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I went to the Australian Chamber Orchestra on Saturday night at Angel Place. it was a shorter program than usual and a smaller orchestra, with three sextets being presented. The most interesting was Schoenberg's Op. 4 ("Transfigured Night", 1899). I generally don't much care for Schoenberg as he was a leading proponent of the 2nd Viennese school's atonalist philosophy. To many of his works sounds like cats being tortured to death. Op.4 is an early work and was lovely. 32 minutes straight however; very tough for the players and I can see why the concert was 30 minutes shorter than usual.

I take my mother to the ACO every year year and as usual we had dinner at the
Intermezzo at the GPO, which as to be one of the best Italian restaurants in Sydney. It isn't cheap - especially if you indulge in their Italian wine list- by the food, service and vino is fantastic.

Sunday night went to Terminator: Salvation after gaming all day with my mates. Now we are as big a pack of nerds as you are ever going to find; all of us are fans of the original; we'd just spent the day playing the Judge Dredd rpg; and the verdict? Good solid, B_Grade action dross until the last 15 minutes which was just puerile dreck. It was as if near the end the director decided he need to put in some emotional content. Hello! Terminator movie! The finale is meant to be a big fight not mushy open heart surgery. Really! What a load of Bollocks!