Paul's Travel Blog

Ok, this is definitely the last post

2007-11-30T04:00:00.001-08:00

I know I made a closing post, but Kim has rightly reminded me that I have one task that remains incomplete, and I agree wholeheartedly that I can't, in good conscience, let this blog descend into the dusty depths of web history without saying a few venomous words about my former employer.

Now, purely for reasons of keeping this semi-anonymous, I don't want to name his real name, or the company. Not because I care about him, or the company, but I don't want this being hoovered up in some google search, because:

A) He's lawyer-happy, and would probably sue me just to be painful.
B) It could reflect badly on my friends still working there.

However, I feel that we can still get away with calling him Aston Younger, and go from there.

Working for Aston was a unique experience. Now, when I say unique, I'm not using unique in terms of "Winning ten million dollars in the Lotto was a unique experience", rather, I'm thinking more along the lines of "The Black Death was a unique period in Europe's History" ie. It's unique, because it's never been any more hellish since then.

Perhaps I should provide some background.

Aston ran a company that dealt in Medical Insurance. As companies go, this sort of field of expertise, at least in terms of social standing & social responsibility, slots neatly in between companies that produce toys with lead in them, and the Gestapo. That being said, you can run a compassionate ship in these greasy and treacherous waters, it's just that Aston chose not too. You see, Aston was already a very wealthy man before he ever stuck his beak into medical insurance, which, while some would call that a positive, I call a definite negative.

For starters, what else does a man like Aston need, when he already has a big house in London, owns several polo ponies, has a trophy wife/girlfriend, exotic sports car? Well, I'm sure he can think of something, but the problem was that given that Aston has all these possessions, he really can't be stuffed taking any interest in the company. He has enough money to keep him on easy street for the rest of his (un)natural life and hence doesn't really give a rat's arse about how the company does.

That being said, don't even think that given this was the case, he opted to delegate responsibility to anyone. Oh no. He insisted on retaining personal control of the company in every respect, which made it damn difficult for us to get any decision from him, given he was only in the office for less than 50% of the week. And even when he was in the office, he'd be jabbering away on the phone or off doing lunch with some other equally pretentious and annoying person.

Working for Aston was a nightmare, simply because he had no idea how to manage. His idea of management was to saunter out from his office, like the Lord descending on high, to mingle with the commoners. He'd wander round the desk, smelling of cheap aftershave, and enquire as to whether we were winning or not. Given that I soon realised he really didn't give a shit how we were or what we were doing, provided it wasn't bad news, I'd just tell him good news all the time. Contented, he would then wander off into accounts where he'd remain closeted with his egyptian book fiddler for the rest of the day, emerging only to yell about how much money he'd made or lost since yesterday.

Meanwhile, the rest of us soldiered on, without any real idea or concept about where he was taking the company, until he deigned to tell us (usually about 3 weeks after we needed to know). By the end of my time there, I didn't give a rats about him or his problems, and as a result, I finished up, packed my bags, and fucked right off.

Put quite simply, the man was an arse. I for one, am not sorry to be rid of him.

I suppose I should make a closing post.

2007-11-19T05:36:00.000-08:00

The more perceptive of you may have noticed that this blog came to a rather abrupt end, with me promising photos, and then not delivering. Well, what happened was that my camera was stolen on the last day of my time in Estonia, and all my photos went with it. This took the wind out of my sails somewhat, since I was a bit gutted to lose all the photos from the whole trip. Despite the fact that Greg gave me a CD with all his photos on it, it still disappointed me somewhat, and thus I never got round to updating the blog.

The remainder of my time in England (some 3 weeks) was spent in and around London - I caught up with everyone before I left, as well as a friend of mine, Ash, who had come over from Australia for a holiday.

But now, I'm back in Australia, and thoroughly convinced that I made the right decision to leave when I did. It was time to leave England, and I left without any regrets or things unfinished.

Flicking back through this blog it's interesting to see how it changed over time - it started out as a wide-eyed expose into international travel, and I followed the time in America with great interest - each and every day there with Dad was magical, and it will remain with me until the day I die as one of the greatest months of my entire life. There's the trip to Italy, my initial exposure to England, the pain of not being able to get a job, delight at starting work and the misery of the long winter in England, overworked, cold and underpaid. There's the trip back to Oz, the Gregory River canoe race, and then finally the time spent travelling in Europe, which was also a once in a lifetime experience.

I think that's the best part about this blog - the fact that it will serve as a reminder of the days that I spent abroad. For example, I couldn't remember every single day in America and the goings on of each day, but the blog instantly reminds me of what happened on a particular day, whether it was getting stuck behind a tractor, Dad demonstrating his ingenuity with the freezer, the crazy old man routine on the Californian freeways or the bedlam of driving into New York, to name but a few.

The 18 months I spent abroad was a fantastic time for me, and the blog serves as a fantastic reminder of it. That's the beauty of it. I don't suppose anyone will actually read this last entry, but just in case, I'd like to extend a few thank-you's.

I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who read this blog over the time I updated it - in particular those of you who commented.

To the guys at HCI - thanks for making London such a pleasant place to work. We had good days and bad days, but the good days definitely outweighed the bad, and it was a pleasure working with such great people.

To the crew at the Badger - thanks to you for continuing to put up with me even after I moved out. Christmas at the Badger was great fun, and the best way possible to pass what would have otherwise been a very lonely and boring week.

Particular thanks to Dan, Nick, Karl, Greg and Christian - you guys put up with me for the whole time in London, whether it was playing computer games, poker, drinking vodka in Poland or suffering an attack of depression on New Year's Eve.

Thanks to Wendy for being awake at 3am Aussie time due to her baby, and giving me someone to talk to on MSN during the week when I would otherwise be bored out of my skull at work. It was always good to catch up on news at home and the band.

Finally, thanks to Laurie, Dan, Glen, Nye, Ken and Gerald - you guys commented thoroughly on my blog, and made it the sort of blog that gets blocked by the German state web filter. I thank you.

And that's as good a note as any to end on.

Behind the Iron Curtain

2007-09-13T05:43:00.000-07:00

One of the main reasons that I am glad that I made this trip is that it gives me one inescapable bragging right over my parents. You see, my parents did their 10 years of hippy travels from about 1974 till 1983 - the astute of you may notice that the year that their travels ended coincides with my arrival - and yet in all that time they were never able to go beyond the Iron Curtain since this little thing called the Cold War was raging at the time. So, in travelling to Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, this has been one small step for Paul, and one giant NYAH NYAH NYAH to my parentals.

In the nicest possible way, since I will be staying with them when I get home. (Remember Mum, if you could make my bed before I arrive home on the 10th, that would be great).

Ok, so what has happened since I posted last? Well, first of all - in posting this it is obvious that I survived the bus trip from Warsaw to Riga. 1000 kilometres in two legs. We left Warsaw at 11pm and got into Vilnius at around 8:45am the following morning. The original plan was to stay in Vilnius, but after looking about and not seeing anything much worth looking at, we decided to press on to Riga.

A further 5 hours of bus travel ensued, and we arrived at Riga at around 4pm, thoroughly shattered. At this point, we made our way to the House Hostel, which is undoubtedly the most bizarre place I have ever stayed at. What happened was that we got there and no-one was there. So we rang the number on the door and the guy who runs the place came over about 15 minutes later, let us in, took payment for 2 nights and then left - and we never saw him again the whole time we were there. In fact, we never saw another person at this hostel the whole time we were there. We wound up staying for 3 nights instead of 2, and got the second night for free. Essentially, it was like having our own private apartment, so we just boozed it up in the common room after coming back home from the clubs, and had the whole place to ourselves.

We followed that up by travelling up to Parnu in Estonia, and from there we went on a sort of detox/nature retreat. There is a national park just near Parnu and we decided to stay in this little cottage there. My old man would have loved it, being an old hunter-gatherer type himself. You had to chop your own wood, bring your own food, light your own fires and generally take care of yourself. The highlight was undoubtedly firing up a genuine Estonian sauna on the last night there.

The way it works is that you have a small wooden hut with a stove inside, with several rocks on top. This hut is at the end of a small jetty that extends into the river. Once the fire has been lit and the air temperature inside is at about 70 degrees, you go in (traditionalists say naked, we opted for board shorts) and then once inside, you dump water onto the rocks. Steam will come out off the rocks and superheat the air, causing sweat to roll off you in droves. The hardest part is the fact that the air you breathe is just as hot, meaning you feel as though you are suffocating as all this heat flows into your throat. Once you have had all the heat you can stand, you simply open the door, walk out and jump straight into the river. This has the effect of plunging your body into icy water, and causes your testicles to shrink to the size of peas. It also chills your body down, and then you climb out, jump into the sauna and go again. Normally this activity is accompanied by great liver-crippling draughts of vodka, but we didn't have any.

And so, following our little sidestep into the wilderness, we find ourselves back in Parnu again. The plan is that we stay here tonight, head up to Tallinn tomorrow, and spend the weekend in Tallinn before flying back into London on Sunday night.

Next blog will be from London, and will most likely contain photos as well.

Poland in detail

2007-09-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

I've taken the liberty of deleting my original brief post about my time here in Poland since I'm now in a position to give a more detailed update as to what is going on. No photos as yet - that will have to wait until I am back in London on the 16th.

Greg, Christian and myself flew out from Gatwick airport on last Friday, the 31st, via Poland's "finest" airline Centralwings. The flight was cheap, as was the beer. 2 quid bought you 4 cans of Polish beer, so naturally we already had a fairly healthy glow by the time we touched down in Krakow, in Southern Poland.

Krakow is a great city to go to if you are seeking to have a good time. Unlike most of Poland, it was untouched by the Second World War, and as such, most of the buildings and monuments are all originals. There is a massive town square in the centre of town, which is packed with clubs, nightclubs, bars and all of which is in close walking distance of the hostel we were staying at. Frankly, the 4 nights we were in Krakow were all fairly debaucherous. The one moment of seriousness came on the Monday where we went out to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau which is located nearby.

Auschwitz itself doesn't actually resemble a death camp, and indeed it wasn't. Auschwitz already existed as a series of army barracks, comprising approximately 30 large brick buildings. The Germans converted these to prisons, and used Auschwitz solely as a work camp. While they did perform some exterminations at Auschwitz, these were mainly of an experimental nature, designed to test the nature of the Zyklon B agent used to in the extermination process. Auschwitz does however possess the sole surviving gas chamber and crematorium.

It was at nearby Birkenau that the great holocaust occurred - Birkenau is a much larger camp, and it was designed solely as an extermination camp. The camp is vast - several hundred cabins dot the interior, and the camp is dominated by a large brick structure underneath which passed a length of railway track. The brick structure came to be known as the Gate of Death, since all who passed under it in the trains would not survive. Upon arrival at Birkenau, the Jews on board the train would disembark, and be directed by SS doctors to either the camp or the showers. All the men and women who were fit to work went to the camp, and all other women, children and elderly went to the showers. The showers were of course the gas chambers in disguise, and what happened after that is well known. Suffice to say that at Auschwitz they have exhibits including a pile of 30000 pairs of spectacles, enough shoes to fill several rooms and 2 tonnes of human hair - this represented but a small fraction of the belongings looted from the dead after the gas chambers had done their work. All very sobering.

After Krakow we came to Warsaw where I am at the moment - we've been here for a few days and are leaving tonight for Riga by bus. 9 hour overnight bus trip. Should prove to be suitably shitty. We're spending the weekend in Riga, and then heading off to Tallinn in Estonia on the Monday. Once there we'll be spending the rest of our time in and around Estonia until we fly back on the Sunday.

On the whole it's been a pretty good trip so far - it's certainly been a completely different world to the usual stuff I've been up to in England.

Except for this bus trip. It's really going to suck.

Warney and Beyond

2007-08-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

Continuing the trend of catching up on what I've been up to - on August 18th I ticked another item off my London checklist by going to Lord's Cricket ground to watch a game. It was an added bonus that this game happened to be the domestic one-day final, between Hampshire and Durham, and that the great Shane Warne was captaining and playing for Hampshire.

While Warney didn't end up taking any wickets, it was still nice to see him bowl one last time, since it's not something I'll be able to do again back in Australia.

Lords itself though made the whole trip worthwhile, even if Warne hadn't been playing. Make no mistake, this is the home of cricket, and it oozes it from every pore. The ground is steeped in tradition and a true sense of occasion, from the moment you walk in through the wrought iron W.G Grace Gates.

It's this building which does the most to create the sense of occasion - the famous Members Stand. This building is populated by the true toffs of cricket - the Lords Taverners, or Members, for short. Basically, you only get in if you know someone. And have a lot of money. And give a lot of it to Taverners. And then only if you really, really grovel. In addition, you have to have impeccable class and standing amongst your peers. Not for these gents the consuming of amber ale and loud cheers. Rather, a glass of vintage wine, and polite applause.

Coming from a cricketing experience that has been mainly at the Gabba, and surrounded by beers, Mexican waves and larrikinism, it certainly marked a considerable change of pace.

The other end of the stadium is slightly more modern, although equally notable - this is the new media centre, which sparked controversy when originally built, but has come to be part of the ground as much as the members stand itself.

A shot of the ground, with Warney caught at the moment of bowling.

For the record, Hampshire lost - quite heavily. Durham batted first and racked up 312, and in reply Hampshire only managed about 160.

What else is there?

Basically, I've now left work, and am about to begin my travels before heading home on October 9th. Tomorrow I'm off to Paris for 3 days, and then immediately afterwards, will be taking off to Eastern Europe for 2 weeks. Beyond that, Egypt, Ireland? Still not sure as yet. I'll have about 3 weeks after I get back from Eastern Europe to do some more travelling, so either way it should be a good time.

Don't expect frequent updates since I won't be near computers that often, but then again, updates have scarcely been anything like frequent for the last few months anyway.

If the tanks succeed, then victory follows.

2007-08-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

The final entry to my little jaunts by rail into the English countryside is finally up - this time, I was down at the sleepy little town of Wool, and the Bovington Tank Museum located there. It's a very impressive collection of tanks - some of which are unique, and the last of their kind remaining in the world. This is particularly so of some of the German tanks they have there - owing to production difficulties (primarily caused by being bombed round the clock by Allied bombers) the Germans never built that great a number of tanks, and when you lose a war, most of your tanks tend to get destroyed in the process.

The above quote that entitles this entry is courtesy of "Smiling Heinz" Guderian by the way - Germany's finest tank commander during WW2 - or Panzers as he would have referred to them.

What I've done is listed the tanks chronologically in the photos, and as usual there'll be a little bit of background blurb beneath each one.

This is a Mark II British tank - one of the first ever tank designs. Tanks were first invented during WW1, and saw action in 1916 and 1917 at battles such as Cambrai. The tank was originally conceived as an infantry support weapon, an armoured vehicle that could break through the barbed wire, deflect the machine gun bullets fired by the enemy and provide valuable cover for the infantry to advance behind. Hence the lethargic top speed (some 8 mph), since it was never anticipated that the tank would have to outrun infantry. Although tanks saw some success during the war, they were far from being the groundbreaking weapon of WW2. Most Generals, while appreciating the value of tanks in protecting infantry, could not envision them ever playing anything more than a supporting role on the battlefield.

This British Matilda tank continued in much the same vein as the tank above - again, it was designed solely as an infantry support vehicle. The most notable change is in the appearance - it didn't take long for a turret mounted on top of the hull to become the norm in tank design. Having the guns fire from the side of the hull as in the Mark II shown above limited their field of fire, and also meant that if one gun was knocked out, that particular side of the tank was defenceless. Having a gun mounted in a rotating turret enabled a 360 degree arc of fire, meaning the tank could defend itself from any direction.

The Matilda saw service in WW2, primarily in the North African battlefield. By 1942 however it had been phased out, as newer, faster and more heavily armed tanks had become available. Although the Matilda possessed very strong armour, it was too small to mount a heavy enough gun to punch through most German tanks after 1941, and the armour made it very slow as well. Speed (or lack thereof) increasingly became a liability in WW2, as tanks quickly became the pre-eminent means of waging war, and as the spearhead of the advance, needed to be able to move quicker and faster than before.

This British A10 Cruiser, developed around the same time as the Matilda, was one attempt to solve the issue of speed vs armour. Unlike the Matilda, which piled on the armour plating at the expense of speed, the A10 eschewed armour in favour of speed. These tanks, known as "Cruiser" tanks, were fast indeed for tanks, but the lack of armour meant they were not much use in a stand up fight against other tanks. Again, these tanks also fought mainly in the North African desert, and also by 1942 had been phased out due to obsolescence. Although they had enjoyed success against the poor quality Italian tanks during 1940, the arrival of the more heavily armoured and gunned German tanks in 1941 quickly made the A10 and it's brethren a liability in battle.

This American Grant tank combined elements of WW1 and WW2 tank design, as you can see. The tank was designed to be able to field both a 75mm main gun (shown in the side casemate) as well as a smaller machine gun mounted in the turret above it. Although ungainly, the design proved surprisingly effective. It served primarily in the North African desert, as well as in campaigns in Sicily and Italy during 1943 and 1944.

This tank should be instantly familiar to anyone who knows anything at all about tanks - the famous Sherman tank is probably the most recognisable tank ever made, and certainly one of the most numerous ever produced. This tank was the mainstay of the American and British armies from 1942 until the end of WW2, and was produced in the tens of thousands. The design was based upon the realization on the part of the Allied High Command that they could not outbuild the Germans in terms of tank quality, so they would outbuild them in numbers instead. The Sherman was much lighter, and lesser armoured than the German behemoths, but the advantage of numbers meant that the Allies could usually throw in 5 Shermans to every 1 German tank in the field. And if the Germans proved too strong, the Allies had complete control of the air anyway, meaning bombs could be dropped all over any German tank that didn't want to withdraw.

You'll notice also that this tank is actually taken "on the move" rather than sitting inside the museum building - the reason for this is that the museum maintains several of these tanks in working order, and runs them around a field 3 times a week to put on a show, complete with pyrotechnics and whatnot.

Although the Allies were always behind the Germans in terms of overall tank quality, the British still managed to produce several tanks that had sufficient armour to survive most of the German firepower, even if their own guns weren't up to damaging the Germans in reply.

This tank is a British Churchill, and it was renowned for it's immensely strong and thick frontal armour, capable of deflecting almost all German tank rounds. The reason the British produced tanks like the Churchill was that by 1944 British manpower reserves were stretched to the limit, and they simply could not afford to lose troops at the rate they were with the Sherman.

But enough about the Allies. What of the Germans - these fearsome tanks capable of outgunning and outfighting the Allies finest? Wonder no longer.

The Tiger. Like the Sherman, one of the most famous tanks of the war, if not the most famous of all time. This tank, when it first appeared, struck fear into the Allied tank crews. It was considerably larger than anything the Allies possessed - weighing almost twice as much as the Sherman. It's frontal and side armour could easily deflect the standard 75mm rounds the Sherman, Grant and Churchill were armed with, unless the Allies closed to within a range of 400 metres. Given that the Tiger could knock out the Shermans at a range of 2.5 km, it's easy to see the advantage it possessed. The principle advantage was derived from it's gun - the equally legendary 88mm gun.

The 88 millimetre, or "88" as it was simply known started out life as an anti-aircraft gun. The Germans however soon realised it could also be used to great effect as a fixed anti-tank gun, simply by lowering the barrels down to ground level and firing at tanks instead of planes. When the Tiger was developed in 1942, the Germans equipped it with the 88, and the legend was born.

This Tiger is the last of it's kind that is still in working order - there are other Tigers left in the world, but not many. The Germans only built approximately 1100, and naturally, most of those were destroyed in the war.

This is the King Tiger - a larger variant of the Tiger. While still armed with the 88, it had a larger turret and more armour. This tank served mainly on the Eastern Front against the Russians - unlike the Americans and British, the Russians showed no qualms against designing larger tanks, and as a result, the Germans needed to build even larger tanks to outmatch them.

This King Tiger has it's hull coated with a fibreglass based paste (you may be able to notice the irregularities under the paint) which was designed so that infantry hiding in trenches could not attach magnetic mines to the tank. This was a favourite pasttime of the Russians.

This brute is the Tiger II - one of the final attempts by the Germans to build a tank that was impenetrable to anything the Allies could throw at it. This tank weighs close to 75 tons, and is larger than most Main Battle Tanks of the modern era, giving you an idea of it's size. In addition to beefing up the armour, engine and hull size, the Germans also ditched the 88mm gun, and equipped this tank with a truly monstrous 128mm anti-tank weapon. This sort of calibre weapon was normally mounted on navy destroyers, and was used to sink ships. Using it to destroy tanks seemed almost overkill. To give you a true idea of just how big this tank is, by way of comparison, the man leaning on the track is about 1.70m tall. Make no mistake, this thing was immense, although it wasn't the largest tank that the Germans ever built.

And this is it. The Daddy of them all. This Jadgtiger surprised me for two reasons - firstly, I was stunned at just how huge it was, and also because I didn't think any had surived the war. This tank was really rare - only about 70 or so were completed, and again, almost all were destroyed. This was primarily due to the fact that they were manned by fanatical SS crewmen, who tended to blow themselves and their tank up rather than let either be captured should the tank be knocked out.

After WW2, both the Americans and British resolved that they would never again let themselves be placed in a situation whereby their armies would have to take the field in inferior tanks. In this resolve, they have been remarkably successful - due to a combination of British developed Chobham armour and the American innovation of depleted uranium tank rounds, American and British tanks are capable of deflecting almost any firepower directed at them, while also able to destroy any other enemy tank.

This is the Centurion, the first post-war British tank to put Britain's resolve to the test. This tank, while not the size of the German monsters shown previously (in fact, as mentioned, very almost no tanks ever since have reached the size of the Tiger II and Jadgtiger), did combine speed, effective armour protection and an excellent main gun to provide an excellent armoured platform. This tank served as the mainstay of Britain's tank force from the late 1940's well into the 1960's, until it was succeeded by the Chieftain.

This is the Chieftain (also shown in outdoors mode), which served as Britain's mainstay from the 1960's until the 1980's and the arrival of the Challenger. Interestingly, prior to this tank, the armies of Australia and Canada had always used whatever tanks the British government were using, what with being part of the Empire and all. However, with the advent of Chieftain, designed as it was to fight in Europe against a Soviet invasion, the Australian and Canadian governments were deterred by the sheer size and expense of the tank. Chieftain was a Main Battle Tank in the truest sense of the word, designed solely for all out war. The Aussies and the Canucks needed something a bit more versatile, and certainly something cheaper and easier to maintain. It was this tank that caused them to adopt the German Leopard tank design, which, in a curious role reversal since WW2, was now a smaller, lighter and nimbler design than the American and British tanks.

Finally, we have the Challenger I, which has itself been superseded by the Challenger II, but only as a recently as 2000 onwards, if memory serves. This is fairly indicative of a modern tank design - note the much flatter turret and angular shaped armour. This is designed to reduce the profile of the tank, making it harder to spot. The sloping armour also increases the chance that a shell will deflect off the tank, rather than penetrating through into the crew compartment.

I was somewhat disappointed not to see a M1 Abrams, but I guess that being the current tank still being used by the US Army, they're all busy in Iraq for the time being.

So there you have it. A journey through the history of the tank, from 1917 until 2007. All in all, an excellent way to spend a day.

England Expects that every Man will do His Duty

2007-08-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday 4th August saw me venture down to Portsmouth Harbour, ancestral home of the mighty Royal Navy of old (and the not so mighty Royal navy of the present day).

There is an impressive collection of vessels to be found floating in the harbour, and some equally impressive ones to be found in drydock. The historic dockyard is well worth a trip - for 15 quid entry you get to see every ship and exhibit in the dockyard, as well as a tour of the harbour itself.

So, let's get started.

This is HMS Warrior - the second ever all-iron warship, constructed back in 1860, in response to the French La Gloire, which, naturally, was the first ever all-iron warship. However, La Gloire didn't survive the passage of time - the French broke it up for scrap in the 1880's - but HMS Warrior endured as a training vessel and a coal bunker before it was rescued in 1979. It was restored and rebuilt over 8 years, and was sailed to it's current location in Portsmouth Harbour.

This is a shot of the bow - as you can see, Warrior carries masts, for sails, to propel her along when cruising peacefully. Should battle be joined, the ship would fire up the boilers and the propellors, and tear along at a "staggering" 8 knots. (Approximately 12 km/h).

Although a modern ship, in terms of being constructed from iron, as opposed from wood, it retained an old-fashioned armament. Warrior possessed several dozen muzzle loading cannon, just as the British ships of two-hundred years before had. In battle, Warrior would simply sail up alongside the opposing vessel, as it's cannonballs deflected harmlessly off it's massive iron sides, and unload a devastating broadside that would annihilate the hapless enemy.

This imposing brute (child in shot for scale) is what is known as a Carronade. It was based at the stern, mounted on rails set into the deck, and could be pivoted around to shoot anywhere in a 180 degree angle behind and to the side of the ship. These were used to sweep the enemy decks of riflemen and boarders, with a horrendous blast of "grapeshot". Grapeshot was comprised of hundreds of tiny musket balls, shrapnel and whatever else they could jam down the barrel of the gun. Think of it as a gigantic shotgun.

It wasn't all war and cannons on the ship however. This luxurious setting could be found in the officers' wardroom, and was where the officers sat down for dinner. Admittedly dinner was only likely to consist of salt beef and maybe some fresh meat if they had it, but at least the officers could get trashed on wine, unlike the men, who had to do with moldy biscuits and weak beer.

Moving along to another vessel and undeniably the most famous vessel in the entire British Navy, let alone Portsmouth.

HMS Victory was a 1st rate 3 decker, constructed from 1759 to 1767. It was already a well-known ship by the time of 1805, having served in several actions against the French. 1805 and Trafalgar however, would make it immortal. At the battle of Trafalgar, it served as Nelson's flagship, leading the attack that sliced through the French line, firing it's full broadside into the stern of the French flagship Bucentaur. Although heavily damaged at the battle, losing it's foremast, it survived, as did every other British ship. The French and Spanish fleet fared not so well - 18 ships sank or were captured. It was the most crushing naval victory of all time.

However, the British did suffer one loss, of irreplaceable value - Lord Admiral Nelson, the greatest English sailor of the age, was shot by a French musketball at the height of the battle and died some 3 hours later - surviving long enough to realise the magnitude of his great victory.

This is one of the gundecks of Victory, the upper gundeck, which carried the lightest cannons - although firing a cannonball weighing 24 pounds, they weren't exactly small. The height of the decks is the main thing to notice here, as it is scarcely 5 feet from deck to ceiling. Made strolling about a bit difficult for a 6 footer like myself.

It's always been seen as one of the great oddities of naval construction in the 17 and 1800's - that ships purposely built for war, armed to the teeth with great cannons, and their sides made up of reinforced oak panelling, would have at the stern a great wall of glass panels and flimsy pine. It was precisely this sort of stern on the Bucentaur that Victory unloaded 50 cannons into, it's entire broadside, poured in through the glass panels, travelling the entire length of the French ship. Approximately 240 men were killed or maimed in that first terrifying broadside.

It was on the Victory's quarterdeck, perched atop the stern, that Nelson received his fatal wound - a French musketball entered through his shoulder, travelled through his lungs and liver and finished up in the small of his back, shattering his spine. Unable to walk, and with his body quickly filling up with his own blood, he lasted only a few hours more. The crew carried him deep below decks to the Orlop deck, below the waterline, where he lay dying. News came down of the great victory, and he died, with the words "Thank God I have done my Duty."

(Pardon the No Photography sign)

They don't like you taking photos of this, since it's seen as disrespectful. Perhaps it is. But the way I see it, Nelson is long gone, as are his relatives and anyone else who knew him personally. It's not like I'm wandering round Auschwitz snapping photos of the gas chambers, where someone's mother and father met their premature end.

So, there you have it. Pressed against the white beam, Nelson perished on October 21st 1805 at 4:30pm.

So, now onto some more modern stuff. This is HMS Ark Royal, the Royal Navy's newest aircraft carrier. It's a lot smaller than the gigantic Yank carriers, since it only needs to be able to launch Harrier Jump Jets and helicopters.

This is one of several Royal Navy Frigates that were tied up in Harbour. Somehow, the ships of today do not have the same pomp and circumstance as the ships of yore. I think it's the grey.

And finally, we have a building known as the Spinnaker, a 185m observation tower that gives great views of Portsmouth Harbour. (Or so I'm told)

At 10 quid to go up, and faced with a line longer than Ben Hur, I decided against it.

So there you have it. Portsmouth. Well worth the trip down.

Jabba the AccountHutt

2007-08-08T01:54:00.001-07:00

Some of you may have gleaned from the odd comment in my blog that whilst I don't mind my job, I really, really hate my boss. And don't worry - all will be revealed. Once I leave.

But I cannot refrain from taking a moment to slag off a different annoyance in my life - namely, the miserable old dotard that has taken up nesting in our accounts office, and who hides behind his spreadsheets while managing to be the most difficult and irritating person I've ever met.

For those of you unaware, Accounting is all about money. Money comes in, Money goes out. Cashflow. Expenditure. Whatever you want to call it. Now, our accountant, by the name of Maurice, to his credit, has the incomings down pat. Believe me, if money comes into this office, it gets allocated to a person's policy as soon as possible. All well and good.

However, when it's time to give money back to a client, then we have problems. You see, our accountant friend. as well as my boss are both greedy pricks at the best of times, and for reasons that I cannot begin to comprehend, think it's better to hold onto a person's money for a month or two (or more) longer than they need to before giving it back. Make no mistake, we have to give this money back, and we always do. But rather than return it immediately, our boss, and our accountant, hold onto it in their grasping, greasy, wrong-side-of-50 hands.

Take today. This morning in fact. About a week ago we declined to insure a guy who was massively overweight. No surprises there. But he'd already paid online when he applied. So it's a simple matter of returning his money, right? Wrong. I gave this to Account Fuck five days ago, and he still hasn't done it. Two minutes of work and he hadn't been bothered. Meanwhile we're copping grief from clients - which, I might add, he never has talk to. Our boss doesn't want him talking to clients, since his customer service skills are completely non-existent. So I have to tell these poor bastards that their money is going to come back "shortly" and then go in and verbally joust with Jabba the AccountHutt in the other room.

He doesn't pay commission to brokers, he doesn't pay the reinsurer on time, he doesn't refund money - for the life of me, I can't understand why we have this overweight leech clinging to this company. Oh, that's right, I remember now. Because he's the only one dishonest enough to cover up the fact that my boss is a lying fraud, a cheat and a criminal.

Two and a half fucking weeks to go, and it cannot come soon enough.

There'll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover

2007-08-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well, over the past two weekends I've been a bit busy with travelling. Braving British Rail and the hordes of sun-seeking Londoners, I've undertaken some train journeys down to the Channel Coast, to see a few things outside of London. Specifically, the White Cliffs of Dover; various old and new ships of Her Majesty's Navy in Portsmouth Harbour; and finally Bovington Tank Museum.

All in all, a good mix of militarism and sightseeing.

Actually, travelling by train in England is a pretty decent way to get around. During rush hour it's hell on rails, but on the weekend it's actually not too bad. Trains don't run as often, so the tracks aren't as crowded, and as a result you tend to get a pretty clear run. It's cheap too - a trip to Portsmouth for example, a good 200 mile return journey, only cost 18 quid.

The best part about it though is the fact you're out of London. Every mile of green fields and trees reminds you that you're not actually surrounded by hordes of crappy little terraced houses and traffic. And now that the English summer has actually started, it's sublime out in the countryside. Weather has been perfect these past few weeks. It's almost enough to make up for the two months of rain and crap that preceded it throughout "summer".

Well, let's start with Dover in this blog, and I'll cover the rest over the next few days.

And here it is. Dover City that is. Situated pretty much right at the narrowest point of the English Channel, when standing on Dover Castle you can easily make out the grey strip of land that marks France. The city itself is a nice enough place, although I didn't spent a great deal of time down there.

This is Dover Castle, situated well above the city. To use a phrase said many times before, you can see why they built it where they did. The vantage point is stunning, as is the view. I took the previous photo of Dover standing on the top of the Keep. The Keep is the oldest part of the castle and was built by Henry II in 1188 AD. The rest of the castle, such as the walls and outlying fortifications were constructed over the next hundred years or so.

That being said, Henry wasn't the first person to hit upon the idea of constructing a castle here. There were conquerors of England that preceded him by a good 1000 years that thought of it first...

The crumbling tower that sits just to the right of the Monastery is the oldest surviving Roman building in all of England. They built it shortly after the Roman conquest early in AD, to act as a beacon/lighthouse for ships crossing from the French (or Gallish) coast.

This is slightly newer. Kings in the 1700's tended to like visiting Dover, but they naturally turned their noses up at the grotty little Keep. Hence, they opted for something slightly more luxurious and opulent.

Some of the traditional armament of Dover Castle.

This is a little more modern. During the German blitz of 1940 and 1941, Dover was heavily bombed throughout. The harbour was a major British staging post for channel convoys, and was always full of targets for the Germans. Owing to Dover Castle's outstanding vantage point right above the Harbour, the British positioned several Anti-Aircraft guns on the heights above Dover, to try and make life as difficult for the Stukas as possible.

After leaving the castle itself, I did a tour of the underground wartime tunnels. The chalk cliffs of Dover are very soft, and consequently the British excavated them extensively, digging out a massive underground bunker underneath Dover castle, deep underground. The first tunnels were dug during Napoleonic times, and then were extended during WW2. No photos though - while the tunnels have come off the Official Secrets Act, they still don't want you taking photos of them.

Fortunately, my next exhibit is free to be photographed. It's pretty close to being the most recognisable feature in all of the United Kingdom.

And here they are. It's hard to describe how epic it is to be standing on the famous White Cliffs what with the Channel breeze blowing at you, 70 metre drop to the ocean below - German tourists nattering away in your ear (I'm telling you, WW2 was a ruse. The bastards have invaded, I counted at least 50 in Dover alone!)

This shot was taken from Dover Castle, and shows the rather pleasant landscape adorning the ground above the Cliffs, before one reaches the end of England.

Another view.

This shot was taken below the cliffs on the way - this is a slightly smaller part down near the town itself, but it rapidly rises away up to the dizzying heights in the previous photos.

All in all, it was an excellent day.

Carn the Tigers

2007-07-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to whinge about sacrifices I'm making to enlighten you all to my squalid little existence over here on the dark side of the world, because frankly, I'm not making any. Fuck me, what is it - at least a few weeks since I updated this?

Actually, I'll be honest. When I first conceived this notion of doing a travel blog, I never thought it would last this long. 12 months - Max. And yet I find myself still in England some 15 months after I first set out, and with just under 3 months left to go on this adventure. That's right folks - I booked my flight home today. 9th October I leave Heathrow behind, and shall arrive back in Australia on Wednesday 10th October at 7:25pm local time. For good.

However, between the time when I turf work on 24th August and 9th October, I plan to visit Eastern Europe, Gibraltar, Scotland, Paris and Ireland. Got my work cut out for me, but we'll see how we go. I've worked out I can fit in everything I want to do - there's also a ton of stuff I'll be doing over the coming weekends here in England, so now that I'm going to be travelling again, we might actually see some regular updates.

To the weekend just gone.

I went down to the Twickenham Stoop - not THE Twickenham Stadium, but rather a smaller stadium next door, which houses Rugby League. I do think it's a disgrace when the proper rugby has to spend time in a pokey little stadium while this so-called gents game gets the big stadium, but nonetheless.

I went there with a bunch of blokes from Wests Tigers to see the Huddersfield Giants take on Harlequins. Basically, a couple of ex-West Tigers players signed for Huddersfield, so they're like the unofficial home of Wests Tigers fans in London. So, I went to see John Skandalis & Shane Elford play, and also to drink with about 20 odd crazed Huddersfield fans who'd come from the deepest dales of Northern England.

Fuck Me.

I died the death last Saturday. I managed to leave the pub, fall onto a train to home and was staggered to wake up in my own bed having no recollection of getting there. I was even more astonished to see perfectly, until I realised that I'd left my contact lenses in overnight.

The hangover was crippling, and the day was magic. Here's the photos.

This is Sincas, Jason and yours truly respectively. Taken at the JD Wetherspoons bar in Twickenham, prior to the game.

Me, amongst all the other boys from Huddersfield and Leichhardt. It was a difficult experience to try and understand the Yorkshire accent after I'd had a skinful - I'm pissed to begin with, and so were they - once they started slurring the odd word it was almost impossible to pick it up.

Now for some shots from the game.

Harlequins on the attack - not that it did them any good.

A bit of cheerleader action.

The final score. Sorry 'Quins - better luck next year.

Nerding it up in Nottingham

2007-07-05T02:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I made my way back up to Nottingham once more - those of you with long memories might remember that Dan, Nick and I wandered up that way in November last year, to visit the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem pub, and to partake of the ale therein.

This time though, it was business instead of pleasure. You see, Nottingham is also home to Games Workshop, the company that created the game of Warhammer, of which I am somewhat of a fan. At their office they maintain what is known as the Warhammer museum, which is basically a collection of various miniatures, which have been painted to the highest possible standard. All good stuff, for a Warhammer junkie like myself.

Not really much else to mention really - it's just a big collection of miniatures, and I spent most of a rainy and cold Saturday looking around them. Then went back to London.

So, how about some photos?

Let's start with the good guys first.

Here we have a random assembly of Empire heroes. These geezers represent one of the two human kingdoms, and are loosely based on the Teutonic kingdoms and the Holy Roman Empire of the medieval era.

Next up, we have the Bretonnians - again, this is another human kingdom, but one based moreso on France. They tend to focus on knights, knights and more knights, all on horseback. It's the sort of army for people who go all doe-eyed at the thought of a damsel in distress.

A very impressive terrain piece, namely the city of Minas Tirith. The model stands about 2 metres tall - it was very visually impressive. This is what Games Workshop is famous for - building the most obscenely excellent terrain pieces for gaming with.

An army of dwarfs, or stunties, as they are commonly known. Dwarfs tend to be the sort of army that doesn't do much moving once they've been placed on the board - they just stand and deliver, and defy any and all attempts to break them.

Now, for the bad guys.

First up, some Nurgle warriors. Nurgle is the Chaos God of death and disease, and so his soldiers always look like rotting diseased types, as shown here.

A Chaos Hellcannon. These, for lack of a better expression, are bloody unpleasant to have to fight against.

A few Orcses - everyone likes Orcses.

A Giant - the Orcs, for some reason, are particularly adept at getting these big bruisers to come and fight alongside them.

Now for a few random bits and pieces...

This is a Bloodbowl stadium - Bloodbowl is a rugby type game played on a game board. Obviously Games Workshop decided that a board wasn't good enough, and made a stadium to game in.

An enormous collection of Tyranid warriors. Think Alien.

The front of the Games Workshop office. The space marine is a bit of a giveaway as to what this company does for a quid.

Me with a friend.

And finally, the limited edition Bugman miniatures I picked up - one for me, one for Dan, and one for Justin.

Peter Allen got it wrong

2007-06-19T01:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not entirely sure I like the song "I still call Australia home".

I was thinking about this the other day actually. I mean, this song is supposed to be the epitome of musical tribute for all Australians who find themselves on the far side of the world, singing of a land they love, and one which they will eventually return to. It's all very sad, and very moving. Or is it? I mean, let's think about this for a moment. No-one is forcing the hero of our song to go swanning over to New York, or Rio, or old London Town. It's not like he's being frogmarched onto a jet at gunpoint and told not to come back until he's gained some cultural enlightenment. Far from it. I mean, the words of the song betray themselves.

"I'm always travelling, I love being free. And so I keep leaving the sun and the sea."

Sorry, love being free? Last time I checked, you can be free in Australia. Sure, we don't officially call ourselves the land of the free, but we certainly experience a great deal more personal freedoms than the country that does. And why does this person keep leaving anyway?

The answer folks, is because he actually dislikes Australia, deep down. And he's not alone. Hear me out on this.

See, the song 'I still call Australia home" is just a song. In itself, it doesn't mean squat, and didn't do anything except immortalise Peter Allen and convince a lot of people to fly QANTAS before they remembered how shithouse it actually was, and why they'd stopped flying with them originally. But, let's examine reality, and all of a sudden my argument makes a lot more sense.

Most of the people who come over here to London come here on a 2 year working holiday Visa. This entitles them to one year of full time work, and one year of holidaying. Most people wind up working more of that, but still, 2 years is the absolute max you can stay here. Unless you want to try and extend the Visa. And believe me, a lot of people try to do just that.

Why do they do this? Some people are in it because career prospects are better here. Fair enough. Others are here because they have relatives and family here. Again, fair enough. But a lot do it simply because they come to London and love it to death. Again, this would be fair enough, but there's a caveat to all this.

I have no problem with Australians who come over to London, love the idea of living here, and decide to spend more and more time here. What I cannnot stand, and absolutely despise, is these same "Aussies" calling themselves Australians till their dying day. You see them sometimes, still hauling out that dusty old cobweb-ridden jersey every time Australia plays someone over here in the Rugby or Cricket. They refer to themselves as being from Australia, despite the fact they long ago severed all ties to the sunburnt country.

The ones who travel are even worse. You know the ones. Those people who go to great lengths to emphasise their Australian-ness when they're travelling. One fuckwit I know, who shall remain anonymous, had a boxing kangaroo tattooed on his shoulder, and goes round showing it to everyone he meets. He went to France and in place of learning a word of French, decided he would just show everyone a tattoo. I mean, fuck. He's not alone. There are disgusting specimens all over Europe who take pride in travelling round with the arse out of their trousers, drinking up a storm and spreading the gospel of Australia, and all the drunken antics it entails.

Ask these people where they are from, and they will say Australia. Australian to the core. However, mention to them that you yourself have to head home because your visa has run out/you've run out of money/you're sick of Europe and you'll get looks of sorry, empathy and incredulity. Having to go home to Australia is apparently viewed as a bit of a prison sentence, and for the life of me, I couldn't understand why, until I had somewhat of an epiphany.

Back in Australia, you would find these same people - the ones who travel that is. They're the same fuckwits who collected their dole money, worked that dead end job and drove round in a shitty commodore. They're the same no hopers who pissed away their lives at the pub. They're the same hippies who never held down a decent job and spent their time surfing. Back home in Australia, they were seen as the dregs of society they so rightly are. But over here in England - why, they're exotic, exciting Aussies. They're from the far side of the world, keeping alive a grand tradition of Australians living and working in Europe. All of a sudden they aren't just John Smith, fuckwit and dole bludger - they're John Smith, traveller and backpacker to the stars.

That's why they find the idea of returning to Australia so abhorrent. Because when they get back, they go back to being plain old John Smith, and spending their lives whinging about how much better they apparently had it in England while everyone around them gradually pisses off and leaves them to it.

Me, I was never under any illusions of what I was here to do. I was here to work, save up some cash and see Europe. Then, at the end of it, I was going home. End of story. That's all she friggin' wrote. And come October, I'll have completed those goals.

I think ultimately what it comes down to, is that you need to enter into this with the right mindset. I have loads of friends back home, and I have plenty of plans and things I want to do and pursue when I get home. I've used my time away to realise what I wasn't doing at home, and what I need to do when I get back home. And what's more, I intend to follow through on that.

The people who are still taking great pains to call Australia home tend to be those people who have at nothing at home that they want to return to. I mean, look at Germaine Greer. 30 years over here in Pommyland and she still says she wants to be buried in Australia. Who says we want the miserable old dyke back anyway? We need her back as much as we need the rest of the wankers who've wasted the best part of their lives pissing around the world. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Some day we'll all be together once more, when all of the ships may come back to the shore...let's hope that "some day" isn't any day soon. All they’re going to be bringing back is people claiming to be Australians who obviously cannot stand Australia.

100th Blog Entry

2007-06-10T05:40:00.000-07:00

I was originally going to post a round-up of the weekend, and the joys of waiting for a night bus at Trafalgar Square at 5:30am. There's something singularly depressing in standing under the uncaring granite visage of Horatio Nelson, as the victor of Trafalgar watches we mere mortals shiver in the rain, and nurse our hangovers.

However.

In the process of typing this, I noticed on blogger that this post, whatever it's content, was going to be my 100th blog. So, in the spirit of marking this momentious occasion, I decided that the experience of catching the 189 bus through Oxford Circus can wait until another time.

100 blog entries - it's been a long time coming. I had a quick look back through the entries posted thus far, and they provided me with a great reminder of the past 15 months or so. More than just the memories though, it was also interesting to see my moods and emotions coming through what I was writing. There was the initial trepidation and excitement in heading overseas. There were the massively long blog entries of that memorable Civil War excursion that the old man and I took part in, a trip that I will never, ever forget as long as I live. It was one of the best months of my life thus far, and it showed in the entries.

I think that's the best part of this blog - the fact that I can re-read it, and instantly recall a certain day, or a certain experience. When this is all over, and the trip has gone, I shall be certain to preserve this blog offline somewhere, as a permanent reminder of the good times I have had overseas. Not all times were as happy though - for the times spent in America and Italy, there was also the time spent finding work, as well as the long two months over Christmas and New Year, when our office was dreadfully understaffed, and the 4 of us in the office worked liked zombies through the long dark of winter.

It's been an experience being over here, full of ups and downs, and I think the blog reflects that - as it should, since it's nothing more than the recollections of what I've seen, what I've done and where I've been whilst I've been away.

Given that I've got a couple more months up my sleeve over here, I don't doubt there'll be more blog entries to follow this one - I do doubt that another hundred will follow, but we shall see.

Thanks to everyone back home, over here, and online who has read my blog, chatted to me on msn and put up with me calling them at home from time to time. You've helped keep me sane and cheery through this time overseas, and I am grateful.

I would also like to extend particular thanks to young Daniel Meakin, who knocked up an excellent image with which to complete this momentous, 100th blog.

Advance your token to Mayfair

2007-06-02T08:09:00.001-07:00

Well, I suppose before I start I should apologise for such a long absence.

But I won't. Get stuffed.

I was thinking the other day actually, that when I originally started this blog, what seems an age ago back in April 2006, that at the time I didn't think I would be overseas any longer than about 8 months or so, and the plan was to return by Christmas. Then, I found myself extending my flight back home from December to April, and now I find myself back in the UK all over again. It's been a great experience to travel, and as Glen has repeatedly told me, one needs to make the most of the chance, since it won't come around again for a long time.

Making the most of it, by the by, is the whole point behind this return trip. My time already spent here was through winter - which isn't very conducive to travelling, so I worked instead. Result - I have now built up a nice little travel nest egg, and now I've got a chance to spend it. I'm aiming to finish up at work around the end of August, so while I'm still working I want to try and get away most weekends, and see the England that exists outside of London. I've got a few places in mind, so keep an eye on this blog for further travel related tales.

After I leave work, it's off to the continent. Christian is keen to head off into Eastern Europe for a couple of weeks in September before HSBC post him out to Hong Kong, so I'd definitely be up for that. Eastern Europe is one of the cheapest places in the world to go, particularly when travelling on the pound. Having someone who speaks German along will be a big bonus too.

Eventually, with any luck, I'll wing my way home after that - probably around October. I'd like to get home with enough time to spare to land a job before Christmas, if possible.

But enough of this rot - no-one cares what I'm planning in the future. I'm sure you're all wondering why on earth this blog has a monopoly themed title. The answer is simple.

The Great Monopoly Pub Crawl is an institution in London - because all of the streets and places listed on the Monopoly board are located in central London, it's relatively easy to reach all of them in a single day. That is of course, if you're not trying to drink a half pint of beer at each one - all 26 of them (22 streets and 4 railway stations). Factor that into the equation and it rapidly becomes relatively difficult. By the time one rolls up to Mayfair one is very likely to be roaring drunk, and probably won't still have $400 in his pocket to make an offer. Nonetheless, a group of about 20 of us, some from the badger, some ex-badgers and some randoms all got together at Old Kent Road at 10:30am, wearing our Badger Monopoly Pub Crawl T-shirts, and began our great beered up trek around London.

A pub crawl, while it sounds like fun, is actually pretty hard work. It starts out easy enough, but you can't afford to to linger at pubs too long, which means you need to set a decent pace with the drinking of the beer. I fell afoul of this a few times, as at some of the pubs if you were served last, the first people served would already be halfway through their drink or finishing. To make up for this I ordered a straight scotch whenever this occured so I could rapidly polish off my drink. This however, didn't do much for my sobriety levels by the end of the night.

You also need to be able to keep walking between pubs as well. Again, this is probably the hardest part of the event, especially towards the end, when you're tending to sway a bit, and wind up walking twice as far as you normally would, just from all the sideways motion.

Nonetheless, it was an absolute cracker of a day. We made it to Mayfair about 12 hours after we started, around 11pm, where I celebrated with a double Jack Daniels and then made a beeline for home before I passed out. That night, I lay in bed, feet aching from the miles and miles of pavement we trod, head spinning from the booze, and what was undoubtedly a silly, smug grin on my face.

Whoever knew Monopoly could be so much fun? My usual recollections of playing it as a kid was my sister crying foul after she landed on one of my hotels with only $2 to her name, and complaining because I wouldn't loan her money so she could pay her rent to me. (Anna's grasp of economics was never that crash hot.)

Now, for the photos.

This one was taken fairly in the piece as you can tell by the name of the road. We tried to do the pub crawl in order as much as possible, so I think by the time we got to Pentonville Road it was only our 3rd or 4th pub. Hence why everyone is still standing upright at this stage.

Here we have Pat, Dan and Dee. This was at Old Kent road if memory serves - already only one pint in and Pat's already looking trashed. I'm not sure how well he ended the night - being a South African and a Sharks fan he was pretty gutted when they went down to the Bulls in the Super 14 final which was being played on the same day, so he was hitting the drink pretty hard after that.

By this stage we were all getting fairly trashed. We did Vine street after we'd done the reds and the yellows on the boards, so we were about 3/4 of the way through at this stage. Vine Street is actually nothing more than a 20 metre dead end these days, and there certainly isn't a pub within coo-ee, so we just took the photo and moved on.

King's Cross station, obviously. We actually cheated a little bit - apart from King's Cross, the remaining stations (Liverpool St, Fenchurch St and Marylebone) are so far out of the way of the rest of the pubs that we opted not to include them. This was done to save our legs, and our livers

Yeah...by the time we were getting close to the end, some of the girls were feeling the booze. Alana here is politely asking the people in front of us to slow down a bit, and wait up.

Finally, it's not a good night out unless you've got girls groping another girl's titties.

I think that's as good a note to end on as any.

There's no "Q" in Korea

2007-05-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

Coming to Korea - albeit overnight - is a bit of a culture shock. I mean, one only knows as much about Korea as one reads online. There was a Starcraft TV channel at the hotel the airline put me up in for the overnight stay, there is internet access everywhere, there are a hell of a lot of Korean cars on the road (yes, they don't just sell them overseas by the squillion.)

One thing I wasn't prepared for though - particularly given my time in the United Kingdom - is the lack of what we would consider to be basic politeness, particularly when you're trying to buy something or even just walk through the airport. Don't get me wrong, the Koreans excel at bowing and scraping when the occasion calls for it. I think it was a bit of a culture shock to have the smart Korean hotel porter carry my grotty luggage into the airport hotel, closely followed behind by an even grottier me. Another example is leaving the airport - while the Australian customs officials give everyone the "I think you've got 10 condoms full of heroin in your stomach and live endangered species stuffed down your strides" look, the Korean guy examined my passport with a gloved hand and a smile, handed it back, and bowed.

But back to what I was talking about. I have a bruised elbow from being shoulder charged by a Korean woman on the wrong side of 60, no less, whilst waiting to be served at the Duty Free counter. (She was only 5 foot, so her shoulder connected with my elbow.) I contemplated giving her a mouthful, but realised that she probably wouldn't understand me, and there is no glory to be had in yelling at elderly people. I walked past another store selling cosmetics, and it looked like a mosh pit, except everyone was asian and middle aged.

Coming from England, where every English person forms an orderly queue of one, if there is no queue already in place, this was a bit of a shock.

When you can get away from the crowds, the Koreans do manage to put on a nice smiley face. Introduce a crowd situation though, and you release the animal within.

And by animal within, I mean the dog that they probably ate for supper last night.

The boy from Oz

2007-05-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

The boy from Oz, is having ( or has had, rather) a wonderful time whilst he has been back home, which would undoubtedly explain the absence of activity on this blog while I've been back here in Australia.

To be honest though, this is a travel blog, and it's not really classified as travel if you're just recounting the exploits of what you've been up to back home. I mean, everyone back home in Oz who actually bothers to read this blog knows what I've been up to - mainly because they were there with me when it happened. All I'm going to achieve by writing about stuff I got up to back home is make everyone at work jealous, to the point where I may not be all that welcome when I return. Mind you, I think the fact I have acquired tanned limbs to replace my pommy white colour is going to irritate them no end in any event, so what the hey. A brief summary then.

Since I've been back in Oz, during the past 2 and a half weeks I have managed to:

- Play with the band on ANZAC Day
- Visit Dan's hotrod
- Beat Dan at Warhammer
- Spend a weekend of drunken antics up on the Sunshine coast with the boys
- Visit my grandparents
- Drive 2000 km into the outback
- Spend a week camped on the banks of the Gregory River
- Go swimming everyday whilst camped there
- Complete a 43km canoe race without my shoulders disintegrating
- Get colour back into my sun-deprived pallid skin

With less than 48 hours to go until I board the plane that will whisk me back into the skies and the long slog back to London, I'm frantically packing my bag, trying to catch up with various people I haven't managed to see yet and yet, amidst all this chaos I still find time to update this blog.

Well, it was about bloody time.

Now, I do have some pictures of the Gregory river for you all - they are large pictures though since I'm doing this blog from my home computer, and I don't have my picture resizing program handy (and am too lazy to download another one). So, anyone still on dial-up, you have been warned.

First, the mighty Toyota Landcruiser, that carried us up to the Gregory. It's a veteran of several outback trips now, and is still soldering on. A real bastard to drive though - it has a tendency to drift across seemingly flat stretches of bitumen very easily.

Our camp. A model of simplicity. Ex-army camp stretchers with foam mattress, fold out camp table and chairs, use the tray of the truck as a bench, and stretch an enormous tarp over the whole campsite. Easy. Who needs a tent?

A shot of the moon, taken on the highway - I think it was between Barcaldine and Blackall. In other words, the middle of bloody nowhere.

And finally, the river itself.

Great place for tubing, swimming, relaxing - whatever. Certainly well worth the week I spent up there.

Anyways, must dash - have people to see tonight, and a game of indoor cricket to play - but in less than 48 hours I will be heading back to London. A tinge of regret - well, yes.

But it's not for a year this time. Come November I will be back in Oz for good, so I need to make the most of the next 5 months or so that I have available to me. Should make for good blogging, in any event.

Singapore is shit

2007-04-22T16:54:00.001-07:00

Well, that's not true, really.

I'm sure it's a lovely place. When you're not here at 8am local time and your brain is telling you it's just gone midnight.

I just know I'm not getting any sleep on the remaining leg of this flight - all 8 hours of it.

Still, there are small pleasures to be had. Like the "cat the got cream" type smile that flashed across my face when I chopped in my sterling for aussie dollars. Small pleasures indeed.

Well, must dash, there is a queue for every internet terminal here...oh, and providing Australian customs don't decide to randomly search my hold luggage, I have a surprise for all of you.

You can't buy what I'm bringing back duty free, I assure you.

But we'll see.

On that intriguing note.....AWAY!

I'm leaving on a jetplane, going back to sunny Brisbaaane...

2007-04-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

Yep.

I need to wake up in about 5 and a half hours, but I can't resist posting this before I go.

Everything is packed (apart from the laptop, obviously), I'm ready to go - and bloody hell, have I been lookng forward to this day over the past few weeks.

So, I'm bound for Istanbul, stay there Saturday night, then on Sunday afternoon I fly out of Istanbul, and get into Brisbane on Monday night, including the time difference and all. Yeah, it's gonna suck, but at the end of it all I'm back home for 3 weeks, so there is a silver lining to every jet-lagged cloud.

On that note, I am done. Catch you on the flip side.

Going Home - Albeit temporarily

2007-04-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that various people back home aren't really sure what old Paul is up to, particularly with regard to his long term plans. Is this pending trip back home for good, or is it a final swansong before he heads back to over to England, never to return to grace Australia with his presence?

The answer, is neither.

Let me give everyone the low down as to my plans. Yes, I am coming home, and will be arriving back in Brisbane on the evening of the 23rd April. No, I am not staying permanently - not this time at any rate - as I am heading back to England on May 11th.

Once I get back to England, the plan is to continue to work for another couple of months or so, experience an English summer, and then, come August or so, wind up employment here in England, and then after that - well, I'm not sure as yet. I will be in Europe till around November I think, seeing what of England and Europe I can till I get homesick, run out of money or it starts getting cold again. (Whatever comes first.)

Either way, I can give an ironclad guarantee, here and now - I will be home for Christmas and before the end of this year. I have no desire to stay around through another English winter, and with my Visa running out in April 2008 anyway, winter would scarcely have vanished before I was being evicted from the country.

So, with that settled, let's clear up what's going on while I'm back. I get into Brisbane on Monday night, and will be up for anything starting Tuesday, after I get some sleep. I have a week in Brisbane, and then on the following Wednesday I'm heading out into the boonies with the old man, to partake in canoe racing in NW Qld. We'll be away for a week, I'm flying back to Brisbane from Mt Isa on Wednesday, I have Thursday back home to say goodbye, go to a last band rehearsal, and then on Friday it's back to the airport and off again.

Even writing this last bit is making me sad, since I know how hard it's going to be having come back, and then having to take off again. Actually having to do it is going to be really shitty. So why do it you ask?

Well, originally I wasn't going to head off again. But I realised that I'm only going to get this chance once, and I'd be really pissed off with myself if I didn't make the most of it while I had it. And so, I intend to bite the bullet, and get back over here to eventually do the holiday part of a working holiday visa. It's a bit scary in some respects - I've never done any backpacking before, and I'm not all that comfortable with roaming around without a place to call home. But I'm sure once I get into it, and give it a go, I'll get the hang of it.

God I wish I was home right now. Roll on Monday.

A church like no other

2007-04-09T01:43:00.000-07:00

You know, I'm rather glad that the Easter break is only four days long. I don't think my body could cope with much more relaxation and time off work. I swear, the time one spends working is relaxing, compared to time actually spent away from work.

Let's start with Saturday first. I met up with Kim and her friends at the river Thames at Putney, for the annual boat race between Oxford and Cambridge universities. Now, while some of you might question the reasoning for me to go and support two universities I've no affiliation to, or indeed, affection for; as they participate in a sport (rowing) which I've never really followed, let me just say, it was an excuse to go and sit by the river and drink some beer in the sunshine.

Perhaps the only silly thing I did was walk there, from my house in Cricklewood. I should explain that the rationale behind doing this was that I thought that I would start walking for a bit, enjoy the sunshine, and as it got closer to the time, I would jump on the tube and finish the trip that way. However, I was walking fairly briskly, and if I'd taken the tube at any point, I would have arrived fairly early - well before Kim and the others would have arrived. So in the end I walked the whole way, and arrived pretty much right on time. Total distance covered - just over 15 miles. One of my feet is still bruised though, as the shoes I've got at the moment are old, and worse than useless at cushioning the soles of my feet. A new pair of proper running shoes are definitely on my shopping list when I return.

For the record, Cambridge won.

It was a great day, and Kim got us an excellent vantage point - sitting right on the concrete retaining wall, the Thames washing beneath our feet as we watched the boat crews fly past. Like an idiot I forgot my camera, so you'll have to do with that description I'm afraid.

And so to Sunday. Now, if everyone is sitting down, I have a confession to make.

I went to Church on Sunday, this Easter Sunday, holiest of holy days.

When I mentioned this to Craig, he said the legs fell off his chair and he nearly had a stroke. And who can blame him - what on earth would possess such a renowned agnostic like myself to even contemplate going to Church? Well, I should add that when I say I went to Church, I went to this Church.

The Church

I had been told, (warned even) that the Church was something a person needed to do at least once while they are over here in London. And, I'm glad I did.

Basically, the way it works is that you rock up there at about 11am Sunday morning, to line up outside, to make sure you get a ticket, and a good spot inside. They open the doors at around 11:30, at which point you get in there, and immediately organise a beer.

Now, the way they serve beer in this place is magic, and more places need to introduce it. Basically, you buy a drinks ticket when you're lining up outside. One ticket is 7.50 pounds. This entitles you to 3 drinks. Once inside, you present your ticket to the bar, and they give you 3 cans of beer - we're talking half litre cans here - in a plastic bag. You crack one open, tie the bag around your belt, and wander around with your beers just hanging off your waist. Repeat as and when you run out of beer.

Of course, being a Church, it has to have a service on Sunday. Our service consisted of the following items:

First, we had the comic. Came out, did a decent stand up routine, and got the ball rolling.

This was followed by Crystal, who came out in a Cheerleader outfit and did a rather entertaining strip show, complete with hapless victims hauled up from the crowd.

After Crystal, we had another stripper called...Stallion. The Church prides itself on being a gender equal establishment - both male and female clients deserve to be entertained. Suffice to say, "Stallion" did deserve his nom de guerre, but fortunately for us, he was followed by Crystal once more, who this time took everything off.

The final event was the boat races - basically what happens is that you get a team of 4 people from a certain country on stage, competing against another 4 people. Each person in each team has to scull a can of beer, and the team who finishes first wins. Easy. Only issue is that once you finish your beer, you need to stand the can on your head, to signal the next person to go. However, if you haven't finished it fully, you get the contents tipped over you, and it's a 5 second spillage penalty.

They also had a fancy dress costume contest, being Easter and all, which was won by a bloke who came dressed as Jesus, complete with white bedsheet, crown of thorns, red marker blood and a big cardboard cross.

And finally the atmosphere of the place - well, it's loud, and unashamedly relaxed. In between each event in the service you get classic rock pumped out, everyone inside is on the piss, and they have 2 big screen TV's on each side of the stage. A cameraman is up in the wings, taking shots of the crowd - any girl who has a decent amount of cleavage is zoomed in on, and the words "Take it off!" get flashed up on the screen. Any shirt lifting is rewarded with free beers.

All in all, it was a great way to spend an afternoon. I highly recommend it to anyone who feels the need to piss away an afternoon in a decidedly unreligious manner. After all, the Church's motto is that you can't be forgiven unless you've sinned. My kind of place, really.

Edit: Thanks to Wendy for reminding me - I snapped 2 photos yesterday, of me before I left the house for the Church, and I somehow remembered to take one last night as well, after I got back. While I didn't take my camera with me to the Church - because I knew I'd either lose or break it, I think the photos do give an insight as to the damage this place does to a man.

Here we have the before, taken at 10am on Sunday morning:

And the after, taken at some point approaching midnight. Can't remember the exact time, if I'm to be honest.

I think they speak for themselves.

Things they don't mention in the brochure

2007-03-28T00:48:00.000-07:00

As I sit here, head aching, and my nose blocked up harder than a constipated drover (how's that for a mental picture), I thought it was high time I perhaps educated some of you to things that you won't hear about in London, until you arrive and find out yourself.

The hard way.

I mean sure, everyone tells you about the exchange rate, and the winter weather - but this is the real deal. So, read on.

First of all, as you might have gathered, I have a cold. A rather bad one actually. In addition to the symptoms outlined above, my throat feels like it's just been sandpapered, and I'm almost certain I can feel my eyeballs throbbing in time with my heart. This is like the 4th, or 5th cold I've had since I've been over here. Back home, I'd go a whole year and maybe get 1, or 2 - tops.

However, in London, travelling by tube, although convenient, is an ideal place to pick up whatever cold someone else in the carriage has. In rush hour, it's standing room only - they worked out each person has 0.25 square metres of space to stand in. You wouldn't transport cattle in conditions like that. So, with up to 40 people within about 2 metres of you at any given time, it's a safe bet that if they have something, you've got a good chance of getting it too.

This isn't uncommon for a lot of antipodeans either - in a sense it reminds me of when the europeans went to the New World, and brought all their diseases with them. Except, now we go to the Old World, and contract them ourselves.

Another thing you won't have heard of, is the Heathrow Injection. This insidious innoculation isn't an actual jab you receive at the airport - rather, it refers to the way in which many newcomers to London find themselves injected with about 10 extra kilos when they step off the plane, which doesn't appear for about 2 or 3 months, when all of a sudden it becomes apparent to the sufferer that they've indeed grown larger, and it wasn't just their imagination.

The causes of this sudden waistline explosion are many. Chief amongst the culprits are the ready availability, in large numbers of cheap late night takeaways, selling kebabs, fried chicken and hamburgers. There's also the attraction of mid-week and weekend drinking with all your new aussie mates at Walkabouts as you guzzle down snakebites at a rate of knots. Public transport is everywhere, so you may be disinclined to walk as much. And finally, the change in location and lifestyle means it's inevitable you'll take a while to adjust, and there's nothing like a good pizza to relieve homesickness, right?

Now, I didn't need to worry about this one - I'd had the vaccination for this particular disease before I left Brisbane, also known as the Alison Dawson shot. Essentially, when your mother has requested (in steely tones) that you whip yourself into shape by the time you get back, it's in your best interests to do so. However, for many other of my brethren, they aren't so fortunate, and consequently come home bearing not only holiday snaps, souvenirs and memories, but also a spare tyre.

What else is there?

I've already made mention of the rabid environmentalism you find over here.

There's also the British bureaucracy, which moves with all the pace and urgency of continental drift. Everything will take several weeks longer than they say it will. Deal with it.

I might leave at that for the time being since my head is killing me, but you get the idea. Be warned.

Magic at Royal Albert Hall

2007-03-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

Ah, the joys of late night blogging.

The clocks went forward an hour today, as summer draws ever nearer to England - not that you'd notice it, it's been positively arctic this week - but nonetheless I find myself at my laptop at midnight on Sunday, not tired in the slightest, due to a combination of time movement, and the fact I slept in till midday.

So, rather than lie in bed and look up at, well, my ceiling, I thought I may as well recap yesterday, which consisted of going to the "Classical Spectacular" at Royal Albert Hall.

To be honest, I think it's been the best 30 quid I've ever outlaid. For this princely sum, I managed to purchase a ticket in the Royal Albert Hall, a few tiers up, right behind the conductor, and with a view of the entire stage. Not to mention a view of the orchestra, choir, tiers and the light show that accompanied the program.

And what a program it was. When they said Classical Spectacular, they weren't kidding. Some of the highlights included:

Land of Hope & Glory - They actually gave out little British flags with the program, which everyone madly waved around in the audience, as over five thousand people in the audience belted out Britain's unoffical national anthem. They also did the Hornpipe and Rule Britannia from British Sea Songs - so, although I will never, ever get a ticket to Last Night of the Proms, I heard all the best parts of it anyway.

They also had a tenor & a baritone there, who sang some classic operatic numbers - they did the duet from Bizet's the Pearl Fishers, as well the quintessential pieces for a baritone and tenor respectively - Largo al factum from the Barber of Seville, and Nessun Dorma from Turandot. The tenor also did the famous number from Rigoletto, while the baritone finished up with Rule Britannia.

Perhaps the highlight though, at least in terms of the music, was the finale - the 1812 overture, complete not only with orchestra & choir, but with riflemen, cannons, light show and fireworks. All inside the Royal Albert Hall. It was, in a word, magical.

And what a venue for it too. While I wasn't able to take my camera along, I can at least give you an idea of the setting...

This is the hall, from the outside.

And this is a pretty close shot of the view that I would have had. Imagine it packed out with people, the orchestra on stage, choir filling the rises...

The funny thing is, this spectacular was a far cry from where I was, literally 3 hours before the concert started. And that was ensconced in a chair at Finchley Road Walkabout, sinking a few pints and watching Australia's batsmen cane several layers of hell out of South Efffrika's bowling attack. While I had to leave at the close of Australia's innings, I was (reasonably) confident that we could win it.

And so we did.

I am starting to think it's high time I got out of London for a while though. For the first time, I joined into London society and was rude to someone on the tube.

*Wry smile*

They reckon when you start getting like the rest of London and start getting snappy at random people you need to take a break from the gigantic grey scab, as I like to call it.

And what better place than sunny Brisbane? See ya soon.

Non-political blog, for a change

2007-03-13T13:37:00.000-07:00

Given that this is supposed to be a travel blog, I thought I might make a normal, non-offensive "yeah, this is what I've been up to" type post, rather than posting about things that have irked or intrigued me during my time here.

So, over the past few weeks - well, the constant has been work. We have all been working very hard at the office, but there may be an end in sight to constant overtime just to keep pace with the workload.

A new software program is being put into place that will hopefully speed up a lot of what we have to do at the moment with manual data entry and hard graft. In addition, we're finally hiring an office junior, which will mean a lot of the little things that interfere with my main job of sales and admin are no longer my responsibility.

Answering the phone, doing the mail, the filing, archiving, signing for courier packages, the banking, etc. Now, I don't mind doing these things, but they do take up a lot of time once you add it all up, and they also distract me from my main job. So yeah, it'll be good once this happens.

In other news, I went to see Chelsea play Porto in the Champions League, at Stamford Bridge stadium in Chelsea, with a Germanic friend of mine over here. For those unaware, the Champions League is the competition between the top football teams in Europe - it is the creme de la creme of world football, aside from the World Cup. Mind you, Chelsea cost more than any World Cup team - the Russian billionaire who owns them, Roman Abramovich, has poured over 300 million pounds into the club, so it's not a cheap exercise. It showed though - to use that old chestnut, to see Chelsea in action is truly poetry in motion. Simply sublime. I can see why football appeals to so many people, worldwide - when it is played well, there is no finer team game in terms of skill and tactics.

I'm not about to renounce Wests Tigers, but I am appreciative of football's talent, and genius. For the record, Chelsea won the game 2-1, to progress to the Quarter Finals.

Perhaps the thing I enjoyed most though, even moreso than the game, was the atmosphere. Non-stop singing, chanting and encouragement from all round the ground. It's perhaps not quite the pressure cooker of Lang Park come origin time, but it beats the hell out of anything you'd see in a run of the mill game back home. It's a huge adrenalin rush just to be in the ground.

And finally, some photos of a stroll I took down to the Thames Barrier (explained below.) Had a nice walk last Saturday down this way, walked about 6 miles, had to sprint a hundred metres or so to outpace 3 of Woolwich's finest who thought my camera would look nice in their hands rather than mine, and even managed to catch Ireland beating seven layers of hell out of England in the rugby.

So yeah, that's the past few weeks in a nutshell. Worked too long, watched football, nearly got mugged, and cheered for Ireland.

Am really starting to get homesick now that I have a definite date in my head as to when I'm home for my visit - really looking forward to it!

Ok, photo time.

This is Canary Wharf. Well, technically it's the Canada Tower, and Canary Wharf is the name of the financial district of London as a whole. But given that this is the tallest building in the UK, and one of the first skyscrapers to be built in the district, it tends to dominate the area.

This is the same financial district, taken after I'd slithered under the river via the tube. The Canada Tower is the building with the triangular top. (The fact it's the tallest, and the fact I mentioned it was the tallest building in the UK is also a bit of a giveaway.)

The Millenium Dome. Rather ironic, that it looks like a gigantic white elephant - for no finer term has ever been found to sum up this gigantic loss making monstrosity. It was originally an exhibition centre, and they've never found another use for it in 8 years. They were going to turn it into a super-casino, but Manchester wound up winning the bidding. So, it sits there, quietly rotting.

This rather odd-looking wall is the Thames Barrier. It's intended to prevent channel storms causing king tides, and a tidal surge up the Thames, that could easily flood a large chunk of London. This shot is taken on the downstream side - on the far side, heading upstream, the water level is a good metre and a half lower. You wouldn't want this dam wall breaking - it's not holding back the river, but the ocean itself.

And finally, a nice shot of a rainbow from the window of a Docklands Light Rail train, as I was coming back into Bank station from Canary Wharf, after one of London's frequent afternoon showers.

Bit dull, really. I'll see if I can slag off something else this weekend.

The 64000 Rand Question

2007-03-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

Ladies & Gentlemen (or perhaps that should be "Dames en Heer"), today's blog is going to be about South Africa.

See, one thing you realise quite quickly when you get over here to London is that there are a lot of South Africans here. In fact, there's actually more South Africans in London than Australians. Which is impressive, given that the legend of the Aussie colonial boozing it up in the British capital has been going on for years, so you'd expect us to be the majority. Far from it. We just stand out more.

In coming over to England, South Africans tend to raise a variety of reasons, if asked. A common one is, like the Aussies and the Kiwis, they just wanted to get over to Europe and check the place out. Another is the exchange rate between the British pound and the South African Rand - sitting at about 14 Rand to the pound, it's nothing short of woeful, and hence a few pounds in your pocket translates to big rand back home. And finally, South Africans do have ancestral links to Britain - like us, they used to be a British crown colony, and later a dominion, and were a part of the commonwealth - left/were exiled for a few decades, and then were re-admitted.

And with this comment, you start treading on thin ice.

A lot of South Africans feel embarrassed about their past...particularly the recent past. They don't like to discuss it much, and understandably so.

So, I'll ask the 64000 Rand question myself, and answer it too.

Is there something wrong with South Africa today?

Ask this question of a South African, and you might get a range of responses. You might get a straight yes, or no. A yes, or no, but with a long justification. A shrug of the shoulders. More often than not though, you'll get a rambling answer of yes and no, and somewhere along the way, a comment of "You'd have to go there to understand it."

Now, I'm not bagging South Africans here. But I do find it interesting the way that they dance around the issue, and try and avoid mentioning the "A-word."

Apartheid ended about 15 years ago, meaning that every South African you encounter over here grew up in it, witnessed it's end, and also saw the aftermath, and the political shift that the country has undergone since it's demise.

Now, there's no question that apartheid had to end. South Africa couldn't continue to exist in such a fashion - shunned and ostracised for maintaining a regime that the rest of the world had decried as barbaric, and appallingly racist. The country was well and truly the pariah of the globe. Nowadays, it has moved on, and once more resumed it's rightful place in the international community.

But life is far from rosy in South Africa. The rainbow nation has shockingly high HIV rates, huge problems with crime and gang warfare. Theft and muggings are commonplace. White communities live behind electric fences and gated complex, while coloured communities still exist in abject squalor. While apartheid is dead and buried, division still remains. The bulk of the money is still in the hands of the white community - it is their spending, skills and expertise that keep the South African economy afloat. Coloured communities still exist in a dreadfully poor state, dependent on government handouts and aid in order to survive.

Now, mention this sort of thing to a South African, and they'll probably tell you that it isn't the whole story. And they're right - it isn't. South Africa is hardly Zimbabwe, or Iraq. A democratically elected government runs the country, regular society continues to exist, and the country remains stable, in that sense. There is a vibrant culture present, to a level unthinkable in Australia, which seems positively dour by comparison.

But these positives do not mean that the negatives have ceased to exist. They're still there - not the whole story of South Africa to be sure, but they're still there.

Looking at the history of South Africa since 1993, from a detached viewpoint, it's easy to see how the country went off the rails somewhat. The goings-on in South Africa are merely repeating the sort of behaviour you can read about in any society, where a race or ethnic group that has been repressed for generations, suddenly gains complete freedom from their masters. The South, after the Civil war is the classic case.

Just as it was in the Confederacy, so it was in South Africa. The coloured people, free at long last, celebrated with massive excess. Restrained for decades, the pent-up energy that comes from freedom led first to jubilation, and then, as it always does in these matters, to revenge. Without the grim shackles of apartheid restricting their movements, and free to mingle with their former superiors, it wasn't hard to predict what was going to happen.

Some would argue also, that the new government of South Africa has made a hash of running the country. It has been dogged by corruption, and scandal amongst the members of government. There are accusations of nepotism. There is the taint of "getting square" with some of the policies coming from the government, particularly those which target white South Africans.

The thing is - corruption, nepotism, scandal - these are all classic symptoms of an inexperience government. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. My home state of Queensland took a country farmer, shoehorned him into the position of Premier, and now wonders why he ran parliament as if it was his own private pub meeting. That was the only way he knew how to operate. Not for him the decorum of Westminster, rather, the favours and greased palms of Western Queensland.

Yet, the accusation of incompetence dies in the mouths of those in South Africa, who would level it against their government. And finally, belatedly, I get to the answer of my original question.

Yes, there is something wrong with South Africa. It is that the country is afraid to criticise the government, because it believes that to criticise the government is to endorse apartheid. South Africa has created an environment where if a white person stands up to the government and says that they have made a mess of it, that they are corrupt, that they have failed - it is to be read between the lines that this person is advocating a return to apartheid.

Even when that is not the case.

I honestly don't believe South Africa will move on, ever, until it gains enough national confidence, and self-respect, to understand that criticising the present, isn't about returning to the past. It's about being able to create a better future. South Africa has so much to offer the world, and so much to give - it would be a shame indeed to see such a wonderful country fail to deliver on it's future promise, purely because it felt unable to move on from a dark and distant time in it's past.

In England's green and (un)pleasant land

2007-03-03T11:27:00.000-08:00

I hate environmentalists. I really do.

More to the point, I hate British environmentalists.

One thing I wasn't prepared for when I arrived over here was the sheer amount of environmental flavoured press you are literally inundated with, every day you spend here. You see it on TV, in the press, on the internet. Politicians and celebrities are always trying to outdo each other in just how green they can go. Local councils bombard your letterbox with leaflets encouraging you to recycle, use less water, turn off your lights, turn off your heater. Cars are sold purely on the basis of being green, despite the fact the rest of the car is shithouse.

It is so fucking depressing, it really is.

Let's get one thing straight. I'm all for saving the environment. What I can't stand are environmentalists. They are biggest bunch of humourless, nit-picking, miserable pricks I have encountered in my time over here. And yet, somehow, they wield power beyond their means in this country. How else does such a loathsome hatemonger as "Red Ken" Livingstone get elected Mayor of London? A man who, as Mayor of London, has consistently represented a minority of Londoners - those who are environmental, left-wing, poor and who aren't white. If you don't meet those criteria, you can fuck off.

But back to environmentalists. I find myself reaching for the knife to slash my wrists sometimes, when I see them on TV. It's invariably some beardy 40 something, speaking from through his thick glasses and unkempt air. He'll be crapping on about CO2 levels, or about global warming, and how this is inevitably going to consign Britain to a watery grave once the icecaps melt and drown us all.

Either that, or the "Carbon Footprint."

Oh man, this has got to be the best one yet. Apparently, environmentalists see Carbon as being bad. So, what they do these days is bash joe public over the head with all the statistics on their carbon usage. Using your car, catching a plane, turning on your heater, flicking on a light switch - these are fast becoming frowned upon activities.

It's one aspect of Britain I'm not going to miss.

Imagine my astonishment though, when I read that John Howard is getting rid of the old lightbulbs, in an attempt to win over greenies. You better believe the beard brigade over here seized on that one with gusto, although it was tempered with restraint - after all, to your average lefty, John Howard is still the enemy.

At this rate environmentalists will start insisting we take a dump less frequently, to reduce methane levels.

For making us feel like criminals, for simply living our lives the best we can, I hate environmentalists more than anyone else in existence.

(With the exception of Laurie.)

Is this CockFosters? No, it's mine.

2007-02-15T12:12:00.000-08:00

The subject line of this blog refers to an old one-liner prevalent in London, that makes light of one of the more amusing names given to London Underground stations.

The station in question, "Cockfosters" lies at one end of the Piccadilly Line (Piccadilly being up there as well, in the reckoning of amusing names) and hence, the response to when people ask, as the train pulls into the station, "Is this Cockfosters?".

Now, the problem with this particular example isn't so much that Cockfosters lies at one end of the Piccadilly Line. It's what lies at the other end of the Piccadilly Line. That is, of course, the two tube stations that service Heathrow. Therefore, tens of millions of people each year leave Heathrow via tube, and board trains marked to Cockfosters, and at every station, as the doors close, will hear the melodic female voice intone, "This, is a Piccadilly Line train, to...Cockfosters."

And for my mind, this is a problem. I mean, it turns London into a bit of a joke really. And it's not just Cockfosters. There are almost 200 stations on the underground, and a great deal of them have silly names. Therefore, my suggestion is this. Keep the lettering the same, but just change the names themselves. Confused? Let me explain.

There exists a rather hilarious version of the classic London Underground map, that has been run through an anagram generator. The result is that previously benign station names suddenly take on hilarious alternatives.

Let me provide you with a few examples.

Harrow & Wealdstone, could be renamed Swearword & Ethanol.
Heathrow Terminal 4 could be renamed Thermohaline Wart 4.
Colliers Wood could be renamed Woollier Cods.
Turnpike Lane could be renamed Internal Puke.
Snaresbrook could be renamed Robs Koreans.

It's not just stations either. The railway lines themselves could be updated.

Docklands Light Railway for example, sounds frightfully dull. Allowing Dastardly Hick is much better.

I've included the maps themselves below - just click the thumbnails to have a proper look-see.

Top one is the genuine map, and the bottom is the alternative.

Snow news is good news

2007-02-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know it's been ages since I updated.

But frankly, I haven't really had anything to write about. Unless you want to hear me write about work. Which you don't. Suffice to say, up until this week I have been working harder than I've ever had to. At least the Kiwi lady is back in the office now, which has taken a huge amount of work off my plate.

Actually, I will air one gripe. I don't mind working extra hours. At the end of the day I'm getting paid for them, and I'm probably being more productive than I otherwise would be. No, what pisses me off is that the extra hours are spent fixing up shit that happened a year ago, and was caused by one of the morons that preceded me. Kim has told me in great detail of some of the staff they used to have in this office and the general incompetence that prevailed as a result. So when I'm the one who has to cop the flak from clients and brokers because someone can't enter in simple data correctly, I see red.

So Marnie Holden in particular, if you're reading this, fuck you and the QANTAS jet you flew in on.

Moving right along, the title of this blog probably gives away the fact that it has been snowing in London. Only on two days so far, mark you, but still. The first was on the 24th January, and was a fairly light fall, as demonstrated here.

I mean, the fact it was the first snow I'd ever seen freaked me out somewhat, but Canada Dan reassured me that this was "nothing special".

Today however saw the heaviest snowfall in London in 7 years. Now, London isn't Calgary - we're not talking 7 foot drifts here, but it was still far more impressive.

I took this at 6:30 am just after I woke up. You can't really see it, but it's a lot thicker.

Our backyard this evening. Apparently our fence isn't snow-resistant. Ah well, another job for our geriatric landlord.

Me and the snow. Not much else to say really. Phil Nye did extol the benefits of taking self-photos - putting yourself in the memories and all that, so I try and do it as much as I can.

Possibly the worst snow angel ever made. I think it would work better in the morning when the snow is still falling, as opposed to the evening when the snow has hardened into ice. If it snows again tomorrow I'll have another go.

Provided my arms have thawed out by then.

So, what else?

Well, I did go and watch Australia take on Denmark at Loftus Road the other night, my first football international. Australia played some piss poor football most of the game, and unsurprisingly lost the game 3-1. Was well worth it though, to actually see how a football game works in practice.

It's probably the only time you'd get an Australian home ground in London too - Loftus Road stadium is smack bang in the middle of Shepherd's Bush, which is where most of the Aussies who live the backpacker lifestyle reside. As such, we had a crowd of 15200, 15000 of which were Aussies. Didn't help the final result though.

Actually, the one thing that threw me for a loop is that you can't drink beer at a football game AND watch the game at the same time. You can buy beer, but you have to consume it down in the bars behind the stands out of view of the game. Coming from a country like Australia where you buy your beer and then carry it back to your seat, this threw me for a loop.

I assume it's to reduce hooliganism, but the english rugby fan at work assures me it's because football fans are limp wristed tossers who can't hold their piss. He may yet be right. At Twickenham you can drink and watch as much as you like.

I'll probably go and see another football game before I leave though - one of my mates from the Badger is a member of Chelsea, so he threatens to buy us tickets for one of their home games, so there's a chance I'll be mingling with the unwashed masses at Stamford Bridge before long.

Not really a great deal else to say, to be honest.

Suffice to say, it's cold - very cold, and I am getting thoroughly sick of winter.

*Cue scoffing from sweltering Aussies*

Yeah, I know - but 4 months of no sun, permanent overcast/rain/snow and you'd be getting a bit pissed off too. Also, you haven't experienced the hell of trying to get to work by public transport in London after a snowfall.

Looking forward to catching up with people come the end of April - while London is a great place to spend a year or two, you can't pass up the sun and the sea.

I'm...so....ronery.....

2007-01-22T14:07:00.000-08:00

Well, not really, but a tribute to Team America seems as good a place as any to start this latest blog off.

No no, what this is about, as Australia Day, and the unparalleled delights of 1 quid snakebites at the local Aussie pubs approaches, I think of what I read in TNT magazine this morning. TNT magazine, for those of you unaware, is a free publication that comes out every Monday, aimed at Aussie, Kiwis and Saffas who are living in London. The upcoming Australia day celebrations of course, featured quite heavily.

One thing I noticed, as part of the write-up, was when they were doing interviews with various Aussies in London. A lot of these people have mates over from home, friends they knew back home who they either came over with, or who have come over in the interim. So Australia day is a good time for them to catch up, as is any weekend for that matter, and sink some piss, talk bullshit and whatnot.

I can appreciate the appeal of that too. Yeah, I've got a few mates over here at work, people I met at the badger etc, but I don't see any of these friendships lasting for years after I've left London. Couple of months maybe, a few emails etc - but a lot of these guys are planning to work over here permanently, which definitely isn't on the cards for me. And none of them are really up for a session at the Walkabout of a Sunday. Nick and Dan generally prefer a few quiet ales - not for them the boozy antics of Sunday Snakebites, and trying to pull as many equally drunk women as you can.

Which, belatedly, brings me to the point of this post. I'm aiming this squarely at the lads back home. You know who you all are. The clowns who read this blog intermittently.

If you've got that little voice in the back of your head saying travel, now is the time. In hindsight, this was by far the best time I could have gone over here. I'm young, the liver is still reasonably intact, I wasn't tied down at home by a career, or a mortgage, and I'm having a ball. And without blowing my own horn too much, I've made it easier for anyone thinking of coming over.

Getting off at Heathrow and you're lost? No worries, I'll meet you at the airport.
Nowhere to stay? You can crash at my place for a couple of weeks till you find your feet.
Need to find a job? Use my laptop and wifi internet while I'm at work to search the jobsites.
Don't know anyone over here? Well, you know me. That's one more person than I knew when I started off.

So, in the most blatant attempt at wooing people to migrate since that Irish prick Arthur Calwell uttered "Populate or Perish", I'm calling you bastards out, and over. Laurie, Gerald, Meakin...now's your chance. You'll never get an easier start than this - you've got 12 months to get over here, because after the end of 2007, I'm outta London, and anyone coming over after that starts from scratch.

Think on it.

Also, I have photos for you.

Saturday saw me take a walk on the wild side, and take a stroll of some 6 miles to Wembley Stadium. And by wild side I mean Harlesden, which is like Little India in London. Was a very cold morning, that turned to rain by the afternoon, so by the time I was ready to live Wembley the clouds were gathering, so I opted for a bus back home.

Taken from a distance of a few miles away (duh!). I was actually really happy to see this, because it meant I was going the right way. Not having a map or anything, I just had to get my bearings on the arch every so often, and try and follow roads leading towards it.

Taken with sore feet, and yet a sense of smug satisfaction, having walked almost 10 kilometres to get there. The arch is obviously the key aspect of the new stadium, and admittedly, looks fantastic.

A shot of the stadium from Wembley Park Tube station.

The stadium itself has been plagued by construction delays, characterised best by a constant slanging match between the Football Association, and Multiplex, the construction company. The stadium has cost almost a billion pounds (POUNDS!) to build, and 9 years. Most of the delays were caused by the Football Association changing the design halfway through, but at the same time, Multiplex have been dreadfully ineffecient. And yet, somehow out of this shambles they have built possibly the greatest sporting stadium in the world - and that's a big statement coming from a man who's been to Lang Park.

This is a view of inside. Obviously, it's not finished as yet, but it gives you an idea of what to expect. Pack it with 100,000 England fans, and you've got the makings of a truly phenomenal atmosphere. (Shame about the ratshit England team, but hey.)

Also, just some random stuff I saw on the way...

How not to drive your Volkswagen Golf. You can see the stadium in the background by the way - it absolutely towers over everything else around it.

Ken, this street sign had your name written ALL over it.

Also, just to complete the Australiana quota - it is almost Australia Day after all - I wandered down to some shitty biker cafe on Sunday, braving weather best described as icy to see the meeting of the HSV UK club. Saw a few genuine Aussie imports, and some nice bikes, but some of it was a bit disappointing. Most of them were just bog-standard Vauxhall Monaros with Holden badges put on the outside, and a big exhaust. Evidently car modding is much the same the world over - style over substance.

Did get some decent photos though.

The police line-up. Funny how I'd normally never bother with this sort of stuff back home, but all of a sudden when you're over here, you instantly get nostalgic, for something, ANYTHING that has a tangible connection to Oz.

Despite the flames, this Maloo Ute would probably nail most other stuff on display in this blog. Heavily modded, if you believe everything the guy who owned it was saying.

Vauxhall Monaro rebadged as a Holden. Looks alright, but the front end is a bit eww, if I'm to be honest.

This, is apparently a Chrysler Charger. Not a Monaro per se, but they're both owned by GM (I think) so we'll call it near enough.

Whoever brought this over has my undying respect. Respect. Beats me why this wasn't given pride of place in the carpark, instead of being left out on the road.

A genuine SS commodore ute. Complete with tonneau cover that you never open, ever, making it completely impractical as a ute.

A few more genuine Holden imports. And now, some bikes for young Meakin.

BMW cruiser type thing. I didn't think it was all that, but Meakin's probably spontaneously orgasming right now.

Yeah, it's a Harley. Of course, there's always one.

Spiffy looking Aprilia. Meakin reckons he'd love to ride one of these, but he's too much of a shortarse to reach the pedals properly, so it's a dicey prospect.

And finally, an uber Goldwing cruiser of doom, complete with luggae compartments and stuffed toy accessories. What every modern day biker needs.

On that note, have a good one back home, get your arse over here, where the bloody hell are you, eat lamb on Australia Day.

You know it makes sense.

I'm Fig Jamovich.

Racism....Sh'ya, right.

2007-01-18T14:00:00.000-08:00

Those of you not living in the United Kingdom at present may not be aware that the heavy charged of racism has been levelled at Channel 4, the makers of Celebrity Big Brother. The United Kingdom and India's respective governments are being dragged into a political stoush that has erupted during the aforementioned show, due to the behaviour of three white, English women towards an Indian Bollywood star, all of whom are currently incarcerated in the minimum security of the Big Brother House.

(You could be parolled at any time. On Sundays, TWO people get parolled. Woop de doo.)

So what is this apparent racist behaviour towards this Indian megastar, this representative of Indian beliefs and Hinduism? Did the three white harpies force-feed her sacred cow? Did they treat her much as the British did Indians during the Raj mutiny, when they strapped live Indians to muzzles of cannons loaded with grapeshot? Did they throw her in the clink a la Ghandi when he went on a hunger strike?

Umm, no.

Apparently, they said her cooking was crap. They might have said she smelt like curry. That's about it.

And we're not talking about intellectual powerhouses here. The three white women in question are C grade celebs all, one of whom, Jade Goody, was aptly described to be "as thick as pigshit, and with similar sex appeal." Jeremy Clarkson called her a moose, and wasn't far off. It'd be like shagging a side of beef.

Somehow though, the trash tabloids have them speaking on behalf of all of England.

I mean really.

The problem with England, is they have this pitiful disposition towards immediately hitting the ground, duck and cover style, whenever someone drops the R word. As my friend will demonstrate,

This sort of utterance would cause Britain to have a collective coronary, and immediately hunt around for a convenient scapegoat. The whole country is going apeshit over this matter, and for the life of me, I can't understand why. Do they honestly think this is out and out racism? Maybe they do. Apparently calling someone a "Paki cunt" can make you do hard time.

Call him a "fat cunt" though, and you're off scot free. But both are visual judgments. The first draws it's inspiration from skin colour, the other draws it's inspiration from skin size. Surely if we're talking discrimination, they're both identical.

But in politically correct Britain, apparently not. Ultimately though, when it comes down to it, your average Brit doesn't know jack shit about racism.

This, is racism.

(Warning: Seriously disturbing visual images follow.)

This is a picture of the lynching of Jesse Washington, a mentally disabled negro found guilty by jury (in a deliberation of 4 minutes) of murdering a white woman. The crowd at the trial stormed the court, grabbed him, castrated him, cut off his fingers, his feet, his ears, beat him with bricks and shovels and burned him alive, as a cheering crowd of 5000 Texans watched.

This is the town of Sharpesville, after South African police opened fire on a demonstration of South African blacks, killing 67. This happened in 1960. 34 years of apartheid followed this.

And finally, we have apartheid...in Queensland. Australian aborigines live shorter lives, drink more, spend more time in jail, commit more crimes, achieve less and generally live shittier lives than white people in Australia.

This, is racism. It's institutionalised, and exists to this day. The Deep South, South Africa, and Australia say it doesn't exist, but it's there. And everyone knows it is too.

And Britain thinks it's being racist because some trollop called Jade with the IQ of a brick said to an Indian woman her cooking sucks?

Please. Get out there and smell the race hate.

The new season of 24! Live on Paul's Blog!

2007-01-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

I don't like January much. Particularly the first part of it.

Just when I've finally become accustomed to the fact it's a new year, I then have to deal with the fact that it's my birthday. And as of about 4 days ago, I've had to deal with this mental dilemma 24 times.

It is getting easier though. I'm quite happy with the way my life is travelling at present. I'm saving money, I've made it overseas, I have a good job - yeah. I am happy.

So, the plans then, for this year of 2007.

Well, between now and April, not much. I plan to save as much money as I can - take a few trips out of London if possible, I know Nick and Dan are keen to go to Gibraltar, which would be epic. Late February is the timeframe for that. I'd also like to take a trip down to Portsmouth, and see the HMS Victory, but I can easily do that over a weekend by train.

Now, come April, there will be a whirlwind visit happening. I will have 3 weeks back home, and at least 10 days of that will be spent up at the Gregory River with the old man and the older man. 3 generations of Dawson's, in a Toyota Hilux. There won't have been such a huge concentration of rednecks since Robert E Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia.

So, in the remaining 10 days, the following needs to occur.

- Whip Meakin and Justin's arse in Warhammer.
- Go round to David's place and watch a Wests Tigers game.
- Get horrendously drunk with Laurie, Gerald, Glen, Meakin and the lads
- Attend the ANZAC day concert jetlagged out of my mind.

Oh yeah, and probably see my family at some point.

Just warning you all - keep from about April 25th to May 2nd free, because I will be around Brisbane, and I won't take no for an answer.

After that, well, I'll be back over here for a bit. Don't know as yet, I think I'll just take it as it goes. But at this stage I'm thinking to work until the end of 2007, then resign, and spend the last month or two of my Visa seeing Europe. It will be easier, and ultimately more convenient to just do all the sightseeing in one big hit, rather than cram it into weekends here and there.

And then, finally - I might actually come home.

Don't get me wrong - I am missing Australia, and I miss everyone back home. I will return - I couldn't handle living over here permanently. But at the same time, I know this is my one chance to see Europe easily, and I don't want to look back in 30 years time and think, "Hell, I could've done so much more with that time."

That is of course, assuming I live that long. After last night at the Slug, and the dozen snakebites I drank, I was surprised to still be alive this morning. Still, when you're dancing your arse off and your shirt is shaking from the sheer volume of the bass, the morning after doesn't really factor into the equation.

And on that note, I bid you adieu.

Remaining resolute in 2007

2007-01-01T10:36:00.000-08:00

2007.

Jesus.

I was just starting to get used to 2006 too. Ah well, nothing for it but to adapt and move on.

I'm back at my digs in Cricklewood, after spending the past 9 days or so back at the Barmy Badger hostel in Earl's Court, where those of you with longer memories of my blog will recall was the place where this British jaunt all began. I've got a few mates back there who I still keep in touch with, so rather spend the week languishing back at my house, I went back there on the advice of Nick, and had a great time also. Christmas itself was an Orphan's christmas - most of the people at the Badger had left, and so there was only about 15 or so people there. We had a good feed, and Nick and I splashed out on a carton of genuine, Tasmanian, imported from Australia James Boag's beer. Which went down an absolute treat compared to the crap pommy lager you normally have to drink here.

I also bought a bottle of OP Rum and a few Bundaberg ginger beers, and mixed up some highly lethal Dark and Stormies, which also went down well.

New Year's eve, if I'm to be honest, wasn't as good, for me at least - I managed to get fairly depressed last night about the usual stuff - being away, not seeing family for such a long time, missing all my mates back home. So it wasn't as good as it could have been. Still, I hung around at the pub till midnight with Nick, Karl and a few others, watched the fireworks that always happen around the London Eye, then toddled off back to Cricklewood.

All in all, it was a good week - nice and relaxing, and just what I needed.

So, to 2007.

First of all, work. We just moved our office this past week - still in the same building, but instead of sharing an office with another company, we have our own floor all to ourselves. One thing I want to do is really up the ante on the work I'm doing. Our boss is shelling out a ton of money for this new office, and I want to repay that confidence he has in us by really pulling in some new business for him. So, between now and when I come back for a month in April, I'm going to be working my arse off.

After I get back here in May 2007, the plan is to keep working until, well, when I get sick of it here. My Visa runs out in March 2008, so sometime between now and then I'll pack it in, spend a month or so travelling through Europe and then wing my way home.

I'm also rapidly coming to the conclusion that I am not qualified to choose housemates, although drama does seem to follow me around like monsters follow PacMan.

While this doesn't involve me per se and I am still getting on well with everyone in the house, it's only because I don't want to touch this one with a ten foot pole. In a nutshell, one of the guys I live with is a net junkie, and spends all his playing this game with real money involved, online. That's how he makes his money. Anyways, somehow he acquired a girlfriend (a real one) but the relationship turned bad. So now he sends messages to her saying he's going to kill himself, and she (I have no idea how she got my number) rings me and asks me to check on him for her, since she gets worried because she can't ring him.

This is because of 2 reasons.

1. He deliberately ignores her calls.
2. He has a habit of smoking a shitload of weed while drinking great liver-crippling draughts of this extra strong Polish beer he likes and passing out, to the point where nothing can wake him.

Wait, 3 reasons.

3. He's a dickhead.

So, I'm just avoiding this one as much as possible and keeping my options open when the lease runs out in March. I think what I'll do is hang around here till I head back to Oz in April, and then find somewhere else once I come back. I know Nick and a few others from the Badger are looking to move out, and they've sounded me out about sharing a house with them, which would be great, so hopefully that will happen at some point.

Finally, just so you know I haven't been a complete slacker, I have some more photos for you.

Of a power station.

However, not just any power station. The Battersea Power station, for lack of a better word, is HUGE. Absolutely, totally, gigantically huge. This building is the size of Trafalgar Square, and is made entirely out of brick, which is an amazing feat. Fans of the computer game series Command and Conquer will instantly recognise the inspiration for the graphics representing the power station.

As you can probably tell though, this is not a station that is currently in operation. There are plans to do something with it- it can't be knocked down, since it's a heritage listed building. Not sure exactly what they can do with it though, since it's a real wreck these days, and the local train station is fucking terrible. Not the sort of place you want to visit on a regular basis. (Once was enough for me.)

Well, a Merry Christmas to all - and I'll be seeing you in less than 5 months back home. Scary prospect, I know.

Arrr, it be Irish

2006-12-17T11:36:00.000-08:00

I must say, it's always good to see a familiar face, after being away from home for 6 months and counting. And that face was provided by Craig, who was on his way to Belfast to visit relatives for Christmas, and who graciously decided to come and visit me in London on his way.

Although he only had Saturday here in London, I tried to show him as much of the city as possible, including St Paul's, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the West End, Oxford Street, Harrods and Cricklewood. The last one, obviously not by choice, but he had to see it, since I live there.

As for me, and my Christmas - well, the plan is, I'm going to go back to the Badger for a week. Since I've been informed London is boring as hell if you're not with mates, and you can't get anywhere, I'm going to stay at the hostel for a week, from the 23rd until the 1st. Should be good. The plan is to watch as much cricket as humanly possible, somehow make it to work each day, drink up, and enjoy kicking back.

Speaking of cricket - I think tonight could be the night we win back the Ashes. Fingers are crossed.

Not really all that much to write about - I've been that flat strap with work at the moment, what with Janna being away, we're about to move our office and a thousand other things happening. I'm enjoying it, but it's tiring. At least Janna gets back after Christmas, so there's only one more week to go.

Plan is to work my arse off this week, so I can go on the 4 day Christmas break guilt free.

I realise this isn't the most comprehensive blog this week, but meh. It's Christmas. Everyone is on diminished work performance, even your faithful blogger.

Bomber Beazley's final mission

2006-12-04T11:54:00.000-08:00

To the dispassionate observer, it was painfully obvious what was occurring. The "Bomber" was still bravely soldiering on, carrying what remained of his loyal crew into dangerous missions through the flak alley of question time to deliver their payload against the Liberal Empire.

But the Bomber was getting older, and more battle scarred with every run. The damage was becoming harder and harder to repair, and the ground crew back at base, ever riven by factional discord, were eagerly eyeing off newer, fresher alternatives to their aging Bomber Mk 1.

The end came when the Bomber, flying on 3 engines and struggling for altitude, lost his Rudd(er). The crew promptly bailed out, and the Bomber, predictably, went down in flames, culminating in a spectactular, and yet, unsurprising explosion.

And so the Labor Party will take to the air again, this time in a plane piloted by Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. While some pundits are claiming they represent generational change, this is not a fairytale wedding for the ALP, nor is it a match made in heaven.

Unlike Howard and Costello, who've been flying together for over a decade, Rudd and Gillard are the two pilots thrown together because all the others were taken. And they face the hardest task imaginable - somehow getting the colossal bulk of the Labor Party back into the air, where it can match the Liberals in a political dogfight.

Ok, that's enough aerial metaphors for the moment.

Seriously, a blind man could have seen this coming. In the aftermath of Latham's public hara-kiri, Rudd and Gillard both backed down from challenging Beazley. Neither of them had the votes, and the ALP was unlikely to take another risky punt on untried talent, given that the last horse they backed started strong and then broke his leg rounding the final turn, letting the seasoned Howard stayer fly past on the inside rail.

So, they waited. But Rudd said at the time, cribbing lines from Napoleon Bonaparte (there's a man who knew how to get the most out of division and egos in his subordinates), that he had a Field Marshal's baton in his knapsack, but now was not the time to bring it out. Essentially, Beazley could get the promotion, but the first defeat and Rudd's hand would be reaching for his bag, scrabbling for purchase on the shiny veneer of the rod of command.

And so, with what seems an eternity of Beazley saying a lot, and yet not much at all, doing a great deal and accomplishing very little, he's finally been put out to pasture.

The biggest problem facing Rudd and Gillard though, isn't so much the Liberals, as it is the Labor Party. John Howard, for example, rules his caucus with 85% of Coalition MP's on a bad day, and 99% on a good day. (Costello abstained.) Rudd and Gillard have snuck in with about 60% of the vote, and a good chunk of that was borrowed from the NSW Right, surely the first time that collection of old right-wing time servers and union bosses has ever voted for a educated, articulate, bespectacled centrist and (heaven forbid) a woman. The factions still dominate the ALP, and now that they've impaled Rudd and Gillard on the thorny throne of ALP leader, they will be expecting great results.

If Rudd and Gillard can somehow pull off a miracle win come next year, all will be forgiven. The factional bloodletting will be forgotten, Howard will shuffle off into retirement having gone a bridge too far, and we'll be treated to the spectacle of Peter Costello, Tony Abbott and Brendan Nelson squablling for the spoils of opposition.

But this is a Labor party machine weighed down with the millstones of repealing workplace relations, a Liberal government with a record for economic excellence, and an inexperienced team going up against the most experienced political campaigner since Robert Menzies.
Moreover, Labor struggles to find it's footing, as it slips and slides on factional blood, that haemmorhages daily from gaping wounds that no amount of political surgery can permanently close.

A political win in 2007 will provide a bandaid solution. But it will take a great deal more surgery to fix the incessant internal bloodletting that threatens to drain Labor dry.

And for my money, I don't think Rudd and Gillard are up to it.

Throbbin' Hood, Prince of Beaves

2006-12-01T14:40:00.000-08:00

Y'see, when I got back from Nottingham the other weekend, in a fit of Robin Hood inspiredness, I tried to download a bittorrent of the Kevin Costner film, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, which, to be honest, I always thought made quite a good film. However, I was unable to locate a copy online - evidently more people than I thought saw the Postman, and deemed that no film featuring Costner should ever be shown to the public again, for fear of contamination.

I did however find multiple listings of a porno by the abovementioned title. While I should point out that I did not download said movie, I do wonder what brilliant inspiration drove the creator of the movie to that title. Think on that for a moment, if you will.

Anyways, moving right along.

Last weekend, Karl, Nick and myself all piled into Dan's Vauxhall Corsa, and made our north on the M11 to the relative peace and quiet of Nottingham, in search of beer. More to the point, to a pub known as the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, that dates back to 1189 AD, and is the oldest pub in all of England. It also serves it's own beer, called Ye Olde Trip, that is widely regarded as one of the finest ales in all the land. So, we had to sample it. Mind you, it took us about 6 or 7 pints before we concurred that yes, it was excellent stuff, and that it was well worth the trip up.

As for the pub itself - well, I'll show some photos first, and then explain it.

A good shot of the side. The cliff behind it is actually the rock on which stands Nottingham Castle, which I'll show in a little while. The majority of the pub is actually built into the rock, as, due to it's age, the original builders made use of the numerous caves and grottos underneath the castle, to avoid having to construct buildings.

If you stripped away the exterior of the building, you'd find a great deal of rock in underneath the exterior brick.

View from the front.

This is one of the rooms inside, up on the third floor. The walls are rock, although they have been smoothed over with concreete obviously, in order to make it properly safe. Above here is an enormous chimney that stretches up about 15 metres through the rock, and emerges at the top of the rock. To guard against inclement weather though, they seal it up with a cover.

It really was astonishing. One of the most amazing places I've ever been to, and well worth the trip alone to Nottingham, even if you have no other reason to go here.

After "TIIIIIIME GENTLEMEN PLEASE" was called at 12, we then proceeded to wander into town, in search of a pub that was showing the cricket. Now, one thing you very soon realise about the Poms. They do not know how to conduct themselves on a night out.

I don't know whether it was every girl we saw wearing a miniskirt (not that we complained), guys starting fights in the streets, people puking everywhere and girls squatting down behind dumpsters - maybe a combination of all three. But it's a bit of an eye opener. At least a night out in Brisbane has a little more decorum to it. Or maybe we just hold our booze better. I'm thinking it's the latter.

Anyways, after an hour or so of wandering about, a few more drinks, a dodgy kebab, we stumbled upon an all night sports bar, and stepped in. At about 4 am, with Dan fast falling asleep, we decided to call it, and headed back to the Travelodge.

The next day, feeling pretty decent, all things considered, and fortified by breakfast, we went for a quick wander through Nottingham to check out some of the sights by daylight.

Standard thatched roof ye olde medieval type house. I think this one dates from the mid-1500's, but could be wrong. The geezer standing down near the door is Nick.

The gatehouse to Nottingham Castle. The location of the castle is perfect, and not entirely dissimilar to that of Edinburgh Castle. A large rock, looming up above most of the town. Nottingham is quite a hilly place though, so the castle doesn't stand out as much as the one at Edinburgh.

Part of the outer wall, to the left of the previous photo. The Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem is down the path to the far left, and then you turn right at the end of the wall.

Nottingham Castle itself. Obviously this wasn't the original Norman castle - I assume it was destroyed at some point by Kevin Costner. Nonetheless, the building itself is a very grand structure, although not exactly designed with warfare in mind. Unlike Edinburgh Castle, which absolutely bristles with cannons.

And finally, part of Nottingham skyline, taken from the roof of the multi-story carpark where we left the Corsa overnight.

The trip back was uneventful, save for a traffic jam that only the M1 can deliver. The British do not know how to build a highway. Dan in particular, being Canadian, and familiar with the excellent highways of North America, was particularly critical, and frankly, I have to agree. The Brits make excellent history, pubs and beer - but make it very, very difficult to travel to see them.

But despite all that, it was an excellent weekend all round.

Why am I here?

2006-11-21T13:37:00.000-08:00

Don't worry - this isn't a mournful "oh god I'm so homesick" type post.

Far from it.

No, this evening I find myself nursing a glass of a rather nice Banrock Station (Australian wine is available everywhere over here, and quite cheap too) and contemplating what brought me to this, the far side of the World.

As I brought up reasons in my mind, and rebutted them, or disputed them, I thought that perhaps this semi stream-of-consciousness would make for a decent blog. So, here goes.

I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is money. Rather a crude thing to think of for some, perhaps, but at the end of the day, it's not warm climes, nor ice cold beer, nor cheery locals that draw people from Australia to England. We have all that at home. To a large extent it's money...but at the same time, it's not really the be all and end all. I mean, the Aussie dollar trades at 2 and a half to the pound, but that's nothing compared to the exchange rates between a place like South Africa (12 to 1 on a good day, 15 to 1 on a bad day), Poland (300 to 1) or Romania (Several billion to 1). By the time you factor in flights, cost of living, inevitable travelling you do here...well, you'd probably be better off financially to have stayed home. So, scratch that one.

New people perhaps?. Well, it's true - I've met new people - there's a great crowd at work and at the hostel I was staying at. But it wasn't lack of friends or family that caused me to leave. I have one of the best group of friends anyone could ever hope for back home in Oz - a huge extended family, my gaming mates, the musicians and drinkers of the BMC Band, and of course, the great mates I've still got from high school. There is no way anything can replace those people, many of whom (the latter in particular, as well as my family) know me better than I know myself.

So, no. Meeting new people didn't do it.

Perhaps then it's because life at home gets routine. Well, there is some truth to this - looking back, I can see that I was in a bit of a rut, of sorts. I was still enjoying myself, but I wasn't really going anywhere. And I think - no, I know, that it was this rut that led to what I'm about to describe suddenly becoming the major concern in my life.

I guess, what it comes down to is that there's that itch in us all, to see what's out there - to see what else inhabits this big wide world of ours. To experience for real, what you've seen in films, and read about in books. For some people, this itch remains a minor irritation, and the tea-tree lotion of a marriage, family, or a new career cures it - sometimes for a short while, sometimes for 30 years. But eventually, it becomes something that drives you distraction.

And for me, I guess it happened sooner than later.

That being said, nothing will ever be able to replace the friends and family at home, or the life I have there. Australia calls to me - it's part of who I am, and I show it daily.

Whether it's making my way to a pub by 8:30am to cheer Australia on in the Rugby League back home, wearing full tracksuit, beanie and gloves against the "cold" while the Poms are still in shirts and jeans; not being ashamed to hide my accent, even in the most British of locations; or instinctively saying to my boss the reason the numbers aren't adding up on his excel spreadsheet is because my predecessor "screwed up....err, sorry, made a mistake, with the April Bordereau" (he replied, "You mean they fucked up", but that's a different story) - well, it's those things that show me for what I am.

An Australian, born and bred. Drawn to see the wide world, and destined to return home to the greatest country on that same world.

And fucking proud of it.

Not much to say, really.

2006-11-19T12:27:00.000-08:00

The astute of you will soon notice that there is a distinct lack of pictures and of a trip down into the olde city.

I assure you, I fully intend to do so, but London Underground decided this weekend to close both the Circle and District lines for engineering work, thus creating chaos on the entire network. After dealing with this on Saturday, I decided to forego it in on Sunday in favour of a day at home and just taking it easy.

Saturday wasn't bad though - met up with Alberto from work to watch the Springboks slit their wrists against English in the Rugby (I've never seen a South African as gutted as Alberto was after the final siren) and then went over to join Nick and Dan along with the crew from the Badger for a cocktail night at TGIF, then to the Slug and Lettuce for some Snakebites.

A snakebite, for those unaware, is essentially Fosters, Vodka and something else that makes it turn red. It is singularly unappealing to the palate, but works wonders at getting you shitface drunk in the shortest time imaginable. I honestly hadn't tried one before that night, and after sampling one, doubt I will ever do so again.

That being said, I have been assured of excellent beer this weekend - a trip is planned to Nottingham, and to a pub called the View to Jerusalem. Apparently it is carved out of the side of a mountain, and dates from Crusading times. Nick assures me it is the finest pub in all of England, so it should be worth a look.

Plus, getting out of this grey scab on the earth's surface that is London can't hurt.

The Central Line smells like ARSE

2006-11-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

Folks, it's exactly what's in the title. The Central Line smells like arse.

The Central Line is the oldest deep-level tube line in London, and as such, the odour associated with it has been given over a century to ripen.

Essentially, what you're dealing with is 100 years of sweat, piss, vomit, smoke, booze, farts, oil, grease, coal and shit.

Quite the aromatic cocktail, and not really that palatable when you have to use it as I did tonight, when the Piccadilly Line broke down at Covent Garden.

So yeah. Every line has it's own distinctive smell:

Northern - Smells of rage and anger at yet another delay due to signal failure
Waterloo & City - Smells of anxiety, due to suits sweating over their high-rolling deals in the City
Bakerloo - Can't smell anything due to deafening screech of wheels negotating century old rails
District - Smells of sweat from fat prick yank tourists going to see the "Touwar of Londun."
Circle - Smells of beer from fat prick brits vomiting in the carriages
Jubilee - Smells of money from all the suits going down to Canary Wharf in their Armani
Hammersmith & City - Smells of Poles, due to the gazillion Polish immigrants that get on at Hammersmith
East London - Smells like I don't know, because no-one uses it
Piccadilly - Smells like fear, from the tourists getting on at Heathrow saying "What the fuck have we done?!"
Metropolitan - Smells of boredom, due to multiple fuck-ups on a supposedly "express" line
Victoria - Smells of envy, due to all other underground users thinking of Victoria trains roaring past at 50 mph while they sit behind a broken signal

Central - Smells like ARSE.

Go West, Young Man!

2006-11-12T12:25:00.000-08:00

And by Go West, I mean go to the West End.

Re-reading my last blog, I see that I made the rather rash promise of having an alcohol free weekend. Although to be honest, I was succeeding admirably up until about 8 pm on Friday night. True, I'd sculled a scotch & dry or two at the work lunch on Friday, but that doesn't count. When it's a work lunch, once the boss orders a Vodka & tonic, you're obligated to match him. Despite this, I was in good stead compared to Kim who ordered a drink that looked suspiciously like a Snakebite. She denied it of course, claiming instead it was a cranberry juice, but I never trust these South Africans. I imagine that after they failed to account for Ireland in the rugby, she'll be drinking a lot more indeed to forget about it.

*JOU MA SE*

Anyways, as I was saying, I was succeeding admirably in my alcohol free week, up until Friday night, when I got a phone call from Nick, who demanded to know what I was doing. Upon advising him that I was reclining at home, reading a book and taking it easy, within 2 milliseconds the words "YOU SLACK PRICK" came bellowing down the phone, and single-handedly coerced me into taking bus and tube to Covent Garden for beers at the Maple Leaf. For a canadian bar, it's actually not that bad. The beer is excellent - you can get Sleeman's on tap, and you can also buy Moosehead by the bottle. Despite the name, it's the closest thing I've encountered to Cascade since I've been away. The taste is almost indentical. That, in my opinion, makes it worth purchasing.

So, after falling off the wagon, I took it easy for most of Saturday - it was my week to clean the house, so I spent 4 hours drifting around the house clutching alternatively at broom, vacuum and cleaning cloth, with my headphones on and Tchaikovsky streaming through. It's somewhat of a letdown to clean a stovetop to the strains of the 1812, but what can you do. Saturday night was spent at the Badger, having been invited there by Nick and Co. to partake in a genuine South African braai (basically a BBQ, but a Saffa is wielding the tongs). While Springbok wasn't on the menu (the Irish had already killed 'em all) there was good food, and plenty of drink to be had.

And so to Sunday, and the central theme of this blog. I have decided to take a few hours each weekend to essentially get lost in London, and go see chunks of the city at a time. Essentially this involves getting off at a tube stop and going walkabout. This weekend I hopped off at Bond Street, and wandered through the West End, Soho, and Covent Garden.

Now, considering this part of London takes in Mayfair and various other hoity-toity locations, I can assure you, that after having walked through it, it would take a lot more than 400 dollars to buy Mayfair. Or even a small portion. Dressed in my somewhat shabby Reebok jumper and pants, I felt a bit out of place. Mind you, after seeing 15 Porsche 911's within the space of a kilometre, you get a bit blase towards the staggering amounts of wealth on offer. Bentley, Rolls, Ferrari, Lamborghinis - you get used to them after a while. The only thing that managed to turn my head was one of the three Koeniggsegg's in the UK, that nearly set Regent Street on fire as it roared by.

But the Soho district, well, that was something else. I was propositioned 3 times in the space of half a kilometre by various Asian slags - the usual "8 dollar, you gimme 8 dollar soldier boy" crap. Soho, for those unaware, is essentially the equivalent of Fortitude Valley in Brisbane, in terms of the sheer number of brothels, massage parlours and other houses of ill-repute. I observed a somewhat tubby (oh, fuck it, he was friggin' OBESE) gent who was walking ahead of me stepping inside one of these places, and that alone was enough to put me off my lunch.

After navigating this area, I moved on through Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, High Holborn, the Strand, Aldwych and Chancery Lane. Ultimately, there's not a huge amount of difference between these areas, as they're all part of the newer city, that is, that part of London that is outside of the old, olde city boundaries. Next week however, I plan to go and see the ancient part of London, that part that forms the original locale, so it should provide an interesting comparison.

And now, for today's dose of pixels.

This photo is of Selfridge's, which is one of the original and grandest department stores in Oxford High Street, the main shopping precinct in London. The thing you really notice about Oxford Street isn't so much the shopping as it is the amount of people crammed into it. Crowded is given a new definition when you're in Oxford Street on a Sunday.

To help alleviate the crowding on the roads, they cart Londoners around in these. Now, I cannot for the life of me understand why they brought in Bendy Buses in London when they have double decker buses everywhere. A double decker carries the same number of people, and yet takes up half the road space. Quite why they have these things I have no idea. They are one of the most despised things in London, according to recent surveys of Londoners.

The American embassy at the West End of Grosvenor Square. I hear that John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN is in London at the moment, which would explain the enormous motorcade that roared out of one of the side entrances as I was in the area.

At the east end of Grosvenor Square is the Canuk embassy. One does notice that the security level differs dramatically between these embassies, even though they are only separated by a few hundred metres of park. Evidently the Canadians have less to worry about.

A statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Grosvenor Square. One does wonder why the sculptor chose to depict Roosevelt as standing, when, given the fact he had was crippled by Polio for most of his life, a far more realistic approach would have been to depict him in a wheelchair.

I mean hell, Winston Churchill is always depicted with cigars and brandy, so why should Roosevelt be any different, in showing his frailties?

I walked past this theatre in the West End - the musical is apparently worth seeing, so it might be worth a look. They'll have a hard task matching up to the original movie though.

The entrance to the Royal Courts of Justice, better known as the "Old Bailey". For a courthouse, it certainly looks more like a cathedral than anything else.

And finally, one of the markers that designate the boundaries of the old city of London, and where the city walls used to stand. Although I've ventured into Bank and St Paul's already, I haven't seen the greater part of the old city, so I'm making that my task for next weekend.

For now though, stay warm (shouldn't be hard, back in Oz) and I'll see you next week, so to speak.

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November

2006-11-06T13:32:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that it is now currently the 6th of November, the timing of this post is in no way less diminished. This is for 2 reasons. Firstly, it's been at least 2 weeks since I last slapped myself into gear and updated this blog. Secondly, it may be the 6th of November, and some 24 hours after Guy Fawkes night, but that still hasn't stopped people from setting off fireworks in the nearby council reserve.

Those of you unfortunate enough to be on my msn list, and therefore tasked with entertaining me during my ever decreasing amount of downtime at work, will know that I've been using the subject line as my msn tag for some time now. Although this has more to do with an ongoing love for the movie V for Vendetta, as opposed to a genuine fascination with Guy Fawkes night, it hasn't stopped me shamelessly cribbing the line.

Moreover, I went to Battersea Park, and enjoyed the fireworks and bonfire there. The fireworks I have on movie, so I can't show them here, but I did get a few pictures as well. I actually took a lot more pictures than I actually ended up saving on my computer, but I must confess to being slightly inebriated at this point, primarily due to having been at the pub since 2pm to watch Australia draw with Wales in the rugby union. As penance, I'm having an alcohol free week for the next 7 days. I also grabbed a few videos - probably the best is one where I am filming the bonfire whilst speaking into the camera, and although I start reciting the verses of "Remember, Remember" in my normal voice, within 4 lines I have inexplicably changed my voice into a fairly accurate imitation of Winston Spencer Churchill.

Mind you, this is the same person who has been reliably informed to have walked off from the park afterwards and yelled "Jou Ma Se Pous" at various people, thankfully whom none of which from Cape Town, South Africa, otherwise I may not still be here.

(For those unaware, it's the most vile and terrible insult you can hurl at anyone in Afrikaans, particularly those from Cape Town. I blame Kim and Matthew for teaching it to me. Yes, you.)

Anyways, let's have some pictures.

Some of the crew from the Badger, who I went with to the fireworks display. Nick (another Aussie) is the guy with the glasses, while Dan the Canadian is crouched at his feet. Tania is standing on the far right, and considering she's from South Africa, may never speak to me again after the previously mentioned comments. Mind you, she put up with Anna for a time, so she's fairly forgiving. The other 2 girl's names are an indelible blank on my mind.

Dan wondering what the hell that flashy thing was that just exploded in his face.

Nick doing his patented "I'm looking over my glasses" expression, that makes him appear as though he is possibly the most drunken man alive.

We found a witch, may we burn her?

The fire gradually dies down.

In other news, I am gradually settling into my routine over here, and have just about hit my stride. I've stocked up on winter clothing - although I'll need another beanie after I lost mine on bonfire night - and work is proving more familiar. Lots of changes happening though, so I'll need to stay on my toes.

Pretty much the only thing that's giving me grief is the timing of sporting events over here. I'm a mad devotee of league, union, cricket - hell, anything where Australia takes to the field, and the timing of rugby games back in Oz means that I need to be at the pub by 8:30 am to catch them. And once you've had four pints by 10am, it kind of turns your day upside down.

God knows how I'll manage when the Ashes is on...12 pm start, for an 8am finish. Might have to limit viewing that except on the odd weekend.

Still, it's going to be a dead rubber after 3 games anyway, what with Australia winning the first three, so maybe it won't be so much of a commitment.

Well, I'll give it a rest at that, and I promise to change my msn tag in the near future.

The girl next door can rot in hell

2006-10-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

This being me, is not the age old story of the girl next door. In fact, she's not even my neighbour. Well, she is, but only for a certain period during the day. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

Basically, office space being at somewhat of a premium in England, our company shares an office with another company. We have half the floor, they have the other half. The traditional grey dividers march up and down the centre of the room, blocking access betwixt us.

While they block us from seeing each other, they do not, regrettably, block sound waves. I think you can see where this is heading.

Everyone on our side of the office is conscious of the noise we make. As is almost everyone on the other side of the office, bar one lady, who shall remain nameless.

Without putting too fine a point on it, this woman is appalling. She is obnoxious, has a laugh that would make Goofy blanch, feels the need to share her conversations with everyone within visual range and normally talks about subject matter that would be more familiar to patrons of Soho slap and tickle club, as opposed to a London office. Moreover, she's even managed to convert/lead astray most of the others over that side as well. I've been reliably informed that they were quiet as lambs until the human equivalent of a noise grenade landed in the midst of their office, and now they jabber away like so many lyrebirds, mimicing her behaviour.

Honestly, sometimes it's enough to make you want to go Van Gogh on your ears. In all fairness, it's not all the time, but remains constant enough just to move beyond an occasional irritance to a regular annoyance. It doesn't help that she's in possession of an accent that Dick van Dyke made sound larrikin and charming in Mary Poppins and yet after a few weeks is enough to make your ears bleed spotaneously.

I suppose I could retaliate by upping the Awwwwstraliana factor in my speech, but then I'd likely get defenestrated by the other Aussies, Kiwis and South Africans who make up the majority of the working populace in our office. More to the point, it still wouldn't shut her up.

My theory is that she's either shagging the boss or somehow does outstanding work when she's not jabbering away, because for the life of me I can't understand why she's still there.

Or maybe her behaviour is to be expected. We are talking about the English work ethic after all.

The Music of the (Monday) Night

2006-10-17T09:42:00.000-07:00

That's right folks. I finally made it down to the West End, to Her Majesty's Theatre, along with Nye, who's just passing through London, to see the following musical:

I had seen it once, about 13 years ago when it was showing in Brisbane, whereas Nye had never seen it before. It was a fantastic showing, and one gains a sense of the heritage this musical has, having been shown in the same theatre every night for over 20 years. 20 years on, and it still packs out the theatre every night, with hundreds of people coming along to witness a great musical show.

While certain lyrics had changed somewhat, and the Phantom, although fantastic, was not quite up to the standard of the incomparable Michael Crawford, it was still a show well worth seeing.

It was good to catch up with a familiar face as well, and be reassured that everyone hasn't forgotten me, or isn't still coming down after the highs of the "Thank Fuck he's gone" parties that undoubtedly spontaneously erupted upon my depature. Nye's stay here is pretty short - he's jetting off to New York on Wednesday morning, but I'm reliably assured that Captain Irish, the protestant bastard extraordinaire will be sweeping me up in his cloverleaf wake off to Ireland, in order to brighten up Christmas by inflicting me upon his undeserving relatives.

Actually, to fit in I'll probably need to be hitting the Guinness by 8am, so maybe I'll be ok after all.

This weekend should be a cracker - got a gathering to attend at the Canadian Bar on Friday night for Nick of Badger fame, so should be a good night of Ice Hockey and Sleeman's honey malt beer. Saturday will see me at the Walkabout to watch what is sure to be another fiery clash between the Australians and the Kiwis in the Rugby League Tri-Nations, and I might even make it to somewhere touristy this weekend - depends on how wellied I get on Friday and Saturday.

May have to give it a miss in favour of spending a portion of my stash of sterling on winter clothing - the weather is getting to the point where it's becoming harder and harder to put it off.

On that chilly note, I bid you all farewell.

Global Warming

2006-10-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

One issue that always makes an appearance in the English papers (particularly the London papers) is the issue of how England is gradually getting hotter. While the definition of hot is entirely relative - the poms think 25 degrees and higher is a scorcher - it is undoubtedly true that the climate in England is warming up.

This is a big deal in London, especially since the current mayor of London, one Ken Livingstone, is a raving left-wing ratbag with a pathological hatred of anything that has the potential to cause damage to the environment. Unsurprisingly, global warming is pretty high on his shitlist as a result.

Now, while the English are generally apathetic to the onset of global warming, I can provide them with a very good reason as to why they need to take action swiftly. See, your average pom isn't too fussed by slightly warmer weather. They see it as a good excuse to go down to Hyde Park, remove their shirt and barbecue their back. But, I can assure you, the cold weather is a superb repellent for those of us of an antipodean origin. This is what Englanders should be concerned about. The only thing preventing Aussies, Kiwis and Saffas from invading England en masse is the fact that the winter here is purportedly enough to make one's testicles shrivel up and die. I haven't experienced a winter here yet, but I have been assured the weather here is fucking cold. Although I won't be rushing to Heathrow clutching an airline ticket the moment the mercury hits 5 degrees or less, the cold weather is somewhat offputting.

And this is why England, for the sake of Englanders, needs to take immediate action against rising temperatures. Once England becomes a land of hot summers and mild winters, the climate in London will be no different to the glorious weather one encounters in Brisbane, Cape Town and Auckland. As a result, England will be invaded, nay engulfed, by those of us from the glorious Southern Hemisphere. The last barrier against massive antipodean immigration will be removed. So, unless England wants to see even more of us waving flags and belting out Pommy Bastard chants whenever we're bending them over in the Rugby, they would do well to pay heed to climate change.

Tube Etiquette

2006-10-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't want anyone to have anyone staring at my depressing sickbed rant any longer than they have to when they open up my blog, so I think it's time I turn my mind to something that has intrigued me ever since I first stepped, bleary-eyed, onto a Piccadilly Line train from Heathrow.

I mean, let's cut to the chase. The tube, compared to other transport icons, is an institution, as I made reference to in an earlier blog. Anything that has existed for this long will inevitably accrue certain conditions, or a modus operandi, if you will. Therefore, for those of you considering visiting London in the future, allow me therefore to outline some of the commandments that await you once you've minded the gap and stepped onto the hallowed, grime stained floor of an underground carriage.

Seats are Holy.

Indeed they are. Given that a standard tube carriage will have over 100 people in it when it's busy, and about 30 will be sitting down, tops, any time a seat near you becomes vacant it is your sacred duty to ensure that the resulting space remains vacant for the shortest time as possible. Blocking fellow contenders for the seat, using your bag or umbrella (I swear some people carry them solely for this purpose) is perfectly acceptable, as is barging past someone who is patiently waiting for the person getting up to fully extricate themselves and their belongings before they sit down. If you take the same attitude as you would to getting a carpark at a supermarket on Super Sales Sunday, you won't go far wrong. The moral equivalent of parking in the handicapped zone and faking cerebal palsy as you walk into the store is basically what you're looking to achieve on the tube.

Avoid Eye Contact.

Even though in rush hour you will be shoulder to shoulder with the great unwashed of England, listening to a tinny version of Verve due to reverb on the IPod of the person behind you, people on either side of you breathing heavily, and the person in front of you reading a paper - YOU MUST NEVER MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH ANYONE. You know you're a hardened cellar dwellar when you can stare right through the skull of the person 10 centimetres in front of you, and pretend to be fascinated in one of Ken Livingstone's London - ONE CITY posters that plaster every tube carriage.

In the same vein, you must also avoid conversation if at all possible. I had an occasion where I accidentally stood on the toe of someone's foot - and instead of saying to me "OWWWWW" or "Excuse Me" or even "Do you mind" she sat there and brushed at my pants for what must have been five minutes in retrospect. I stood there from Swiss Cottage to Bond Street, through 3 stations, looking at my feet and wondering where that draught was coming from and why it was hitting the back of my leg. It was only when she followed through on one and smacked my calf that I looked behind me and saw a glowering face, eyes red with hatred and pain. It was all I could do not to laugh, as I ever so slightly repositioned my size 12 boot, to avoid cutting off further circulation to her toes.

Turnstile Protocol

When one approaches the turnstiles, it is imperative that you should have everything ready to go. Whether you're on a ticket, or an oyster card, woe betide the person who fails to open the gates on the first time. Given that there will you usually be anywhere between 1-25 people behind you (depending on whether you're at Willesden Green at midnight or Knightsbridge at 8:30am), any faltering in getting through the gates will result in any (or all) of the following occurring...

You'll either get the person behind you barging into your back, as they assume you were going to get through, a la the rear end car accidents you always get on turn left at any time slip lanes in Australia, when the person in front goes forward and then stops. Alternatively, you'll get angry looks from the people behind you for delaying them for a good 3 seconds as you extricate yourself from the turnstile and head over to the underground help desk, where a bored attendant just tells you to go through the luggage entrance without checking your card.

The other alternative is to just assume your card will always work and hit the gates with the full force of your body at the same time as you swipe your card, so whether you get a green or red light, you're going through regardless. If you want to eschew brute force in favour of cunning, you can always line up behind someone else who has an oyster card, and follow closely behind them, with a perfunctory tap on the card reader for show. You'll be through before the gates close. While I don't recommend fare dodging on the tube, and don't practice it myself, it can be done by a truly stingy and determined person.

No Talking

And finally, perhaps the most sacred rule of all. The Sistine Chapel might have a no talking policy, but no-one ever listens to it. Anyone trying to find God in the chapel would have a hard time hearing him over the hubbub of American accents and general muttering that exists. However, if Michaelangelo had painted Adam in the buff on the ceiling of the 8:20am tube from Kilburn to Green Park, I can guarantee you wouldn't hear a damn thing, apart from the tortured screams of the wheel bearings as the train negotiates the curves in the track.

While talking on the tube is accepted at certain times - 12:00am on a Saturday morning springs to mind, particularly when pissed - on a weekday and during working hours, the cone of silence reigns supreme. Everyone strives desperately to avoid seeing that there are in fact one hundred other people around them, and concentrates on studying that poster of Livingstone's, or takes an unusual interest in just how much floor lint they've managed to accumulate on their shoe.

They actually have a day dedicated to conversing on the Tube in November, a day when people are supposed to start conversations. Should be an interesting experience.

Ideally, the perfect tube traveller should be a person who brings a fold out chair with them, is blind, has a travelcard valid for the next 3 decades and who is a mute. Such is the manner of the overlord of the London Underground. Follow in his footsteps and you won't go far wrong.

Long time no see

2006-10-08T08:36:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be brief in this blog for entry for two reasons, both of which explain the other.

1.) I haven't got anything to write about, and
2.) I'm sick.

Because I've been down with a bad cold since Wednesday, the last few days have basically consisted of me coughing and sneezing, getting through two days of work while trying to prevent the fever behind my eyeballs consuming my retinas, and now lying in bed for pretty much the entire weekend reading and sleeping.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say this has probably been the week I've enjoyed least in my time over here. A combination of being sick, which always guarantees to bring your spirits down, along with a bout of homesickness, what with the grand finals happening back home, the beginning of six months of cold weather here, the knowledge I'm going to miss seeing the Ashes etc etc.

Well, I shouldn't mope too much. Apart from this week things have been pretty good, so that's what I need to focus on.

Sorry for being miserable, but I needed to get this off my chest.

Healthy, Wealthy and Nigeria

2006-09-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

For those of you expecting Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, I'm sorry. There is no fat bastard flogging Bi-Lo supermarket products. Seek elsewhere if such is your fancy. For those of you with an interest in my latest rant, read on.

Thus far I've chalked up almost two months in my new found employ as an insurer of all things medical and health related.

In this time I have learned 3 things.

Healthy - How important it is to be so.
Wealthy - Why this is even more important.
Nigeria - How much I hate this lying, cheating, fraudulent shithole.

Firstly, the health side of things. Let me just say, that nothing has given more of an incentive to maintain my long term health and get fit, than some of the medical reports I read in this job. As I was saying to my mother on the telephone the other week - she of the gimlet eye when it comes the saturated fat in the meal - it is astonishing how bad so many people have let their health become. She concurred, and in the same breath demanded to know what I'd had for lunch. (A Marks and Spencer sandwich, if you must know.)

I've lost count of the number of applications I've filed which include words such as high blood pressure, diabetes, obese BMI and suchlike. Unhealthiness seems to be a given amongst people these days. I mean, I even had a guy submit an application who'd had a heart valve replacement and was still smoking 10 a day. Declined, of course. I mentioned it in passing to Chirpy, he of the medical expertise, who gave, in my estimation, a very sound medical opinion.

"Yeah, he's gonna die."

And that's the thing. A lot of this job is looking at people who are ticking time bombs, people who are going to die in their 50's. The trick to remaining profitable is to pick the ones who are duds, or those which have a long enough timer that you manage to extract sufficient cash out of them before they turn up their toes.

Heartless? Perhaps. We are an insurance company after all. It's to be expected.

This brings me on to wealthy. I don't really have a lot to say about being wealthy except to say that if you're sufficiently wealthy you'll be able to afford hospital treatment without needing insurance. So, it doesn't matter if you have the physique of Marlon Brando in his dotage, the appetite for alcohol of Winston Churchill and the eating habits of Elvis in his final years - provided you have the money of Bill Gates it doesn't matter, because you won't need to deal with tie wearing nob-ends like me who'd like nothing matter to slam a declined stamp on your paperwork because you're a fat bastard.

And finally, the last point to make. I HATE NIGERIANS.

This may seem kind of strong. But, let me explain. Some of you, may have received what is described as a spam email over the years. Perhaps it was one whereby someone offered to send you money, via bank transfer, because you had miraculously come into some vast fortune which some solicitor in Nigeria was offering to you.

See, this is the thing. In Nigeria, they buy old computers. Hard drives included. Even if the Hard drive has been formatted, they can still recover credit card information off these hard drives. Which they then use - and I am still at a loss to understand why - to buy health insurance. From us.

Therefore, I get a series of charming emails, all in caps lock, which follow the usual pattern.

- HELLO I LIKE TO BUY HEALTH COVER PLEASE TO RESPOND I THANK YOU FOR SPEAK TO ME I AM 26 AND LIVE IN NIGERIA

Now, I'm not going to type every example out in full. But the gist is as follows:

- Introduction from Nigerian.
- Response from us, saying we require the following information.
- Nigerian advises of all information, except for one critical point.
- Request from us for critical point.
- Critical point provided and bullshit about needing application asap and can we skip normal procedure
- Cold, humourless reply from us, advising of application process.
- Application form submitted by Nigerian, normally missing information.
- Reply from us, stating that credit card details supplied with form are under a different name.
- Nigerian advises us to call number he provides, saying card belongs to (Insert relative here.)
- We call number and get someone who doesn't speak English living in some shithole in downtown Lagos.
- Advise Nigerian we won't accept credit card payment.
- Nigerian provides new card, this time in "his name".
- We take payment.
- We receive letter one month later from Barclays Bank, advising transaction is fraudulent.
- We refund money to bank and deny all claims.
- We shred all documents and send rude emails to Nigerian advising of cancellation.

Actually, I'm not sure why we even take business from Nigeria. All of it, at least that from native Nigerians has all been bollocks, in my experience. If I ever start an insurance company I will specifically include NO NIGERIANS in the policy wording.

So, there you have it. Healthy, Wealthy and Nigeria.

Hammond's Down! Bring on the Beards

2006-09-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

Being a huge fan of the BBC motoring program Top Gear, it was with shock and sadness that I read in the papers that Richard “Hamster” Hammond, the diminutive co-host, had come unstuck and suffered serious injury during a stunt where he was driving a jet propelled car at a speed of close to 300mph.

I was far less shocked however to almost immediately hear the weasel words emanating from various cardigan wearing types with facial hair, barely pausing to grunt a few words of condolence for Hammond before immediately berating him and the show with the biggest stick they could find.

It’s no secret that Top Gear acts a beacon, attracting hatred from lefties like the xenon headlamps on the new Jaguar XK attract insects. Some of the expressions used to describe the show include “loutish” “laddish” “”environmentally damaging” and the most common description I see in relation to Top Gear, “irresponsible.”

It is this last word that is being bandied about with gay abandon in the aftermath of Hammond’s crash, with renewed calls for Top Gear to be slowed down, or replaced altogether. I recall one of the most inane suggestions was from a bunch of bus riding beardies calling themselves Transport 2000, who wanted Top Gear replaced with a more environmentally friendly show called Third Gear, after Jeremy Clarkson killed some moss by driving over it in a Land Rover Discovery. Others have started crying wolf about the prospect of Top Gear’s army of hooded Halford’s heroes imitating further crazy stunts on the program, leading to, presumably, mass outbreaks of anti-social driving on Britain’s highways and by-ways. (Might be a bit late there chaps.)

I earn 10 pounds an hour. I know this seems random, but bear with me. I earn 10 pounds an hour. Some would call that a princely sum, others would scoff at my destitution. Regardless of your personal views, it provides me with the necessary funds to lead a comfortable lifestyle here in London.

However, it’s not really the sort of financial backing one needs in order to own and drive a Porsche 911. I don’t think it would go far towards purchasing a Maserati Quatroportte. In fact I think I’d struggle to even hire a Ferrari 430. I watch Top Gear, for the precise reason that it offers up cars and entertainment that is completely unachievable for me, in this life, or any other. I get to see cars I know full well I will never drive, I get to see stunts I could never do myself, or even attempt to do myself, and I am thoroughly entertained as a result.

The day I turn on my TV and find myself confronted by the spectre of some cardigan wearing twerp with his voice muffled by a beard trying to educate me on the joys of driving an Vauxhall Astra Diesel, or the various ways in which I can coax as many mpg from my Citroen C1 as possible, will be the day that I admit surrender to the PC brigade and summarily purchase a bicycle with solar powered headlamp.

The problem is that they just don’t get it. Top Gear doesn’t encourage lunatic driving. They do that for us, so we don’t have to. It’s as simple as that. So get well Richard, please get well. The show, and the collective health of this country’s driving populace are depending on you.

'Tis the season of our discontent

2006-09-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare might very well have been writing of the London Underground.

I am still getting used to the regularity of delays on the tube, because some twit has decided to end it all by lobbing themselves in front of two hundred tons of London Underground rolling stock. While an undeniably effective way of bringing one's life to a swift and messy termination, it also tends to lead to the termination of all tube service on the line in question for a few hours, while they clean up the mess. The latest incident happened at Hyde Park Corner only last week, and there's usually one or two each week. They even have a pre-recorded announcement for it on the loudspeaker system for christ's sake. For example:

"There is no service on the Jubilee Line between Finchley Park and Baker Street due to a person under the train at Swiss Cottage."

My view on this is that, try as they might, there is no way for London Underground to stop these selfish bastards for throwing themselves in front of trains, should they so choose. Therefore, what I propose is that there should be a designated suicide station. Somewhere out of the way - on the East London line for example. Have a station which just has a single train, running up and down the platform. Disconnect it from the main line. That way, people can jump in front of it at their leisure, without inconveniencing the rest of life-loving-Londoners. The track could be equipped with drains and a sprinkler system, to make sure the bodies don't pile up too much.

I mean, if it's going to happen anyway, why not embrace the idea? Given that I've been reliably informed that winter is the time when most people choose to top themselves on the tube (something about the cold being depressing) there's no time to waste.

I tell you, I don't know what Ken Livingstone (Mayor of London) would do without me.

In other news this week, I went to St Paul's Cathedral. Well worth the visit - it truly is a phenomenal building. The dome is staggeringly huge, both from the inside and the outside, and the artwork inside the Cathedral proper is also brilliant.

Beneath the Cathedral, down in the Crypt, lie some of the greatest figures in English history. Admirals Jellicoe and Beatty, of Jutland fame; Arthur Wellington, the Iron Duke, victor of Waterloo and conquerer of Napoleon; Sir Christopher Wren, Royal architect and designer of St Paul's - but pride of place is undoubtedly reserved for Lord Admiral Nelson, the Hero of Trafalgar and England's greatest ever naval officer. Prior to his death, he had been offered a plot in Westminster Abbey - for when the time came. Nelson declined, as he believed Westminster Abbey was sinking into the Thames, and would eventually collapse, opting instead for St Paul's cathedral.

While that prediction has not come true, Nelson's stature is not diminished in any way by his decision - his massive coffin lies in perpetual state, surrounded by paintings depicting him in a definite Christ-like manner at his death.

Above the crypt, you also have the option of climbing up to the top of the dome, via a rabbit warren of stairs and passages. I found it quite amusing to hear a Yank complaining and puffing about the lack of lifts in the Cathedral.

Well, despite his undoubted brilliance, I doubt that even Sir Christopher Wren could have predicted that 300 years after it's completion, his masterpiece would be swarmed over by obese McDonalds munching tourists from, as they were known as in 1710, the American colonies. If he did know, you could hear the whirring noise coming from his coffin as he spun at high speed.

Although you can't take photos inside the Cathedral or Crypt itself, I've got some decent shots of the view from the top and of the Cathedral itself.

Enjoy.

This is the Bank of England, which gives name to the Station in the city centre of London. The actual building itself is surrounded by the gigantic wall you see in front of shot, stretching around the entirety of the building.

Evidently security doesn't seem to be a problem.

Quite possibly the most elaborate direction sign I've ever seen. These are unique to Bank underground station. I love it.

The massive dome of St Paul's Cathedral. After walking through the claustrophobic medieval sized inner streets of central London it's quite something to walk suddenly around a corner and have this staring at you.

The front of the Cathedral.

The view from the top. This is of the City financial district - faintly through the distance you can also see the towers of Canary Wharf. The odd shaped building is known formally as the Swiss RE Building, or, more commonly and informally - "The Gherkin."

One thing you notice is that for a city of this size, it doesn't have as many skyscrapers or high rises as you might expect. The main reason for this is the building I was standing on when I took the last photo. Every building in London is only approved provided that it does not affect, interfere with or diminish the view and location of St Paul's Cathedral. It's good to see London is paying such due care and attention to preserve its heritage.

Now if only they'd stop taking such care, attention and above all else, time, when dealing with corpses of tube suicide victims. Just deploy the damn fire hose and get things running again. A 2 hour closure in peak hour to scrape some bastard off the tracks is just criminal.

Anyways, on that rather macabre note I'll leave you to it - until next time.

The Reprieve

2006-09-14T04:17:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update folks - previously we had the death sentence, and now we have the last minute reprieve.

I hasten to assure you that I have not renegged on my decision and am now keeping the Corolla - it's still going to be dismantled - but it is going to live on, in a different guise.

To explain, young Meakin, the man with his plan to revive the battered '39 Chevy as a hotrod, is in need of components and bits of wiring and whatnot. My car has this in abundance, so, he has spoken to me, and in turn, the car will be brought to Chateau Meakin in Samford where it will be gradually ripped apart for bits and pieces.

Sentenced to Death

2006-09-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

I must say, it's an interesting experience to pass the sentence of death.

And no, I'm not referring to the liver transplant claim we rejected the other day at work, although that will undoubtedly have a similar effect sooner or later.

No, this was on something that I loved, and that's provided me with many happy years of entertainment. Despite this, I forced myself to consider the issue in the dispassionate and emotionless manner for which I am somewhat renowned, and reached the correct decision. I stood firm against the raging tsunami of sentimentality that would have swamped a man of lesser emotional resolve, and came to the unavoidable conclusion. Within a few minutes of discussing the issue, I had made my decision, and turned my back on the fate of the condemned, immune to its cries for mercy.

My decision would not be revoked.

The Corolla must die.

Yes, that's right folks. You heard it here first. I am officially deregistering my car, and it is to be scrapped. Well, to be honest, I'd much rather it be dumped at my grandfather's farm, along with the 50 odd other ruined cars that have been owned by my relatives, but the old man - he of Civil War travel fame - is the executioner to my judge and jury on this one, and it is his decision as to how and where the axe shall fall.

Seriously though, it's the right decision. I mean, it had pretty much had it. It was by far the crappiest car amongst the various four wheel machines owned by my friends - I for the life of me, am struggling to think of a shittier, more underpowered and veritable bomb of a car than mine, at least amongst the people I know. So, rather than pay for another six months of rego and third party for a car that might get used once a month, it's being consigned to the junkyard.

I bought it 5 and a half years ago, for the princely sum of $2500, and have chalked up about 90000 kilometres on it, so it's not like I didn't get my money's worth. It survived the perils and pitfalls that come with delivering pizzas for Dominos Strathpine (unlike it's predecessor - fucking drink drivers), it survived Laura cracking the head gasket, it shouldered the burden of my Tuba, Meakin and a carton of beer many times (and frequently all at the same time) and never complained once, although it had a nasty habit of incontinence when it came to power steering fluid.

It even survived me backing it into Dad's Landcruiser, and I managed to convince him the resulting dent on my car (yeah, like the Landcruiser took damage) was a result of someone hitting in a supermarket for over two years before I 'fessed up.

The car's given me a lot of memories. It's been on coast trips, Samford drives, LAN's, band excursions, many a road trip, drive throughs and christ knows what else. I think it's greatest achievement was when it negotiated Mount Glorious up and down on the way back from Lake Wivenhoe. My greatest achievement occurred at the same time, which was that I didn't garrot Alex Maltby on the same trip, who was riding beside me.

And now, it's time has come. Farewell.

*Calls for a minute's silence*

*Fidgets and looks at watch*

Well, close enough. With that said, I shall conclude by giving you a sneak peak of what car I have my eye on when I eventually return from this beleagured isle...

The Honda Integra Type R.

Meakin isn't the only one who can buy an oddball car.

News from home

2006-09-10T07:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought, just for a change, rather than talking about what's been going on over here, I'd dwell on events from home, since I'd wager that it's been a more eventful week in Queensland than it has been for me in London.

(Summary - Worked 5 days, watched wallabies lose, spent most of today resting and reading. House is fine. Everyone nice. The end.)

However, I've managed to keep track of what's been happening back home, and to be honest, I am somewhat annoyed. Not at the untimely demise of Steve Irwin or Peter Brock - no, what really gets my goat is the election.

I should advise, the rest of this post is going to be about politics, so if you care not for the goings-on in George Street, feel free to switch off.

Anyway.

I never thought that the Coalition would win the election. They didn't deserve to, and they shouldn't have won it. They're patently not ready for government, they lack experienced members and are yet to sort out the persistent infighting that has dogged them every step of the way. But imagine my astonishment when I check the election results online, and find that Beattie still retained 60 seats.

I'm not blaming Queensland voters. As I said, I wouldn't want to see the Coalition running the place just yet. But we're talking about a Labor party government that has been rocked by scandal after scandal. We had Dr Death in Bundaberg, the Palm Island riots, Liddy Clark bringing booze into restricted areas and the whole state is running out of water. The scene was set for the mother of all protest votes. And yet it didn't happen. Because the people of Queensland had no option but to vote Labor.

I mean, look at the Coalition. Specifically, the Liberal Party. Just prior to the election, they concoct a shabby party-room deal that would have made the Federal Liberal party of the 1980's proud. They dump Bob Quinn, and bring in Bruce Flegg, a man much more suited to giving diagnoses of patients, rather than a diagnosis of Queensland's electoral issues. The man has all the appeal and poise of an illiterate Lebanese garbage worker. I read some articles and watched some video footage online - it was almost painful to see this bespectacled little tool striding about the place, putting his foot in it with every step he took. He was completely at the mercy of Labor's experienced campaign team, and they made no errors in chewing him up and spitting him out.

It would be remiss not to mention Lawrence Springborg, a man who was born, is, and will die, a boring old turd. You could see from early on in the campaign he'd pretty much packed it in. I mean, what's the point in the National party leader campaigning in bush seats dominated by farmers? The Nationals would piss it in anyway - no matter who their candidate was. But, the only decent political performer the Nationals have was out in bush seats, leaving Flegg and his lackeys to be eaten alive in Brisbane.

What should have happened, and what would have been ideal for the Coalition, was that they pick up about 10-12 seats, specifically, seats in Brisbane and the South-East corner. Not enough to tip Beattie's government out, but enough to give them a strong presence in Parliament, and blood some new MP's, giving them valuable experience. It would also mean they'd have a decent chance of getting in in three year's time.

But from the looks of it they've made scarcely any improvements. At least they managed to evict that clueless strumpet Liddy Clark from Clayfield. But Parliament remains essentially unchanged - Labor still dominates, and will almost certainly win again next time. The Nationals and the Liberals still have the same bunch of old political hacks and farmers that have been wasting time there since the 90's, and are going nowhere fast. The worst news, in my opinion, was that Michael Caltabiano, the one shining light for the Liberals, looks set to lose his seat to Chris fucking Bombolas, the goddamn sports reporter. Without him still around to have a tilt at the leadership, we're going to be faced with yet more Bruce Flegg on our TV screens, walking around like the clueless git he is.

I swear, if Kim Beazley gets in next year, I am not coming back.

Walmart for Pakis

2006-09-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

Last night, I had a shopping experience so surreal it was indeed blogworthy.

Well, firstly, I should add that I was able to shop. This is because I have been both paid, and have received my debit card from Barclays. (Finally.) So, with money burning a hole in my pocket, and my legs freezing at night because I hadn’t been able to buy any bedding, I ventured down to a store known as Matalan.

I think perhaps the best way to summarise this store is to say that it’s Walmart for Pakis. Pretty much the whole store was full of women in purdah showing nothing but their eyes, kids trashing the place and Paki husbands all sitting around while their wives roamed around loading up the trolleys with wholesale clothes, bedding and various other items. The service is non-existent – it took about 20 minutes of standing in line before I was served. Part of the problem is that the Paki people there (and everywhere) are notoriously stingy – one bloke was even haggling over the cost of a bedding package.

But at the end of the day I got out of there, having spent 40 quid and carrying over 100 quid’s worth of bedding.

Sweet dreams.

Living it up in Golder's Green

2006-09-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

And by living it up, I mean I am living upstairs.

It's been a fairly hectic weekend. I finally moved out of the Barmy Badger, and am now living at a place in Cotswold Gardens, in the suburb of Golders Green, which, for all intents and purposes is sort of inner North London. I'm sharing the house with 3 other people - a South African guy, a Korean lady and a Ukrainian lady. Everyone seems reasonably quiet and tidy, the house is nice enough, public transport is close by, it's not that far from work - all in all I think I've fallen on my feet here. Mind you, it helped to be a bit choosy. Given that the Badger was a nice enough place, it meant I could stay there as long as I needed to before moving out.

Still, there is something very very satisfying about being able to shut the door and know that this is your room, and you're not going to have someone else barging in to get at their stuff, or what have you.

So, this is my new home. It's open to dossers as well, so, if anyone from back home gets that itch beneath their feet and finds themselves standing in Heathrow airport wondering where the hell they're going to stay, worry no longer, for you can crash here for a week or so till you find your feet.

Work has been proceeding apace - we're finally catching up on all the renewals and plowing our way through the immense backlog of stuff that has piled up over the understaffed months that existed before I arrived. Very enjoyable.

Apart from the move to Golder's Green, the only other episode of note was the massive party that went down at the Badger on Friday night. Parties there had been in short supply for some time from all accounts, due to the presence of a miserable old bag next door who complained at the drop of a hat. However, she has been "dealt with" - therefore the stage was set for a big outdoor piss-up in the backyard.

It was good to catch up with people that I'd seen, but hadn't really talked too much to. I also became very good at singing the old song, for example, if we're singing to Steve:

Here's to brother Steve, brother Steve, brother Steve
Here's to brother Steve, who's with us today.
He's happy, he's jolly, he'll drink piss by golly
So here's to brother Steve who's with us today!
So drink motherfucker, drink motherfucker etc etc

It's amazing how entertaining it is after everyone is well smashed.

Anyways, for the photos. Firstly, the house!

This is my room - the bed is pretty comfortable, and surprisingly, long enough as well. It's small, but it's at a good price, and I've no doubt I'll be sufficiently comfortable and whatnot while I'm here.

The front of the house. My room is above the front door, with the open window. The house is a standard terrace job - we have the right hand side and the owner lives in the left hand side. Seems a nice enough old geezer though, so I don't anticipate any issues.

We have Clinton on the left, who despite wearing a Hawthorn beanie is a bona fide South African. In the middle we have Steve the Kiwi, and finally we have Ian, who also hails from South Africa.

On the left we have Kieran, and on the right a guy from Tasmania whose name escapes me. In true Aussie style, Kieran finished the night by getting arrested for indecent exposure. The cops found him, blind drunk, taking a slash against the tyres of a Porsche Boxster, and when they asked him to put it away he waved it at them. Not the best response in history, it must be said.

Here we have Nick and Melissa - I can't remember who the guy behind them was. Nick's a champ though, and always good value. I shared a 4 bed room with Melissa early in the piece until I was moved down the hall. She's also good value, but had a bad night of it, since she got intoxicated to the point of throwing up in the hall and passing out on the stairs. Still, such is life.

Random badger dwellers.

And finally, the Sleeman's pint glass I swiped from the King's Head hotel. I figure it will come in handy at future LAN's or drinkathons - you could fit enough Coke/Beer in it to keep you going for half an hour.

Well, I think that about does it for this, my first blog entry from the new house. Pretty much the only downside is that I have to be up half an hour earlier to get to work, but that's a minor issue compared to how much better it is to have my own room again.

On her Majesty's Drunken Service

2006-08-31T00:57:00.000-07:00

The mission: To bid farewell to Donovan, he of South African fame, and one of the three other people who share the room with me at the hostel, for he was returning to Johannesburg.
The crew: About 25 people from the Barmy Badger's Backpackers.
The location: The King's Head Tavern.

Being a tuesday night, and, because I'm trying to decrease my tolerance on great liver killing draughts of beer to keep my going, I moderated somewhat, finishing only a few pints. I figured some degree of moderation was required because A) I had work the next day and B) the bar was being set pretty high by everyone else in the hostel. At one point there was a few blokes drinking triple rum and cokes. Captain Morgan's rum at that. Yikes.

But all in all it was a good night. It's probably the only aspect of the hostel I will miss, namely, the social scene. It's a pretty good bunch here, all things considered. One of them, a Canadian geezer named Dan, talked me into trying a Canadian beer that was on tap called Sleeman's Honey Brown Lager. Pretty good stuff. The glass it comes in had to be seen to believed - so I stole it, and smuggled it out in my jacket at the end of the night. I'll include a photo in my end of week round-up.

Anyways, the wash-up of the night was that Donovan got extremely drunk and actually stayed the night at Liz's (the hostel owner) place, due to vomiting profusely and generally being a complete pisswreck. Sounds familiar for some reason. I got home, glass in hand. And one of the residents made a promise, and signed a contract that we drew up on the back of a dinner menu. Namely, that he would shag KFC Liz, a rather unattractive lass with a pot belly, who subsists on the fast food that forms part of her name and occupies the couch in front of the TV on a permanent basis - in exchange for a week's rent. 90 pounds isn't anywhere near enough to stoke that particular fire. For those in the band, think that percussionist who used to wear real foxes for shoes. For those from St Paul's, think Casey Maine. And for those of you not from either of those organisations, think Kim Beazley in drag.

On that mental image, I bid you adieu.

Time to restore some order

2006-08-28T02:41:00.000-07:00

Hey diggers,

I am somewhat disappointed with myself, to be perfectly honest.

I promised myself that I would ensure that this blog was updated regularly, and now I find myself writing the first entry in over a week. However, one does need to be realistic. I mean, during the week there's not a lot to write about. There's only so much you can talk about without becoming repetitive. Therefore, in the spirit of compromise, what I have decided to do is this. I shall post a major update each weekend, without fail. This will have in it a summary of everything of interest or note that has happened to me on the weekend, with pictures if possible. For the three of you still out there reading this, what this will mean is that you only need to check on the weekend, rather than be disappointed because the lazy British bound slob hasn't bothered to put fingers to keyboard during the week.

That's not to say that there won't be updates during the week. If something of note happens that simply must be made public, it'll go up.

Anyways, moving right along...

For those of you unaware, this weekend is a long weekend. Bank holiday on the Monday you see. It's exactly the same as a public holiday in Australia except that there's no particular reason for having it. The 28th August was not a day when Britain was discovered, fought it's first major war, the workers parade, the Queen chalks another year up - nothing like that. It's just an excuse for everyone to shut up shop.

With that in mind, I spent Saturday at the pub. Most of the people from work (well, 4 out of the 5 other people I work with) are South Africans or New Zealanders. Hence I came along to the Walkabout Hotel at Temple tube station to watch the All Blacks carve up the Springboks. Not a bad game of rugby, all things considered. The All Blacks certainly put on a good show. It's always tough to beat South Africa at home, particularly playing at the altitude of Pretoria. After that I made my way to a different pub, this one just near Charing Cross, to meet up with some folks from a Warhammer forum I frequent in England. While it wasn't as big as it could have been, due to some cancellations and conflicts, I still managed to catch up with a very affable chap and enjoyed a few pints with him as well.

Sunday was a day of routine stuff - had a look at a house up at Cricklewood, which is in inner north london, near Hampstead Heath. Not a bad place - quite cheap, reasonably close to work. The person who was at home to show me around seemed really friendly as well. There are 2 rooms on offer here so hopefully I'll get one. Will find out early this week. I must say I've grown to enjoy the Badger - once you've been there for a few weeks, the residents stop treating you with the disdain reserved for the "randoms" and start speaking to you. Which is nice. Met some nice people there. I still want my own room though, hence the desire to move out. Plus a house would be cheaper.

Well, I might leave it at that - Monday has dawned grey and rainy, however a brief cessation in the rain means that this is as probably as good a time as any to make a run for it back to the Badger.

Later diggers, and I shall see you anon.

Adjusting

2006-08-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

I think I made some vague promise about photos in my last blog entry. I can't remember. I was intending to head out to Camden Town this weekend and get some photos of the markets, but a combination of inclement weather plus a long list of things to do thwarted that noble aim. I do have some photos, just not many. But hey, better than nothing.

I think I'm finally starting to get into the swing of things here. One of the ladies at work made a comment along the lines of "You don't control what you do London, it controls you." It's a fairly apt description really. This city is so huge, so varied, so busy that you can't possibly hope to organise your whole life, the way you do, in say, Brisbane. Best just to go with the flow. Hence my decision to remain at the hostel until I've settled in and gotten everything organised in terms of bank accounts etc. Speaking of which, I managed to get that sorted out on Friday, so I will have an account by Tuesday, and a card by next Friday. Score. I also managed to get myself a UK mobile simcard, so, for those few of you who feel the urge to ring my Australian number (as Rowdy did at 3:20am) don't bother, since the simcard is currently sitting inside my passport, gathering dust.

One of the things I have adapted to surprisingly well is the absence of a car. I mean, you drive pretty much everywhere in Australia, whereas here in London a lot of people don't even own one. I don't know how crash hot I will be when I finally get back behind the wheel of a car (with emphasis on the crash) but we shall see. Undoubtedly part of the reason I'm so comfortable without one is the fact that every day I walk to Earl's Court station, and every day I am considerably faster to the station than the cars crawling along on the road beside me. That's the rationale I use whenever I walk past an Aston, or a Ferrari, stuck in gridlock. "Well, he may be able to do 0-100 in 3 seconds, but I bet he can't remember the last time he was able to."

I don't want to get all philosophical, but I believe that this is all part of adapting to London life. Understanding, and accepting that it is a very different place to anywhere else you've ever been. You need to accept that you're a tiny little speck of meat in the gigantic melting pot that is London, and while you're here, you need to play the game. Certainly since I've started work, and gotten into a routine of sorts, I've come to think of myself as a resident, and not so much a tourist. I've started to feel like I really belong here.

I have a job I enjoy, money to my name, a place to stay - what else could I need?

Well, a great many things, but that's besides the point.

Moving right along....

The brown building looming up in the centre of shot is Harrods. Actually, looking at this photo now, I don't like it. I'll get another one at some point. Promise. But anyway, it's Harrods, there's only one and everything is insanely priced.

Actually, I'll get a night-time shot of it. The evening lighting is pretty cool.

My desk at work. It's certainly nicer than the rabbit warren set up they had at AAMI.

And that's it. Yes. Piss poor I know.

Anyways, have a good one.

Note to self: Be more upbeat

2006-08-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

It's what the readers want, after all. Besides, if I start being a misery guts this early in the piece, I'm going to be the most appalling whinging pom imaginable when it comes time to return to the land girt by sea.

So. Cheerful.

Well, it was good to get some emails from the band. I'd sent a few to David, but he never replied (probably still working out how to turn his computer one) - I enjoy hearing from home, since it's a good reminder people haven't forgotten you. Yet. For the record, the all conquering Brisbane Municipal Concert Band came second in the Brisbane auditions. For those of you unaware, that's pretty damn good. I think it's a sign that they do better when I'm not at auditions. At least, that'll be my excuse next year when I fail to show due to extreme overconsumption of amber fluid the night before.

I also got an email from my bank. I hate being a bastard to people in the same game as me, but sometimes you just need to throw your weight around and be abrupt to get things done. Bottom line, the statement I so desperately need should be here in the next 4-5 days. With any luck I'll be all set up to be paid at the end of the month, and can actually start living, as opposed to existing.

I'm in a bit of a quandary about what to do for sport while over here. I've plans to try and join an indoor cricket team, but in terms of supporting a side, it's a bit difficult. Since my beloved Wests Tigers aren't in the finals this year and the Lions are languishing near the bottom of the AFL ladder, it leaves a 3 month black hole before the Ashes start.

I've definitely got to go to a soccer (yes, soccer, not football, I'm not that pommy yet) game while I'm over here. Apparently a lot of Aussies go watch West Ham games. I can't say I've ever had the same enthusiasm for soccer as I have for league. Maybe if Chirpy comes over in December he can take me to a hurling game. Now that would be worth a watch.

In other news I've decided to stay at the hostel I'm at for the duration, or at least until I get this bank account sorted out. I think it's best to wait until I've been paid and have a sizeable stash of lovely, lovely £ sterling before I go shelling out for bond and monthly rent etc. Mind you, the hostel isn't too bad, really. I know I panned it something shocking earlier in the piece, but it's grown on me.

Like a piece of mould on stale cheese.

Well, yet again another hodge podge of events in my UK life comes to a close. I always find it hard to write about stuff after work and on a weekday. This weekend I promise photos.

I hate red tape

2006-08-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

It is said that the English are masters of queueing. No matter what the service, or the line-up involved, you will find Poms patiently waiting in line to access it. It's an endearing national trait, and a visible demonstration of their unerring patience.

Not so endearing is their ability to fuck you around mindlessly, in blind obedience to bureaucratic red tape, as opposed to anything approaching common sense. I'm referring to my struggle to obtain a British bank account. In retrospect, I should have done what I did today, and sign up with an agency called 1stContact, that do a lot of this for you. Unfortunately, now that I'm working full-time I can't make a meeting until Saturday 2nd September. So, another 3-4 weeks or so of frugality awaits - harboring my money against the vicious exchange rate until I get paid in pounds. Still, on the bright side - by the time I actually get paid, which can't happen till I get a bank account, it's going to be a doozy.

At this stage I'm not doing much outside of work - I'm content to remain at the backpacker's I'm at for the time being, and hopefully get a house in the next week or two. The job has been interesting - certainly different, and yet similar to what I was doing previously.

What else is news?

Well, the Premier League kicked off this week, with Liverpool dumping Chelsea 2-1 in the opening match. This prompted Jose Morinho, Chelsea Manager, and perhaps the most miserable bastard ever to grace England (which is saying a LOT, from the country that produced Ozzy Osborne) to slag off Liverpool's stamina for a long season. It's finally started resembling what I thought of as British weather over here - rain and cold, grey skies. It's actually been quite pleasant. I don't mind the cold, although no doubt I'll be eating my words come December. The airports over here are still an absolute shambles, flights being cancelled left right and centre. The rate they're going, soon they'll be worrying about letting anyone at all on the plane. Perhaps a giant catapult in Cornwall, and a large landing pad on Long Island will be the way travel is done in the future. It'd probably be safer, judging from recent events.

God I'm talking bollocks.

So yeah, on the whole it's been a mixed bag here in England - happy to be here, but a bit stressed, caused by unnecessary fretting that could've been sorted if I'd realised in advance what a bastard it was to try and obtain a bank account here.

Oh yeah, and the Wests Tigers missed out on the finals. That pissed me off. Big time.

Ah well...there's always next season. At least I'll be there to watch it.

Still Alive and Kicking

2006-08-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well, for the few of you out there with a genuine concern for my welfare, I can assure you that there is no danger to the good people of London.

Apparently a bunch of terrorists planned to blow up America bound planes with bombs smuggled onto the planes in hand luggage. Although the plot seems to have been foiled, all the London airports are at an absolute standstill. Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton are all in a state of chaos, people crammed everywhere. The old bill has been crawling all through the tube and buses. All in all, a most interesting day. Yours truly has been completely unaffected, although one of the girls in the office has been somewhat stressed, given she was supposed to be flying to Barcelona tonight, and she doesn't know whether her flight will leave tonight, if at all.

The glamour of international jetsetting has all but worn off I fear.

Tales from the workplace

2006-08-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back from my second day of "work" - more on the quotation marks in a minute - so I thought I'd elaborate on what is going to be, frankly, the mainstay of the remainder of my time in England.

At the moment, it's an absolute doddle to get to work. A quick stroll down Earl's Court road, hop onto the Piccadilly Line tube, travel three stops (Gloucester Road, South Kensington, Knightsbridge) before hopping out at the latter. Knightsbridge, as no doubt some of you are aware, is the home of Harrods, the most plush, expensive and famous department store in the world. And I mean expensive. Holy shit. I've had a brief wander through there and some of the prices are astronomical. You can buy a cup of a coffee for, once you factor in the exchange rates, a price that wouldn't leave you much change at all from a 20 dollar bill. But of course that's for the peasants. I saw a sterling silver dinner setting for a touch over £14000. That's close to $40000. I'd love to buy something like that and then use the fork to eat 2 minute noodles. It'd be like James Packer driving to work in my shitty Corolla.

But yeah. Back on topic. My work is in Brompton Road, which is the same street as Harrods. Indeed, it's but a mere hundred metres from Harrods. Not a bad view all things considered. I won't go into any great detail about work, since you never know who reads this stuff, but since it's all favourable anyway I don't think it will be a problem. I mentioned "work" before. Well, on the morning I arrived they had a server crash and everything died. No-one could access Outlook or the database program that they use. So basically I've spent 2 days reading the insurance policy a few times, helping out with general filing and doing office dogsbody stuff. Since the whole business is basically conducted online, it's kind of brought things to a standstill. On the other hand, it has given me a chance to get to know everyone which is a good thing. It should be all systems go tomorrow, so I'm expecting a busy day - not the worst thing in the world, since it's kinda boring and makes you feel a bit guilty idling round the place with nothing to do.

I am looking forward to the job though. To a large extent it's self-regulated - you have work you're required to do, deadlines you need to meet and it's up to you how you go about them. Compared to the way things worked at AAMI, where everything was overseen and corporatised, it'll be brilliant. I really think I can make a decent fist of things here, so in that respect I've fallen on my feet.

Now I just need to find a decent sharehouse. Had a look at a few so far, still waiting to hear back from one which if I get, would be great. Saw one the other day but my Michelle/Alison senses started tingling when I met one of the girls who lived there - a right psycho if ever I saw one. Don't think I'll take that one. (Michelle & Alison, for those of you reading who are unaware, were 2 nutters that plagued my existence in various sharehouses back in Brisbane.) But, as in all things, I am quietly confident.

I'll take my camera along to work sometime this week and get some photos of the surrounding area so you can see what I've been rabbiting on about.

Speaking of England needing a good war...

2006-08-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

Being a student of history, particularly that of a military nature, it was only natural that I would find myself drawn, inevitably, along the District and Bakerloo tube lines to Lambeth North Station and the Imperial War Museum located nearby. Purportedly one of the greatest museums in the world for those who enjoy spending a day gazing at armaments and whatnot, on initial inspection it didn't disappoint. Upon entering through the large gates, one is greeted by the sight of 2 enormous 15 inch naval guns, taken from the battleships HMS Ramillies and HMS Resolution, which served in both World Wars.

However, once you get inside, it was a little disappointing. Only a little, mind you, but still. For one thing, it's far too small. A country with a military history as lengthy and distinguished deserves far more than what's on offer. For starters, only the military history from World War One onwards is covered. Now, for a country that has a record of military events stretching back to the Dark Ages and Alfred the Great, to start 1000 years on from that seems a little presumptuous. What they have on World Wars One and Two is excellent of course, but I was expecting a bit more. However, they also cover a lot of other areas that were very interesting, such as the Cold War, Espionage, the Holocaust and the ongoing nature of warfare in the 21st Century. There's some excellent exhibits and footage relating to MI5, MI6 and the SAS. Any terrorist who watched the video I saw, of the SAS storming the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 would definitely think twice about committing an act of terrorism within range of their long arm.

For a museum that professes itself to be British, there was a surprising amount of Nazi paraphenalia as well. I assume they want to show it off, as a sort of war trophies, but I saw at least 10 Swastikas floating around the place, and not one Union Jack. Which seems kind of odd. Maybe they do it to piss off the German tourists. Anyways, that aside, it was very enjoyable and well worth going to for an afternoon. Of course, we also have pictures.

This is the front of the building. Note the aforementioned battleship armament sited out the front.

We'll start with the British stuff first - this is a Matilda Battle Tank. This was designed in the 1930's, when the tank was still conceived by military tacticians as a vehicle intended to support the infantry, rather than a decisive instrument of war in its own right. Although the theories of blitzkrieg made it somewhat obsolete, it provided excellent service in the North African campaign until 1942, when it was withdrawn from frontline service.

Another desert vehicle, this one being a Daimler Armoured Car, belonging to the famed 7th Armoured Division, the Desert Rats (note the badge depicting the rat).

This imposing looking brute is a Churchill Battle Tank, the mainstay of the British armed forces from 1944 onwards. Unlike the Sherman, this had sufficient armour to repel the standard German 75mm round that the bulk of their Panzers were equipped with, although it was never proof against the dreaded 88mm anti-tank round. It proved an extremely versatile vehicle, with some variations including "Crocodiles" - equipped with flamethrowers, as well as "Flail Tanks" - equipped with a number of revolving chains on a metal bar some metres in front of the tank, designed to clear minefields.

This 1000cc motorcycle was made in 1935, and would be completely unknown except for the fact that T.E Lawrence, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia" was riding it when he had the accident that killed him. The bike only suffered minor damage and was repaired before eventually ending up in the museum.

Anyone who has ever heard of the British field marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery - "Monty" - will know of his penchant for always wearing a beret with 2 badges. This is it. They actually had a whole section of the museum dedicated to Montgomery, "Master of Battle", which was very interesting indeed.

Moving on from the British side of things, we come to Russkies - this is the famous T34, the legendary Russian tank that was the mainstay of the Russian army during World War 2. It was so good that the Germans based their Panther Tank on it's design - although they never admitted doing so.

Standard Irish propaganda. Found this in the section relating to the various actions fought in Northern Ireland over the years. I love the dedication shown in persisting with a centuries old argument.

I'm sure we all know what this is.

Now, for some of the German stuff - and there was a lot of it too! Some of it pretty high quality stuff. This was one of the original printed copies of Mein Kampf, dating from the 1920's - the wooden box designed to hold the book was presented to Reinhard Heydrich, one of Himmler's chief subordinates on his birthday from Hitler himself.

Various Nazi uniforms on display. You have to give them one thing - they knew how to make themselves look like a scary bunch of bastards.

A famous painting of Hitler, with one of Goering's summer unifroms in front of it.

The infamous "88" - the 8.8mm Anti-Aircraft gun. Originally designed as an AA Gun, the Germans soon realised it was equally effective when used as an Anti-Tank weapon. The gun found itself employed as the example shown, an anti-aircraft weapon, as well as a towed anti-tank gun, and was also mounted on various Tiger tanks as the primary weapon.

This is an example of one here. This fearsome looking beast is a JagdPanther - based on the chassis of the Panther tank, but packing heavier armour, and equipped with the 88mm gun, as opposed to the standard Panther which had the 75mm gun. This was an anti-tank vehicle through and through - there are many stories of these tanks knocking out several Allied tanks for no loss. Generally the Allies would either attack them using 3 tanks and expect to lose 2, or destroy them from the air with rocket firing RAF Typhoons.

And finally, just so you have an idea of where I'm living at the moment...

This is our street. The backpacker's we're staying is just past the big tree on the left.

Little Britain, Lazy Britain

2006-07-30T03:36:00.000-07:00

One thing I am noticing already, here in Britain, is a general attitude of "Oh, don't worry about that, come have some tea, we'll do it tomorrow." This is particularly evident in the approach taken towards repairing Earl's Court Road, a very busy thoroughfare, just near where I am staying. Whatever department is reponsible for maintaining the road - probably the Mayor of London - dug several large holes on Wednesday and Thursday. Then did nothing on Friday, or for this weekend, at that. The result is a massive traffic snarl up at all hours of the day and night. But this is acceptable - apparently. I'm not even sure why they're digging the holes. All it seems to be in aid of is providing a large number of fat pricks in fluoro green safety vests with an excuse to stand around and sip hot drinks from a thermos.

But this gives one an insight as to why a country like Britain, which is quite frankly tiny compared to Australia or America, struggles to maintain anything resembling an efficient highway or public transport network. Because the country is lazy. Some decades ago, in a famous speech, Winston Churchill said he had blood, tears and sweat to offer in service of his country. I don't think you'd find many people in England these days prepared to work up a sweat. The only tears split come when England inevitably gets dumped in the quarters at the World Cup, and the only blood is the stuff that comes out of the Big Brother House and sent straight to the HIV lab.

No wonder companies and employers over here love to employ colonials and eastern europeans. Because we're actually prepared to work hard for a quid, because the exchange rate is so brilliant when we take them back home. Your average pom knows nothing of this, and thus is content to broaden their arse as opposed to their mind, wasting away the hours behind their desk practising their throwing skills as they attempt to land a rolled up ball of paper in the trash can.

No matter what you do or see in "British" Britain, you always get the impression that it could be done faster. That's why I go to the local Indian Sainsbury's, instead of to the British staffed Tesco's for food shopping. You might not be able to understand what they're saying, but you get in and out of there quickly. As opposed to standing around bored while the checkout ladies gossip on like a pair of fishwives, as they lazily sort through your groceries.

What this country needs is another good war, to shake it out of it's lethargy.

Man at Work

2006-07-27T04:18:00.000-07:00

I come from a land down under...

This man, namely me, has a job. I've just been offered the position of Sales and Administration Assistant for a medical insurance company. Now I can start looking for a place to live, and can actually start going to see stuff.

I'll be starting on August 7th. Brilliant.

*Goes off and has a celebratory beer*

Va Va Vrooom

2006-07-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

Part of the reason that I haven't had a great deal of travel to talk of late about on what is, after all, a travel blog, is that I've been trying to keep a low profile and avoid spending too much money until I get a job. Which means confining oneself to the cheaper pursuits in life. Yesterday however, I managed to go and see the National Portrait Gallery and the British Motorshow, all for the cost of a 5 pound train ticket. Not a bad effort. The first port of call was the Portrait Gallery, which houses all the paintings of the royals and various other famous Brits, dating from the 16th Century onwards, when paintings first came into existence as a valid means of preserving someone's image. Some of the paintings are magnificent in terms of scope and size. When wandering through the gallery, particularly the earlier era, when the Tudors and Stuarts ruled, you are constantly reminded what a grim and merciless bunch they all were. Lots of people depicted in the portraits died of what would definitely be described as unnatural causes, although undoubtedly they were quite natural at the time. Beheaded, killed in battle, syphilis, murdered, poisoned, stabbed etc. I would recommend paying the gallery a visit, since you don't really have to be interested in art to appreciate it, which is always handy for someone like me, who couldn't give a rats arse about bowls of fruit or vases of sunflowers.

From the Portrait Gallery I made my way out to the Docklands, rattling my way along the District and Jubilee tube lines, then on the Docklands Light Rail. I normally wouldn't have bothered going all the way out to the motorshow except a friend of ours managed to score some free tickets, so I felt obliged to go and see what was out there. I'm glad I did as well, since it was worth the effort. It's brilliant. Apart from all the standard car companies, you've also got companies like Aston, Lotus, Bentley and you can go and climb into their cars. The line up for the Bentley and Aston stands was enormous, so I confined myself to photos, but I did manage to get myself into a Lotus Elise. The driving position is great - you sit a long way down into the car and your legs extend out horizontally from your body to the pedals, like if you were sitting up in bed. The result is a low down driving position that would be perfect for when you're going around corners at 100 kph, something that's perfectly feasible in a Lotus. I would've loved to have gone there with Evan, one of the guys I used to live with at Enoggera - he's far more educated in the way of the car than I, and undoubedtly would've been able to appreciate the finer points of what was on display than me, who is limited to saying "Ohhh, shiny."

So, onto the photos.

This is the AF10 concept car. This is made by a company called Arash Cars, who I had never heard of before today. But this reportedly will do in excess of 220mph.Which is fairly brisk, all things considered.

This little number is an Ariel Atom. It has no bodywork, and a supercharged engine from a Honda Civic. But don't be fooled. It will do 0-100 km/h in 2.5 seconds, and will outcorner a motorbike with the greatest of ease. It's mainly designed to be driven on tracks and closed circuits, rather than a practical means of day to day transport.

Standard Aston Martin DB9 Coupe. My theory that this is the best looking car in the world was tested on this day, I can assure you. But I still maintain it is. Like the Spitfire, it just looks right from every angle.

A Citroen C1 that's been attacked by an airbrush, which isn't an uncommon sight here. These cars seem to be very popular amongst ricers. Needless to say, my sister liked this.

A Ferrari F60, better known as a Ferrari Enzo. This is number 20 of the 399 that were built, and is the finest machine ever to come out of the factory at Maranello.

A Ferrari F50, predecessor of the Enzo. This isn't quite as fast, but it's far more brutal. This was designed as a road car for the race track, and from all accounts it was an absolute pig to drive. I say from all accounts because there's no way in hell I'll ever get to drive one.

The Ferrari F40, predecessor to the F50, oddly enough. This would be over 10 years old now, but is still one of the fastest accelerating cars in the world, primarily because it's so light.

The Ford GT. This is the new one, based on the legendary GT40 that won Le Mans 4 years running. This has the same muscular looking body, and huge rear haunches, but is a hell of a lot faster and ruthless. On a flat straight it would actually beat the Enzo for top speed.

This is the new Honda Civic Type R. Now, we haven't seen the new Civic design in Australia yet, which is a pity, because it's quite a good looking car. This keeps the same looks, but adds a faster engine and better handling. I would be quite happy to own one of these, as you could definitely fit a tuba in the boot. Not sure how that would affect the handling though.

Again from Honda, we have here their Formula 1 car that Jenson Button drove, as well as a motorbike that I have no idea about. Dan may be able to elaborate for us.

In the absolute pinnacle of excess from Hummer, we have a Humvee Limousine. Miles per gallon on these things is listed as N/A. How nice. I saw a few of these in America and cursed myself for not taking a photo, so I was quite happy to see one here.

This blingy looking thing is actually a Hyundai - it's a new concept car SUV designed for the American market, hence the gigantic wheels. I think it may prove a bit brash for England or Australia, but you never know. Tastelessness isn't just an American thing.

This is what you would see if you were inside the Jaguar XJ V8. Unlike Holden, you actually get real wood, not plastic woodlike stuff, you get real, proper leather, shagpile carpets underfoot and a sense of absolute contentment. The clock even ticks along for you. It's sort of like sitting in a large, mobile couch.

This is the new Lexus LS460, soon to be on sale in Australia I believe. I was surprised at how large this car was - it's quite a bit bigger than the Jags or the S-Class I saw, and should be a pretty good contender in the prestige saloon market. I would wager that Meakin's Dad is already casting eyes on of these for the future. And well he should. It does look the part.

This is the Lexus SC430. This car is brilliant in every respect but one. It has undoubtedly the most stupid seating arrangement, bar none, of any production car in the world today. For some completely unknown and ridiculous reason, Lexus designed to try and fit 4 people into what is plainly a 2 person car. Granted, this car will only have at most 2 people in it, 99% of the time. So why have the extra two seats at all? It is beyond belief. Let me show you.

You'd struggle to fit a baby in there, let alone a child. I have no idea why they built it like this.

This bizarre gothic looking thing is actually a Maybach concept car, called the Excelero. It's the world's fastest limousine, although how you can call something with 2 seats a limousine is beyond me. However, it is very quick, and represents a substantial departure for a company renowned for it's fairly placid and understated multi-million dollar limos. You would not miss this coming, I assure you.

Same car, but the view from the rear. Make no mistake, this car is lonnnnngggg.

This is another concept car, this time from Mazda. While the car looks somewhat out of place, I was amazed with the interior of this thing. It really does look bizarre. And I don't see how it's possibly going to save you if you have a crash, given it all seems made from plastic and tissue paper. But I guess I don't think they worry about that when they design concepts.

A close up of the interior in question. I mean, look at it. There's no backing in the seat for chrissake, and the gearstick looks like something you'd find on a computer. Maybe that's the point.

The daddy of them all, the mighty McLaren F1. For over a decade, the fastest road going car in the world, until the advent of the Bugatti Veyron. Note the central position of the steering wheel - this car was designed like a Formula 1 car, and so the steering wheel was placed centrally to give the driver the best possible view and handling - which this car needed. It was, frankly, dangerous, with a skittish back end and a penchant to spin wildly.

Another McLaren, this time the McLaren Mercedes SLR. This car draws it's inspiration from a classic which I'll show you shortly. It, like all it's competitors is ludicrously fast, but this one, because it is based on a Mercedes SLK, still retains an element of comfort and leisure. Which is important when you're doing 350 km/h.

One of the most famous, if not the most famous silhouettes in motoring. This is the Mercedes 300SL, more commonly known as the "Gullwing", owing to the birdlike shape the doors make when opened. The door design formed the basis of all supercars today, being the first to employ lifting doors, rather than the more conventional horizontal opening doors on our day to day runabouts.

This is the inevitable fate that awaits Dan Meakin if he persists in his ridiculous trend of riding a motorbike. Get off the pillion and back in your Falcon Dan.

This is the Noble M15. Noble is a British car company, and are almost unheard of outside of Britain. However, they make cars that go like all hell set loose, and, compared to the various supercars, are very affordable. But still, at 75000 pounds for this one I don't think I'll be getting it anytime soon. It's still far cheaper than the next contender though.

The Pagani Zonda. One of these will set you back over 400000 pounds. But you do get the most radical looking car on the market today, and an interior more reminiscient of Versailles than the inside of motorcar. And of course, it goes like hell.

The TVR Sagaris. Top Gear Magazine calls it a car named after a weapon, and says we need more of these. Well, it would certainly keep the birth rate down. TVR's are lethal. They have no airbags, to which TVR's argument has always been "don't crash." However, without ABS, traction control, stability control, steering best described as loose and a rear end with a habit of stepping out wildly, this isn't as easy as it sounds. For 50000 pounds you get something equivalent to machines the Americans build with NASA painted on the side. For madmen only.

And finally, because this is an Australian blog, we have a Monaro. The Vauxhall Monaro as they call it over here. Vauxhall and Holden are both owned by General Motors, so we have the oddity of an Australian car with an American engine sold in Great Britain. The poms seem to like it though.

Well, that concludes the sample of motorshow photos. Hope you enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed wandering around taking them. I'm going to be on tenterhooks a bit tonight - tomorrow I'll find out if I have a job or not. If so, happy days and I'll start on Monday. If not, sod it, and back to the list of applications. We shall see.

Gossipmongering

2006-07-23T04:35:00.000-07:00

Truly, there is no greater pursuit in England's green and pleasant land than that of disseminating juicy tidbits of gossip and dirt about celebrities. For whatever reason, which I am yet to discover, the English have what might be called an almost obsessive manner when it comes to the goings on of the rich and famous. When Wayne Rooney splashes out and buys his fiancee Coleen a new Merc, this is front page news. The Mirror trumpets, in enormous lettering, that the reason Mr Rooney is spending all this money on her is apparently because he had his end away in a Liverpool knock-shop some 4 years ago, when he was 16 and they'd just started going out. Apparently he's still trying to make up for it.

It's not just footballers either. The Evening Standard carried a headline yesterday, "Prezza's Secret Sleaze Exposed!". For those of you unaware, "Prezza" refers to John Prescott, a fat Welshman who's managed to connive his way into the position of Transport Minister. Frequently referred to snidely as Two Jags Prescott, owing to his love of Jags and cars all the while trying to convince the people of England to ride buses and trains, he is famous for various extra-marital affairs. No doubt Tony Blair would have given him the arse long ago, were he not such a good distraction to wave in front of the press everytime Blair drops the ball.

Whether you are a politician, a royal, a footballer, a tv star, an actor or even a contestant on Big Brother - your life is an open book in England. Everything you say and do is for the sole purpose of public consumption. For the life of me I can't understand it. My only conclusion is that the good people of England live such dreary monotonous lives that they need to bury themselves in the tripe that the media puts out, in order to forget their everyday drudgery. I find this hard to believe, but I'm struggling to think of any other reason. It's almost systematic as well. The papers in England indulge in jibes and barbs so cruel that any paper utilising them in Australia would be blackballed and criticised endlessly. Yet only a British paper could have come up with the now famous "Duchess of Pork" when referring to Fergie's thighs.

I'm struggling to think of a comparative example in Australia. The only one I can think of, in terms of political scandal is back in the 80's when "Silly Billy" Snedden got caught with his pants down in a hotel room, still wearing a latex sheath and lying dead with a grin on his face. The story, as it later turned out, was that he'd expired during a session of slap and tickle, and had been left there by the other party involved when she panicked and did a bunk. In Australia, this was news, granted, but is by and large forgotten these days - indeed, only the term Silly Billy survives. Even the identity of the woman involved remained unknown.

Were this to have happened in England, it would've never been left to rest. The land would have been scoured for the identity of the woman. Conspiracy theories would have been put forth. DNA evidence would have been taken. In fact the woman probably would have come forward of her own free will as she would have been made an offer of a squillion pounds to tell her story to the Fleet Street press anyway. In Australia she might have, at best, got half a column in New Idea and given enough money for a cab fare back from the magazine's office.

I guess what it comes down to is that in England, the press obviously thinks that every scrap of information about celebrities is worth publishing, despite them doing the exact same thing last month. In Australia we expect rugby players to start bar fights, we are not surprised when movie stars throw phones at people, we couldn't give a rats arse who's rooting who on Neighbours and we'd laugh at anyone who confessed to having an affair with an elected MP.

That's the difference between us. That, and ten thousand beautiful miles.

The Underground - It's not just transport, it's an institution

2006-07-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

Click here for map of the London Underground.

I am constantly amazed by the London Underground. After coming from a town like Brisbane, which thinks running trains any more often than 30 minutes apart is the work of the devil, the Underground is a different world entirely. For starters, when we say underground, we mean underground. At some points, up to 60 metres underground. Apparently some of the longest escalators in the world are deployed here. Getting on a train at city stations is like descending into the bowels of the earth. You descend down innumerable corridors, stairs and escalators, pass through the ticketing machines, work your way onto the platform, get assailed by the steamy smell of oil and machinery, almost get blown off your feet by the air ventilator, and settle down to wait for a train. Which doesn't take long. Trains run very frequently here. 2 minutes is all you'll ever need to wait on the main lines.

But despite this, there are a few flaws. For starters, the underground is old. It had already been in operation for quite a few decades when Londoners had to sleep in it at night due to German bombing raids during the second world war. Therefore, being old, it requires a lot of maintenance. Which means that for starters, it doesn't run 24 hours, as they do maintenance in the early hours of the morning. This is a problem, for a city that expects to host the Olympics and a population that is being encouraged to depend on public transport. They also do maintenance on weekends - however, again, due to the age of the tracks, they can't just shut down a single track on a line. For whatever reason, the underground wasn't built so that trains could keep running while work was being done. The result is that maintenance equals shutting down that whole section of the line. Fortunately the underground is a maze, and you can always find a way around a track closure. You just might need to go through an extra stop or two. (Or twenty.)

Perhaps the most irritating thing for Londoners (not me, I'm used to Queensland Rail's own particular brand of ineptness) is the fact that tube trains aren't ventilated. Most of the trains date from the 70's, and keeping cool wasn't really a problem back then. Living in England was to live in a perpetual grey drizzle, where sun sightings made headlines. But, since then, for whatever reason, the climate in England has changed. I've been here for close to 2 weeks now and it hasn't rained in all that time. It's actually been quite hot (for England.) 35 degrees celsius yesterday. (Cue gasps and fainting) Hellish, I know. But this was apparently the hottest ever July day in Britain, so we had the sight of water being handed out for free at the tube, and people dragging themselves about as if they'd just got ten rounds with Tyson and also had the fluids squeezed out of them. The trains themselves were apparently like saunas. I went on one yesterday, to sample this so-called sauna and quite predictably, found it to be a load of hot air. I can assure all of you worried about Britain's "LETHAL KILLER HEAT WAVE" (according to the Daily Mail's display of redundancy) that the midday temperature at Knightsbridge tube station on the Piccadilly Line has nothing on the steamy fug that is associated with Brisbane Central station at 5:10pm on a January afternoon.

But it's these things that make the Underground so unique. The incessant calls of "mind the gap" are apparently world famous, a call necessitated because the 20th century trains ride about 30 cm higher than the 19th century rail platforms. The fact that you can hear the tortured metal of the train's suspension screeching while you travel, because all the windows are down to let some ventilation into the train. The fact that the pass you buy to travel on buses and trains is called an Oyster. I'm not sure why. Don't ask. Come to think of it, the thing that most amuses me most is how Londoners piss and moan about their underground, call it a stone age relic in between berating the Mayor of London Ken "Sturmbahnfuhrer" Livingstone and generally dwell on the faults.

I've been left standing on the platform of Central station more than once, wondering why my Ferny Grove train just disappeared from the computer timetable. I've been driven past the Los Angeles subway system in a bus, just in time for the driver to point out a guy injecting himself on the platform and warning us never to travel on it if we value our money, possessions and lives. I've got bruises on my shoulder from the argy bargy on the New York subway, and a sore neck from the whiplash associated with stopping. I've been assailed by beggars, water sellers, food sellers, organ grinders, cripples, hare krishnas and fucking accordion players more times than I can remember on the Italian train system. I will no doubt get irredeemably lost when I have to take the Istanbul train system from the airport to where I'm staying when I go there for ANZAC day.

More to the point, I haven't had any of that here. No trains cancelled, no undue waiting, no heroin addicts, no shoulder barging, no neck injuries, no goddamned squeezebox players and I'm yet to get lost. London - it's not too bad. It's by no means perfect (that's the Metro in Washington DC) but on the whole, it's not too bad.

Hot Cars and Hostels

2006-07-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Let me first start by saying that for anyone staying in London, if you're looking for a place to stay more than a week or two, avoid the Barmy Badger Backpackers. The beds are nice, the kitchen is well equipped and the rooms, are, well, roomy. It's nice - except for one thing. It's one of those places where there tend to be a lot of long-term residents. This creates a situation where 80% of the people tend to be stand-offish and rude towards the 20% of people who are only staying there temporarily. A clique of ladies dominate the TV. They always keep at least 5 of themselves in the room, so even if only 1 of them is watching the show in question, the other 4 can quickly say "oh, we're watching it too" and hence ensure a majority for viewing rights. The backyard bbq area is apparently for "residents" only - I got a few weird looks when I went outside to read a book. But fuck 'em. We're paying our money, just as they are, so I stayed as long as I wanted. God knows I lived with enough psychos, nutters and nasty individuals at Ninth av and Pickering st to be worried about what some pissant ex-pat aussie thinks.

Some of them have apparently lived in this place for over a year! A year! Single rooms in share houses are at least £20-£30 quid cheaper than this place. But they stay, because secretly they know that no normal person would put up with them. It's a place for social outcasts. At least we're only here another two weeks. By then I'll have a job, and a place to stay. It'll be nice to have my own room again.

But (and there's always a but in my blogs) one benefit of these miserable pricks moping around the building is the fact that I spend a fair bit of time out in London. For a person like me, who has a fetish for high performance European cars, this place is heaven. Porsches are everywhere. So are M Class Beamers. S-Type Jags adorn every road. I've also seen Lambos, Ferraris, Maseratis, Astons, Lotuses, a Koeniggsegg and even a Bugatti Veyron. The clunk from my jaw hitting the ground upon seeing the last one would've registered on the Richter scale.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned roost of couch hens prevented me from watching Top Gear tonight. Maybe I'll get a chance on Tuesday, you never know. Probably not. Still, I can always download it.

So, in summary - hostel residents are the scum of the earth. Most of them have forgotten what it's like to be Australian, and have turned into miserable, pasty-faced, tight-fisted, mean-spirited pommy bastards. But the cars here take your breath away.

It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

Photo Session

2006-07-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

I know I'm going to sound like an absolute cultural philistine by saying this, but it needs to be said. Rome is not the cultural or historical centre of the world. I'm sorry. I know it's got some wonderful old buildings and ruins, the best artwork you're ever likely to see - but you can never really concentrate on it. You're always worrying about having your pocket picked, dealing with a random rude bastard who hates you for not being Italian, trying to drown out the high pitched jabbering and car horns that make up background noise and wondering just what died to make that god awful smell in the air that is assailing your senses.

Whereas London on the other hand...well, there's just such a sense of occasion and grandeur associated with this place. It always seems to muster up a quiet reserve to charm you, even in a place like Victoria St tube station at 5:30 in the afternoon. There's an endless procession of stately old buildings, mixed with new age architecture - in Rome, the ruins struggle to compete with hotels, bars, shops and bus stations.

I've got no doubt I'm going to enjoy my time here immensely. But, I digress. The main purpose of this particular entry is to catch up on photos that I'm yet to post, from Pompeii, Rome and some taken today at the Churchill Museum. Let's get cracking. Starting with the ruins.

This is a fairly standard scene in Pompeii - a Roman road runs between houses and various other domiciles on either side. Pedestrians would walk on the high ground either side of the road, while carts trundled along the lower part in the middle. The large rock in the road near the front of the photo was part of a crossing system for pedestrians, so they didn't have to step in the shit that lay strewn throughout the street. You might also notice in the background the mountain responsible for Pompeii's current fame.

Another shot of Vesuvius, with some more ruins in front of it.

These are a few samples of some of the famous plaster casts that were made of the victims of Pompeii. Although the bodies had long since rotted away, buried under the ash, the space they had occupied remained as a hollow cavity. When archaeologists located a cavity, they would pour plaster into it until it set, then uncover the ash surrounding it. The result would be a perfect cast of the body.

My sister Laura doing her best impression of a statue.

Never let it be said that the Romans were a bunch of prudes. The bloke with the large donger is the Roman god of fertility, resting it on one side of a set of scales, with a bag of gold on the other side. Essentially he is saying that he would rather have his prick than the gold.

Wait till he's 70.

After Pompeii, we went back to Naples, which I have no photos of, since taking my camera out in public there would be tantamount to me draping a sign around my neck saying please steal my camera. Rome on the other hand, well, let's just say it's more civilized than Naples. Which isn't saying much. There would be people who hail from Kingston and Woodridge who'd feel uncomfortable in Naples.

This is the Arch de Tito, within the ruins of old Rome. There is area about a square kilometre in size just near the Colosseum and Constantine's Arch, that was the heart of ancient Rome. Most of the buildings are ruined now, but it's still an amazing repository of ancient Roman history.

Constantine's Arch. This was erected after Constantine won a great victory and converted the Roman Empire to Christianity.

Me at the Colosseum. It's pretty impressive, but it's no Lang Park.

The tomb of the unknown soldier. Quite why a nation with probably the worst war record of any European country would have the most opulent tomb is beyond me, but what the hell. Very impressive nonetheless.

Weir on the River Tiber. Don't do as I did and go down to walk along the river, unless you enjoy the smell of stale urine and homeless people.

Saw this graffiti on a wall the day after Italy dumped France in the final. Sounds like a case of bad sportsmanship. After the game where Italy beat us, the Aussies at the courtfield hotel didn't bother with graffiti - they just started a fight with the Italians on the pedestrian crossing outside. The important thing though is that they never headbutted them.

This is why I don't play a harp. Lugging a bloody great tuba around is bad enough.

Italian nerds playing Magic: The Gathering (it's a card game) outside a hobby store. Being a miniature nerd, I was highly amused at this sight. Off to the side they had an unofficial wheeling and dealing circle, with various Ities flogging cards off the back of their scooters.

St Peter's Basilica. There is video footage of me here, taken by my sister, saying that "I've never believed in Jesus."

I'm surprised old Benedict wasn't on the balcony with a sniper rifle trying to do god's work.

Now, I'm not proud of this photo. They clearly said no photos in the Sistine chapel, and I fully intended to comply. But when I got in there and there were people snapping photos like mad, I couldn't resist taking one. It turned out kinda blurry anyway. Divine retribution no doubt.

But just on the Sistine Chapel - it is amazing. I've never seen any place like it. Just to get to it you travel through corridor after corridor of amazing tapestries, paintings and artwork - the map Room alone is worth coming for. I likened it to a computer game, in that the Sistine Chapel is the last thing you see, and the anticipation builds with every room you go through, waiting and searching for the final chapter. Then, you're there. Standing in the middle of that hallowed hall, neck craned backwards, staring up at that glorious ceiling. Like the statue of David, it's a once in a lifetime event.

The chapel was about the last thing of note we saw in Italy, apart from possibly the most inefficient and crappy airport of all time at Ciampino. Today in England I decided to do some more touristing to give myself time out from job hunting and made my way to the Churchill museum and the Cabinet War Rooms.

To elaborate, this underground complex was purpose built in 1938 and 1939 to allow the War Cabinet to continue to meet and run the British Empire without the risk associated with aerial bombardment if they were working from a normal office. The complex was locked and closed down in 1945 as soon as war ended, and remained top secret and almost unknown until Thatcher ordered it reopened as museum in the 1980's. Today it is a perfectly preserved museum showing what how Britain was run during it's greatest crisis, and a tribute to the greatest Briton who ever lived. To listen to one of Churchill's speeches while standing in the room which he dictated it from is an amazing experience. You can't help but be impressed by his supreme mastery of the written word.

The conference room where Churchill met with the Imperial General Staff. Like Hitler, Churchill frequently disagreed with his Generals, however unlike Hitler he never overruled them. Churchill, while a brilliant politician, was erratic and obsessed with unimportant detail when it came to military operations - a combination that would have been dangerous if left unrestrained.

Churchill's bedroom. Churchill would always spend the first waking hours in bed - he'd have breakfast and give orders sitting up in bed. A constant stream of generals, secretaries, ministers and aides would be coming in and out of the room whenever Churchill had slept the night in the War Room.

The map room - from here the Battle of the Atlantic was fought. The map on the far wall still has all the pinpricks from where cards were pinned to mark convoys. The holes give an excellent visual demonstration of British trade routes.

Finally, the man himself, in Parliament Square. Just goes to show that any old drunk can get bronzed in this city.

That's about it for now - have fun digesting that lot, and no doubt I'll have more to come in the next week or so.

Cheers.

Quick update

2006-07-13T03:18:00.000-07:00

Well, as mentioned in previous posts, I am now back in England. There is something truly wonderful about returning to a country that speaks your lingo, as opposed to high pitched, high speed hand waving.

For the time being we're staying in a place called (and I'm not lying here) "Barmy Badger's Backpackers." Some people swear by hostel living but I can't see the appeal. My plan is to find a job, and move into a share house somewhere in London. Regarding job hunting - I've decided to try and hold out for an office job of some description for a week or so, and if nothing comes up, I'll just jump into retail or sales and eat the proverbial shit sandwich until something does come up.

Despite this somewhat melancholy beginning I am enjoying myself here - London is a remarkable place. So much to see, so little time. Ideally I'd like to try and keep my hand in at all my old pursuits in Australia, so that means finding an indoor cricket team, a band that has a tuba and needs a player, a decent library and so on and so forth.

However, all that has to wait until I find a job. I've been firing off job apps like a madman online, this afternoon I thought I might head to an employment agency in the city, and finish off by visiting the Churchill Museum.

I've also got photos from Italy, which I'll post this afternoon when I bring the laptop down.

Must dash, later all.

Of Beggars and Breakfast

2006-07-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

With the time rapidly drawing to a close on my time here in Italy (in 24 hours I'll be on a plane back to London) I feel the need to comment on two things that have illustrated to me, in a very real sense, the differences between Italy and Australia.

Let's start with beggars. I would like to begin with an apology to all those people I've ever seen trying to flog me a copy of the Big Issue in Adelaide St. Here I thought you, a single person advertising their wares, was an annoyance. Never again. In fact, I think I'll even (committed right-winger that I am) purchase a copy of your rag when I return. No-one who's been through Italy could ever complain about too many beggars when they get back to Australia. I know Queensland Rail often run late, cancelled my train to Ferny Grove more than once, jolt and jar you from what feels like one track to the other when they approach rail junctions and stop running at midnight - but I can take comfort in the fact they've never had some hairy bastard playing a fucking accordion in the carriages while his chimp-like kid goes round with the hat. Queen St may have the odd wino, the fat bloke sitting out the front of the Commonwealth asking people if they'd like to contribute to a kid's foundation but it doesn't have the endless stream of Africans trying to flog you sunglasses, handbags, fans, water, jewellery, belts, jeans and hats.

If only one of them had tried to sell me cornflakes, they would've had a sale.

What is it with Italian breakfasts? In Australia, we have a healthy breakfast. Cereal, perhaps some toast, and a glass of juice, or tea/coffee. Italians prefer the 3 C's, that is, Croissant, Coffee, Cigarette. Now I know some of you undoubtedly enjoy the triple hit of sugar, caffeine and nicotine, but I for one can't handle it. I think the reason they call it a "Continental Breakfast" is to make it sound more appetising. In theory it means a breakfast without hot food, while in reality it means a breakfast in name only. When I eat a breakfast, I want something that will keep me nourished until midday. I don't want something that leaves me with a gnawing empty great hole in my guts by 9:30. In Rome we finally got sick of it, and now have a box of cereal in our room, and we go and buy milk each morning.

Boring I know, but to hell with it. After two weeks of being expected to swallow a goddamn croissant at 7 am, I am officially over it.

Anyways, the plan for tomorrow is to wander round, see everything I haven't seen, get on a bus to Ciampino airport, buy some duty free gin and get back to London. With any luck I'll have a job within a week or two, and can put an end to this idle workshy existence.