James O'Loghlin is a Australian comedian who currently works for ABC radio and television. I've always enjoyed listening and watching him and so when I saw this at the library I just had to grab it. James and his partner Lucy, wake one morning to the sound of the house next door being demolished. They know it will be followed by the noise of rebuilding. They have a month before they can shift camp to Lucy's parents while they go away. James works evenings, meaning they are all at home during the hours when building is most likely to happen. Instead of hanging around the house with one year old Bibi and getting headaches and annoyed, they decide to explore the city where they live. Every morning the pack up and head off for a different place to explore. Not just the tourist places like Darling Harbour, the Aquarium and the zoo, but suburbs they have driven past but never stopped to look at.
I'm finding this very easy to read and the idea enthralling. It makes you realise how much you don't know about where you live and how much there is to discover.
Follow up comments: A very enjoyable read. I now have this desire to get out and see more of what is around me. O'Loghlin was very honest about his reactions to certain places such as Auburn and Lakemba which have high Muslim populations. As they passed the mosque, there was a crowd gathering and O'Loghin says "I had sense of intruding, perving, of being somewhere I didn't belong, looking at things that were none of my business. Yet I can't say where I got it from. No one looked at us at all. It was more an indication of my own uneasiness at being there than of anything else. Perhaps in the past year I'd read too many stories about gangs of 'men of Middle Eastern appearance.' I think I half expected them to be prowling around. But this wasn't a gang, it was a group coming together to worship."
O'Loghin also examined his own anxiety issues and how he feels this experience helped him deal with it. How it helped him to just enjoy the moment and take things at face value. His final comment, I feel, has great value.
"...what you might want to do is have a think about whether, within an hour's drive of where you live, there is somewhere you've never been before and you might enjoy a few hours looking around. I bet there is. And if you decide...to go and have a look, I'll make another bet with you: I bet that when you get home you won't think it was a day wasted.
Started: 8/1 Finished 11/1