Author Archive: Lesley Jakobsen
Water to Wine: An Italian Wine Journey
(Aboard the “Insignia” 6 September 2026) The Varnished Culture‘s first cruise (excepting 3 days on the Nile) and for the most part we avoided shuffleboard, trivia rounds, axe-throwing, bridge games, and numerous other entertainments. But we were shilled into a lecture and tasting of selected Italian wines, many out of our general price range, given by Tiru, one of Oceania’s sommeliers. This was on an ‘At Sea’ day, and we had to indulge, to honour friends who would never forgive us passing this up. We started with a Tuscan white (Tuscany in the main image), Il Borro Lamelle Toscana IGT…
Continue Reading →The Odyssey
(Directed by Christopher Nolan, 2026) My Ancient Greek class attended the Adelaide premiere of “The Odyssey” on the IMAX screen at Palace Nova East End, Adelaide. We are a hard audience. Our excellent teacher Dr. B (originally from Rome) has shepherded us from the alphabet to Plato via his amusing (but rigorous) methods over the last dozen years. So, By Zeus, Nolan had better do Homer right! He did. We had some minor quibbles – apparently Agamemnon’s black armour is not correct for the time, (but Benny Safdie made an amazing, surreal figure in it. Sauron eat your heart out)….
Continue Reading →The Mushroom Tapes
Conversations on a triple murder trial (By Chloe Hooper, Helen Garner, and Sarah Krasnostein, 2025) Erin Scutter was born in 1974 . Her mother Heather is said, rather vaguely, to have been an academic (“an expert in children’s literature”) and her father, even more vaguely, “a company director”. Although her mother is important in this tale, her father is not. In May, 2025 Erin (now Patterson) was tried for three murders and an attempted murder. Famously, in 2023, Patterson had invited her estranged husband Simon, his parents, his aunt and his uncle, to lunch at her house in Leongatha, New…
Continue Reading →Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)
[Norwegian, 2025] Nora (Renate Reinsve) is an acclaimed actress. She lives in the family home which changes from traditional, dark and maximalist to sleek, pale and minimalist during the film. Which is better – messy, intricate family life or a cleaned-out refurbished freedom, with everything open to view? Nora, as a child, decided that the house was happiest when full of people, – namely her parents, her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) (Ibsen seems to be getting a workout here) and herself. Now that they are adult, Nora is a bit miserable. We think it’s more than just being Scandinavian….
Continue Reading →The Road
(By Cormac McCarthy, 2006) [It is timely to comment on this book, as we read a report in The Weekend Australian newspaper (24/1/26) that Federal Treasurer, Dr. Jim Chalmers, planned to read it over the summer break. Appropriate, for a man under whose stewardship Australia, economically, feels like it is circling the drain.] This dystopian, post-apocalyptic fable won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2007, so we were duly warned. Evocative? Perhaps. Repetitious? Certainly. Dully and deliberately so. Fatuous? ‘Okay.’ Day after day – gray, ash, cold. Gather wood, light a fire, drink water, eat from cans, walk down a…
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