night, but I remember well the feisty lad he was."

The Cosmic Wind. The best One Night Stands should be like that - Strangers in the Night, Ships Passing Through, etc etc. Good on Cloris. I bet Gene in his heyday was a marvellous lover.

The Bushfires by Thomas Keneally

From a wonderful article about the fires and my homeland by Thomas Keneally in today's The Guardian .

"I always throw Nome, Alaska, at anyone who expresses doubt about climate change around our place. Admittedly, Nome is a long way from Australia, but last summer my wife and I saw there a number of moored, well-rigged but unexceptional yachts that had come through the Northwest Passage. That is, they had made without drama a journey that defeated Cook in the 18th century and killed Sir John Franklin and all his expedition in the 19th century. Only Arctic melt made this possible.

Then, a month ago, my grandson and I went with others for a flight over the coast of Antarctica and the South Magnetic Pole. A scientist on board pointed out clearly discernible blue melt-pools on the surface of the tongue of an ice shelf, an utterly new and unprecedented symptom of increasing temperatures.

And in between, Australia with its long-term droughts and violent storms and awful catastrophes, its wonderful ancient bush inhabited by spirits utterly different from those of Europe, atmospheric as anyone could hope for; surpassing strange. And with fire on its breath."

Australians All Let us Rejoice for we are young and free!

1. My boss remembered I was supposed to be on holiday and that it was Australia Day - the latter unprompted!

2. Australia is 221 years old today.

3. I finally finished Breaking Dawn. It is kind of sad that the series has ended but Stephenie Meyer has left the door open for more books even though she denies it now!

January 1st 2009 - Let's start again...

OK - First Day of a New Year, time to revisit this blog and post my new 3BTs.

1. Waking up knowing it is Thursday and I do not have to go to work for another 4 days. Bliss just lying in bed and finishing my book.

2. Discovering these photos of babies celebrating their first birthdays by covering themselves in cake. Simple but effective and funny.

3. Chopping vegetables and thinking about my new healthy lifestyle. I feel calm - and that is a beautiful thing.