Unichurch blog » Fun

Deep fried heaven at the end of the earth

David Entwistle — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:25:54 +0000

One of the curious symptoms of Perth’s isolation (3000 km from Sydney, same from Jakarta, pretty much the opposite position on the globe to New York) is that some things take on a significance far greater than their value.

Today Ash brought Krispy Kreme doughnuts to the church. If you don’t live in Perth, you may think this is no big deal. If you do live in Perth, you realise that this is a HUGE deal. The reason for this is that you can’t buy Krispy Kreme doughnuts in Perth. Ash had to fly to Sydney and back again, with a huge box on his lap, so we could eat Krispy Kreme this morning.

Now you may say, fair enough, Krispy Kreme are pretty good, and if you don’t get to eat them often, it may be a bit special when you do. If you are thinking this, you are obviously not from Perth, because you are underestimating the excitement that Krispy Kreme cause by a factor of at least a thousand.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Bobby went to Melbourne. Another friend, Aloysius, told Bobby that if he did nothing else in Melbourne, he must bring back Krispy Kreme, and that money would be wired directly for the purpose. When the doughnuts arrived, Aloysius screamed and ran around in circles. Seriously.

This is not unusual. That’s how significant Krispy Kreme doughnuts are in Perth. The strange thing is that, on their own, Krispy Kreme don’t warrant this kind of reaction. They may be good, as far as doughnuts go – they may be the finest doughnuts in the world – but doughnuts can only go so far. There’s not a doughnut in the world that warrants the excitement a Krispy Kreme will generate in Perth.

So why the excitement? Is it the exoticism? The mystique of the unreachable? I’m not sure. Many have stated hypotheses involving secret additives, even narcotics. These things could all be part of it, but there must be more to it. I’ve never seen anyone in Perth go anywhere near as nuts for Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups or a copy of the Times. What is it about Krispy Kreme? And more importantly, what does it say about a city when its idea of heaven is a deep fried dessert?

Photo by kfisto via Flickr

Look at you

Jon Rumble — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:28:24 +0000

What’s worse, being patronised by your food? Or having to concede it has a point?

indexed

Jennie Tate — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:30:50 +0000

I thought I’d share a little bit of joy with you all, especially those artsy people who enjoy a bit of faux-science. ‘Indexed’ is a cool little blog where someone called Jessica represents life by drawing graphs on index cards…OK, doesn’t sound cool, but it is She describes it as “… a little project that allows me to make fun of some things and sense of others without resorting to doing actual math.”

It makes life seem so simple. Check it out here.

“Unnecessary” quotation marks

Rory Shiner — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 05:47:42 +0000

This amuses me. I’ve been railing against this for “years”. Link is here

Just for pleasure

Rory Shiner — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:01:11 +0000

“That mention of Feuerbach and joy reminded me of something I saw early one morning a few years ago, as I was walking up to the church. There was a young couple strolling along half a block ahead of me. The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were glistening and very wet. On some impulse, plain exuberance, I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them, and they laughed and took off running, the girl sweeping water off her hair and her dress as if she were a little bit disgusted, but she wasn’t. It was a beautiful thing to see, like something from a myth. I don’t know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash.”

From the very wonderful novel Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, page 31-32.

Love, Rory