The Long Good Friday

The Long Good Friday is one of my favorite movies ever. It is brilliant, moody, and is one of the few movies in English that has English subtitles.

It introduced me to Bob Hoskins. And it featured Pierce Brosnan in one of his first roles as a gay terrorist.

But this post is not about the movie, but about today.

Today ended up being another long Good Friday when our best friend Shirl came over for lunch. There is not much more to do around here than have lunch with friends because Australia makes believe it is a serious Christian nation once a year and shuts down everything on Good Friday.

I say "makes believe" because Aussies are not particularly religious. Oh, we have our Hilltoppers and Christian Conservatives like the Reverend Fred Nile (pictured), but as a country Australia does not buy into the hyper-religious trappings the way, say, America does. Our leaders don't feel the need to make their religious beliefs public, and our spam seldom feature prayers which will lose their power if you fail to pass them on to seven other people.

Yet curiously we shut down everything but Asian groceries and BP service stations on Good Friday. Mind you, we don't do the same on Easter. Which only goes to show that the Friday holiday is much more important to Aussies than the Sunday holy day.

Most Australians start their Good Fridays out wondering why there is no newspaper to read. They then move on to realize that our newspapers aren't all that good and it is probably a good thing not to have to pay for one today.

Those who forgot that nothing is open today soon wonder how they will survive the day with no milk, no bread, and - basically - not much else in the larder. At some point we all learn how to survive on black olives and frozen corn, and we never repeat that mistake the next year.

Smokers and drinkers, of course, run the risk of becoming born-again if they don't prepare. But those who didn't prepare soon find out that cigarettes are for sale at the BP and vanilla extract has enough alcohol to let you survive the day.

Anyhow, we are now watching a HORRIBLE movie on pay-per-view (The Mummy 3, if you need to know) and Shirl has finally found a cab that is working to take her home. The Long Good Friday for 2009 is ending. But lunch was really good, Shirl was great as always, and the wine lasted the whole day. Give it a tick and on to Saturday.