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In this time of rovers going splat into Mars, it’s nice to know how far we haven’t come.

Charles Dickens never meant it to be like this… or did he?

A Tale of Two Cities destroyed by nuclear weapons.

Humans never seemed so disposable.

… that The Flaming Lips are one of the best live rock bands on Planet Earth?

I saw them play at The Palace last night (shit venue, I know, but the mix was perfect even up the front), and they had me hooked from the moment they walked on stage in headless bunny and cow suits.

There’s a review of the gig here (for now).

The Royal Dave Graney show may have had something to do with the degree to which I was impressed - they sucked like a 110-volt vacuum cleaner carried to a 240-volt country such as Australia by an unsuspecting migrating family who mistakenly buy plug converters without realising the voltage is different thereby supplying an unexpectedly high voltage to their vacuum cleaner which sucks harder than usual, amusingly.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

As the first track opened, TFL showered the audience with giant balloons and confetti while extras in animal costumes frolicked on both sides of the stage. If I was a reviewer, I’d say the sheer driving power of their simple beats and giant, radiant riffs sustained the set’s energy even through lead singer Wayne Coyne’s protracted (but still rather touching) speeches about love, war, suicide and The White Stripes. However, I won’t say that. I’ll probably just say something like “then they played a few really good songs, and I danced and shouted and waved my arms around”.

“Do You Realise” was awesome, and perfectly complemented by a video screen displaying kickboxing nude women radiating shafts of golden light (but then, to my mind most things are). Many of the songs were synchronised with video footage, as well as effects and recorded tracks from the original version. As a four-piece they have trouble recreating the full effect of the album, but… who wouldn’t?

“Thank you Jack White (for the fibre-optic Jesus that you gave me)” was also pretty fucking cool, and for good measure Coyne threw in the complete back-story and a couple of anecdotes in the middle.

A great, great gig. Makes so-called “eccentric” Australian acts like the Royal Dave Graney Show look like a pack of accountants on a field trip to a calculator factory. Actually, scratch that. It would be kind of interesting.

Oh yeah, and I bumped into Jon English, a guy who’s mostly famous for being in Pirates of Penzance since way back in the days when there were actual pirates living in Penzance. Shannon and I and a friend of hers were eating ice-creams in the car-park of a 7-11 petrol station, and started chatting to him about our night. He’d been to see Paris, the stage show. We told him about the Flaming Lips gig, and he said something about Peter Frampton doing that, or someone like that. He was very enthusiastic, but his GAY LOVER was very reserved. Guess who’s top?

Oh yeah, and far from just having dark eyes, it seems that the entire upper half of Jon English’s face has now caved in. And the whites of his eyes were deep yellow. That’s some fucked up shit.

Good ol’ Matt is right on the money with this post.

Not only is a one-way manned trip to Mars viable, I think the concept is much much cooler than a wooncy two-way trip. My pick for first one-way mission: China. They have a strong precedent for self-sacrifice, and an overwhelming desire to prove themselves to the rest of the world.

Bring on gene-therapy so I can make myself into a Chinaman!

From today’s Age, this is too awful not to repeat.

Woman too well-dressed to be victim, says judge

MADRID. A Moroccan man has been released after a Spanish court rules that his wife was too well-dressed during the trial to be a victim of domestic violence.

Barcelona judge Francisco Javier Pauli Collado said Latifa Daghdagh’s “physical appearance during the three-day hearing, not only made up but also dressed differently each day, with rings, fancy bracelets and earrings and large glasses… does not coincide with the image of a woman who has suffered months of aggression”, the national news agency Efe quoted the ruling as saying.

Politicians and women’s groups condemned the judge’s ruling. “It’s the perfect example of some judges harbouring absurd cliches about domestic violence, as if the victims of gender violence should be poorly dressed, be unintelligent or have no initiative,” said Ana Maria Perez del Campo, the president of the Spanish Federation of Separated and Divorced Women.

Large glasses? Sounds like she was asking for it.