Around this time last year I seem to remember writing a blog entry about how, after a typically British approach to sunbathing, I'd turned a particularly agonising and bloody shade of magenta.
And, if your recall, I had simultaneously been bombarded by a squadron of mosquitoes, who had treated the crack of my arse like an X-Wing fighter treated the trench on the Death Star. And we all know what happened there.
Fast-forward one year and a few days into my stay, once again, I've already frazzled my shoulder and forehead into streaky bacon and, similarly, and true to form, the mozzies have turned my legs into crimson bubble wrap. Needless to say, word of the day is "ouch".
The place is still quiet. Highlights so far include last night's worst-ever pub quiz performance, enlivened only by a moment where, when teams were invited to tell a joke, Chris took to the mic to tell one of the single most inappropriate jokes I think I've ever heard, eliciting a stunned silence from the assembled throng. Brave man.
Then it was back to the Pink House with our tail between our legs for beers in the back courtyard, just time to hear Richie theorise that Raj's penis must look like "a Twix".
It is time to move on I think. I will remember the Pink House fondly, but onwards and upwards. Or given that it's Melbourne next, onwards and downwards.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Return To Oz
The World's Favourite Scareline
Sorry for the radio silence this soon into the adventure. Truth be told: right now it's quiet. I'd describe myself as dormant and frequently horizontal. I'm just taking it easy. I'm a Cadbury's Caramel.
I am now back in Australia. And for a while I wondered whether I would make it. Chiefly due to my flight over here which was the worst in living memory. For the first four hours I was shunted, buffeted, dropped and rammed from every angle. No, not an impromptu liaison with Scott, the festive Qantas air steward, but rather due to cutting the corner of Tropical Cyclone Nicholas.
I was on the pot when it really kicked in. I had been holding it in for about 20 minutes as the continuous seatbelt sign had been confining people to their seat. And when, in a brief respite, the light had gone off I had bolted for the toilet door, and then bolted the toilet door. However, halfway through seeing that man about that dog, it kicked in.
I thought sitting down might solve the problem, but when 2 minutes later I had been dislodged from the pot and was scrabbling around on the floor, trying to cast a flailing arm into the sink for leverage, I knew we were in for some rough stuff.
But, as weather systems such as this take their energy from the sea, once over land it went from carrier bag in a wind tunnel to ski-ing down silk. We even flew straight over Ayres Rock. Got a great view but, alas, not a great photo.
Pink House Revisited
Arrived back the Pink House at about 9.00 and knocked on the window as I didn't know the security code. First thing I saw was dear Richie, whose "O"-shaped expression of surprise looked like a slightly baffled chimp thinking about a new kind of question mark. Clearly, he forgot I was coming.
Anyway, within a second the door had opened and there was a queue of hugs. First from Richie, then from Etienne and Brian, and I found Chris and Miranda in the back courtyard.
It's like I've never been away, but the atmos is different - a post-Xmas lull. Nearly everyone has got jobs in an attempt to counter their festive spend, meaning people are in bed by 11.30. And new draconian rules on noise enforced by a new and regular council visits mean the Pink House is...well....a bit quiet at the moment.
Nevertheless, good to be back.
Sorry for the radio silence this soon into the adventure. Truth be told: right now it's quiet. I'd describe myself as dormant and frequently horizontal. I'm just taking it easy. I'm a Cadbury's Caramel.
I am now back in Australia. And for a while I wondered whether I would make it. Chiefly due to my flight over here which was the worst in living memory. For the first four hours I was shunted, buffeted, dropped and rammed from every angle. No, not an impromptu liaison with Scott, the festive Qantas air steward, but rather due to cutting the corner of Tropical Cyclone Nicholas.
I was on the pot when it really kicked in. I had been holding it in for about 20 minutes as the continuous seatbelt sign had been confining people to their seat. And when, in a brief respite, the light had gone off I had bolted for the toilet door, and then bolted the toilet door. However, halfway through seeing that man about that dog, it kicked in.
I thought sitting down might solve the problem, but when 2 minutes later I had been dislodged from the pot and was scrabbling around on the floor, trying to cast a flailing arm into the sink for leverage, I knew we were in for some rough stuff.
But, as weather systems such as this take their energy from the sea, once over land it went from carrier bag in a wind tunnel to ski-ing down silk. We even flew straight over Ayres Rock. Got a great view but, alas, not a great photo.
Pink House Revisited
Arrived back the Pink House at about 9.00 and knocked on the window as I didn't know the security code. First thing I saw was dear Richie, whose "O"-shaped expression of surprise looked like a slightly baffled chimp thinking about a new kind of question mark. Clearly, he forgot I was coming.
Anyway, within a second the door had opened and there was a queue of hugs. First from Richie, then from Etienne and Brian, and I found Chris and Miranda in the back courtyard.
It's like I've never been away, but the atmos is different - a post-Xmas lull. Nearly everyone has got jobs in an attempt to counter their festive spend, meaning people are in bed by 11.30. And new draconian rules on noise enforced by a new and regular council visits mean the Pink House is...well....a bit quiet at the moment.
Nevertheless, good to be back.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Gung Hay Fat Choi
After wandering round Little India, and with it being Chinese New Year, I thought I'd head down to Singapore's Chinatown to see what the crack was.
I'd missed the celebrations by a few days but there was still a buzz about the place. Teams of brightly dressed Chinamen in full dragon get-up were tootling around in flatbed trucks as if they were ready to be deployed at a moment's notice, like crack commandos.
Throughout the day they would appear from nowhere and do a merry dance in front of the many restaurants to bring them luck throughout the year. Not so lucky for some people sat out front trying to eat their won-tons in peace. Bloody hell those drums are loud.
Speaking of restaurants, I thought whilst I was there I should probably sample some local cuisine. In my head, I was thinking beef in black bean or maybe some chow mein. Closer inspection of the menus revealed I was wide of the mark. It's interesting to note differing Eastern and Western notions of what is considered appetising.
Thus scanning the many restaurants' offerings, I had a choice of dishes like pig's intestines with cucumber, cow's spleen and fishhead curry and my favourite, sweet and sour frog. I am not joking.
Don't think the Capital Chinese Restaurant in Uttoxeter has this on the menu.
Time Waits For No Man. Unless You Live In Singapore
My God the people here are fearsome dawdlers. I thought the industrious Oriental work ethic may have imbued them with a sense of urgency, but more likely the Indian trait of lazing about in the sun has surged to the fore.
They teeter and meander along pavements, gawp slack-jawed and generally list left and right until they perfectly block my path. Similarly, though the shop service here is efficient, so many times now I have found myself stuck behind some family at the counter all studying the backlit menu with squinting incomprehension as if it's been written in binary translated into Welsh, before then changing and rechanging their minds about what they want.
Oh for Christ's sake it's KFC. Just choose a family bucket and have done with it. I wasn't in KFC, by the way. Ahem.
As an aside they have an interesting way of cleaning the toilets here. Each cubicle contains a small drain in the floor, and instead of scrubbing away with the Cillit Bang, they boot open the door and scattergun the entire cubicle with a jetwash, like some crazed SWAT team operative. First time I used the cubicle straight afterwards and saw the walls and seat dripping, I assumed someone had been really desperate and not quite made it.
Finally, this is a typical sight in Singapore, Oriental script sitting alongside Hindi.
The Climbdown - Sorry Singapore
Well, as I suspected my erstwhile rant concerning the rather ersatz and empty nature of Singapore has proved to be a little harsh.
Essentially, I am a collosal wimp: deny me a night's sleep and waft me with heat straight from Satan's bumhole and I would easily win The Eurovision Grump Contest.
Anyway, it turns out Singapore is fine. Not somewhere where you'd spend a lengthy stay, but it does have it's charm.
Went for a walk around the surrounding area and discovered the skyline: ubiquitous harbour front skyscrapers - looked great at night.
I also found the Raffles Hotel, which is like something straight out of Passage To India, with its off-white verandas and immaculately presented Sikhs waiting to open the doors on the sedans of dignatories (if you look really closely you can see him)
Essentially, I am a collosal wimp: deny me a night's sleep and waft me with heat straight from Satan's bumhole and I would easily win The Eurovision Grump Contest.
Anyway, it turns out Singapore is fine. Not somewhere where you'd spend a lengthy stay, but it does have it's charm.
Went for a walk around the surrounding area and discovered the skyline: ubiquitous harbour front skyscrapers - looked great at night.
I also found the Raffles Hotel, which is like something straight out of Passage To India, with its off-white verandas and immaculately presented Sikhs waiting to open the doors on the sedans of dignatories (if you look really closely you can see him)
Also went to Orchard Road, the main shopping district, but it could have been absolutely anywhere - malls jammed with Nike, Armani and Panasonic. Wandered round Borders and immediately thought "Why have I done this? Totally pointless". Orchard Road's principal distinction, then, it is that is the most indistinctive place in the world. A bit like a few other places.
Next day was better. Went over to Sentosa Island via futuristic monorail. Sentosa Island is an outcrop of rock and sand now redeveloped with purpose-built beaches and sail-shaped hotels. I'd gone over for the Carlsberg Sky Tower, an observation deck operating on a rather phallic giant-doughnut-gliding-up-and-down-a-pole system. Once the doughnut is at the top of the pole it....ahem....gently twists round to give you a better view whilst everyone gasps with excitement.
Ithankyou
Singa Poor Show
First of all it's worth pointing out that I'm a right grumpy bastard the first few days of travelling. And this sojourn is no exception. Harumph and indeed harumph. Are there two Rs in harrumph?
It may be that the mild rant you are about to read is tempered by jetlag and heat, but even from an objective standpoint, Singapore has yet to really impress. Sorry.
How to describe it. Well imagine this. Go on, imagine it:
Take a Chinatown, any from your average British city and plop it next to any Little India say Brick Lane or Rusholm, ensuring there is a degree of overlap and that, for example, some places sell chicken biryani AND sweet and sour pork.
Now have some Chinese blokes on rickety cycles weave in and out of some Indian blokes sat on the street with one leg tucked under them. Now flank this with some Japanese-style neon highrises and liberally scatter Western iconography (pictures of Beckham and Nokia Mobiles) across the architectural bric-a-brac.
That's Singapore. Sounds interesting admittedly, but it all feels begged, borrowed or stolen. I suspect you can find better examples of everything on show here in it's original indigenous location.
I just thought it would have more of a sense of itself. Never mind.
My judgement is clouded however. My coma-inducing jetlag has pinned me to my bed, and the greenhouse humidity is fostering a walking-through-warm-treacle malaise. This after coming from a Midlands Winter where, the weather girl warned if it got much worse robins would actually freeze to the branch and polar bears would be seen on the streets of Walsall.
Things will get better I hope. Otherwise Singapore can consider itself slinged. No, slung.
Oh forget it.
It may be that the mild rant you are about to read is tempered by jetlag and heat, but even from an objective standpoint, Singapore has yet to really impress. Sorry.
How to describe it. Well imagine this. Go on, imagine it:
Take a Chinatown, any from your average British city and plop it next to any Little India say Brick Lane or Rusholm, ensuring there is a degree of overlap and that, for example, some places sell chicken biryani AND sweet and sour pork.
Now have some Chinese blokes on rickety cycles weave in and out of some Indian blokes sat on the street with one leg tucked under them. Now flank this with some Japanese-style neon highrises and liberally scatter Western iconography (pictures of Beckham and Nokia Mobiles) across the architectural bric-a-brac.
That's Singapore. Sounds interesting admittedly, but it all feels begged, borrowed or stolen. I suspect you can find better examples of everything on show here in it's original indigenous location.
I just thought it would have more of a sense of itself. Never mind.
My judgement is clouded however. My coma-inducing jetlag has pinned me to my bed, and the greenhouse humidity is fostering a walking-through-warm-treacle malaise. This after coming from a Midlands Winter where, the weather girl warned if it got much worse robins would actually freeze to the branch and polar bears would be seen on the streets of Walsall.
Things will get better I hope. Otherwise Singapore can consider itself slinged. No, slung.
Oh forget it.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Here We Go Again.......
Hello. Welcome back. It's been a while .
Maybe I haven't been in contact as much I should. And that's my fault - I'm sorry. But I reckon you might forgive me, so I'll carry on bashing away regardless. At the keyboard I mean; I have a girlfriend now, you know.
A lot had happened since my last entry. I've been on a 30,000 mile circuit of earth, had a more cheese-on-toast than I care to mention, and indulged in countless afternoon naps. Under a clean duvet. And in silence.
Now I'm going to try to do it all again. What a berk. This time it's New Zealand, via Australia.
I am out of blogging practice so you'll have to excuse me if my usual devastating eloquence and wordsmithery have temporarily deserted me. I am sure that after a box of goon and an apalling night's sleep, constantly awoken by slamming doors and shagging, no doubt my powers will return.
So here we go again.....
Maybe I haven't been in contact as much I should. And that's my fault - I'm sorry. But I reckon you might forgive me, so I'll carry on bashing away regardless. At the keyboard I mean; I have a girlfriend now, you know.
A lot had happened since my last entry. I've been on a 30,000 mile circuit of earth, had a more cheese-on-toast than I care to mention, and indulged in countless afternoon naps. Under a clean duvet. And in silence.
Now I'm going to try to do it all again. What a berk. This time it's New Zealand, via Australia.
I am out of blogging practice so you'll have to excuse me if my usual devastating eloquence and wordsmithery have temporarily deserted me. I am sure that after a box of goon and an apalling night's sleep, constantly awoken by slamming doors and shagging, no doubt my powers will return.
So here we go again.....
Friday, November 09, 2007
Go East
Hurrah. Chris is back from his trek across the Outback. He really is a good old boy, already regaling me with tales of not showering for 9 days, accidentally mistaking a drug den for his hostel and meeting a 23 year-old tour guide who knew absolutely nothing about the actual tour.
His photos are amazing - sunsets on beaches, impossibly-long desert highways disappearing into the vanishing point and giant, craggy blood-red rock formations - and it's really brought home to me how little I have seen since I arrived, and how keen I am to get going.
I have come to realise over the last 3 weeks that I have fallen into an old pattern. Get up, eat some Weetabix, go to work, come home, eat some Findus Crispy Pancakes, go to bed. In effect, I have accurately re-created my life in London, except on far less money and also whilst living in a room with 8 other people. So, as an experience, currently I am actually registering a net loss.
Admittedly, work is a means to an end, to fund my further travels, and it's a good job it is, because if this was my actual life (15k a year to spend 8 hours a day photocopying in silence), I would have already used my hole-puncher to bludgeon myself into unconciousness. Having said that, I do take back some of things I've said about the people here. There are a few rather witty people, but I think they are simply not given a chance to shine as they're too busy worrying about their Departmental Systems Architecture or their Info Turret Investigation Phase Matrix to engage any form of witty repartee. Shame, because a couple of them are quite sharp. I guess I just miss the bear-pit of the Drum office.
Over the next 6 weeks, then, I just to have to knuckle down, ignore any opportunities to blow the money I've saved, and store up for a January departure date. At the moment the plan is, well, vague, but I'm thinking about getting on a bus and heading up the East Coast, calling in at various towns along the way. Potential stop-overs include: Fraser Island, Townsville, Coffs Harbour, 1770 (yes, that IS a town), Bundaberg, Yepoon, Magnetic Island, Moreton Island, Surfer's Paradise, the Whitsundays, and a few more besides.....
Trouble is with backpacking is everyone you meet recommends somewhere different, and some even go so far as to claim certain towns or beaches are the best places in the known galaxy, investing their description with the kind of wide-eyed zeal you'd expect from a religious preacher addressing a congregation on the subject of the next life.
And, to confund matters, for everyone person you find who will bang on about how "fucking amazing", say, Cairns is, you'll find someone who'll declare they'd rather spend the weekend in Huddersfield than go there again. My fear, after wandering up and down Kings Cross and peering into the multitude of backpacker-specialist travel agents, is that I'll end up stuck on some pseudo - Club 18-30 trip next to a 22 year-old Ben Sherman-shirted twat called Darren (from Bolton), and a hippie, tie-dye t-shirt wearing white/middle class rasta called Camilla (from Windsor). And that is not me.
Fortunately, there are alternatives. So, I need to talk to people who are clued up, who know what I like and what I don't like, and seek out the best places, lest I end up between Darren and Camilla attempting to quaff a yard of ale through my nose.
His photos are amazing - sunsets on beaches, impossibly-long desert highways disappearing into the vanishing point and giant, craggy blood-red rock formations - and it's really brought home to me how little I have seen since I arrived, and how keen I am to get going.
I have come to realise over the last 3 weeks that I have fallen into an old pattern. Get up, eat some Weetabix, go to work, come home, eat some Findus Crispy Pancakes, go to bed. In effect, I have accurately re-created my life in London, except on far less money and also whilst living in a room with 8 other people. So, as an experience, currently I am actually registering a net loss.
Admittedly, work is a means to an end, to fund my further travels, and it's a good job it is, because if this was my actual life (15k a year to spend 8 hours a day photocopying in silence), I would have already used my hole-puncher to bludgeon myself into unconciousness. Having said that, I do take back some of things I've said about the people here. There are a few rather witty people, but I think they are simply not given a chance to shine as they're too busy worrying about their Departmental Systems Architecture or their Info Turret Investigation Phase Matrix to engage any form of witty repartee. Shame, because a couple of them are quite sharp. I guess I just miss the bear-pit of the Drum office.
Over the next 6 weeks, then, I just to have to knuckle down, ignore any opportunities to blow the money I've saved, and store up for a January departure date. At the moment the plan is, well, vague, but I'm thinking about getting on a bus and heading up the East Coast, calling in at various towns along the way. Potential stop-overs include: Fraser Island, Townsville, Coffs Harbour, 1770 (yes, that IS a town), Bundaberg, Yepoon, Magnetic Island, Moreton Island, Surfer's Paradise, the Whitsundays, and a few more besides.....
Trouble is with backpacking is everyone you meet recommends somewhere different, and some even go so far as to claim certain towns or beaches are the best places in the known galaxy, investing their description with the kind of wide-eyed zeal you'd expect from a religious preacher addressing a congregation on the subject of the next life.
And, to confund matters, for everyone person you find who will bang on about how "fucking amazing", say, Cairns is, you'll find someone who'll declare they'd rather spend the weekend in Huddersfield than go there again. My fear, after wandering up and down Kings Cross and peering into the multitude of backpacker-specialist travel agents, is that I'll end up stuck on some pseudo - Club 18-30 trip next to a 22 year-old Ben Sherman-shirted twat called Darren (from Bolton), and a hippie, tie-dye t-shirt wearing white/middle class rasta called Camilla (from Windsor). And that is not me.
Fortunately, there are alternatives. So, I need to talk to people who are clued up, who know what I like and what I don't like, and seek out the best places, lest I end up between Darren and Camilla attempting to quaff a yard of ale through my nose.
Brain Of Britain
We were having a discussion the other day whether it's OK to laugh at thick people.
Obviously, as our society becomes more tolerant we see a greater understanding between different cultures, beliefs and lifestyles. But it's interesting to note that Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech didn't include the line "....we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing......oh and don't forget the thick people".
Ashamedly, in these enlightened times it is sometimes difficult not to cringe yourself to death when you hear people come out with increasingly daft statements. And we hear quite a few in the hostel. We have two people staying with us at the moment from the North of England. They were chatting to Franc, who reported back to tell us that when questioned which country Jews came from, answered..."Er...dunno.....Jew-rusalem?".
Other fauxs-pa made include (on quiz night). Name a country in South America named after an Italian City. Answer: Nepal. Also how many countries border does Taiwan? Answer: 4
I know not everyone can be a trivia master, but there's certain things people should probably know. Is this snobbish or unfair? I don't know. I suppose I should really try to be more tolerant.
If like me, however, you feel like saying "bugger it all to hell, lets laugh at the idiots", this site contains the stupidest answers ever given on British Quiz Shows....and it's hilarious (Dad, you will love this).
Here's a taster:
From GWR FM, Bristol
Presenter: What happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963?
Contestant: I don't know, I wasn't watching it then.
Click here for the rest........
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=16225
Obviously, as our society becomes more tolerant we see a greater understanding between different cultures, beliefs and lifestyles. But it's interesting to note that Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech didn't include the line "....we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing......oh and don't forget the thick people".
Ashamedly, in these enlightened times it is sometimes difficult not to cringe yourself to death when you hear people come out with increasingly daft statements. And we hear quite a few in the hostel. We have two people staying with us at the moment from the North of England. They were chatting to Franc, who reported back to tell us that when questioned which country Jews came from, answered..."Er...dunno.....Jew-rusalem?".
Other fauxs-pa made include (on quiz night). Name a country in South America named after an Italian City. Answer: Nepal. Also how many countries border does Taiwan? Answer: 4
I know not everyone can be a trivia master, but there's certain things people should probably know. Is this snobbish or unfair? I don't know. I suppose I should really try to be more tolerant.
If like me, however, you feel like saying "bugger it all to hell, lets laugh at the idiots", this site contains the stupidest answers ever given on British Quiz Shows....and it's hilarious (Dad, you will love this).
Here's a taster:
From GWR FM, Bristol
Presenter: What happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963?
Contestant: I don't know, I wasn't watching it then.
Click here for the rest........
http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=16225
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Boo! It's The Pink House Halloween Party
Harry Potter And The Bunk Bed of Destiny.... in which Harry, upon leaving Hogwarts, finds himself in a rather pedestrian office job with some cadavers, overseeing some magic trains.
Brian and Etienne: Strictly not Hallowe'en costumes, but disturbing nonetheless
Cue The William Tell Overture. Best costume of the night, but lost on most......
Alex was a brilliant, foul-mouthed Cocker-nee Nan......"Faaaaahk Off, Sunshine"
Miranda really should put some Savlon on that
Group photo by the fountain..... I know this photo is very small but if you look really closely at Jenny (front in short white dress), she appears to have fireballs coming out her eyes. Well, it is Hallowe'en after all.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Holy Ship!
Yesterday decided to go down to Circular Quay and the Bridge to retake the photos I lost when my USB drive went walkabouts.
Completely forgot about the "Rhapsody Of The Seas". Don't know if you saw this is in the news, but it's the biggest ship ever to grace Sydney Harbour and only cleared the Harbour Bridge by 2 metres when it arrived a few days back.
So as well as grabbing some good images of the bridge, I also snapped off a couple of the ship. And, yes, it's big. Very big.
And embarrassingly, even though they were moored in Circular Quay, the still decided to hold an evacuation drill. This meant those on the quayside could watch and snicker while various blue-rinsed septugenarians in luminous orange lifejackets trundled out to line up along the side of the ship like the world's longest police identity parade.
Look at these photos. I am the new Patrick Lichfield.
Completely forgot about the "Rhapsody Of The Seas". Don't know if you saw this is in the news, but it's the biggest ship ever to grace Sydney Harbour and only cleared the Harbour Bridge by 2 metres when it arrived a few days back.
So as well as grabbing some good images of the bridge, I also snapped off a couple of the ship. And, yes, it's big. Very big.
And embarrassingly, even though they were moored in Circular Quay, the still decided to hold an evacuation drill. This meant those on the quayside could watch and snicker while various blue-rinsed septugenarians in luminous orange lifejackets trundled out to line up along the side of the ship like the world's longest police identity parade.
Look at these photos. I am the new Patrick Lichfield.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Blame Canada
One upshot of living in a hostel, or indeed travelling, is that your preconceptions tend to be challenged. That's quite a heady statement to kick-off with, but it's true. I am a big believer in speaking as you find. But also it's important to find out as much as you can before you speak about it.
The case in point: The perception is that Canada is a sensible country; less coarse than the States and devoid of their neighbour's hopelessly overly-schmaltzy, highly-commercial Coca Cola culture.
But, so far, and against type, the cleverest man I have met was American. And the biggest idiot, a Canadian. The American was a 25-year old Cornell University graduate who resembled a cross between an Arabian Vizier and Ming The Mericiless, was gay, and was engaged to Paddy Ashdown's son. I am not joking about the last part - intriguingly, he knew that Ashdown was some kind of English politician, but didn't quite appreciate how prominent he was.
Conversely, however, we are currently in the midst of an invasion by Canadian Idiots. Or as they now known around the hostel, Can-idiots. These are the kind of bellowing, baseball-capped doofuses parodied and loathed the world over, although more readily associated with USA. When they are not wearing said baseball caps at a jaunty "rap" angle, or punching the air and going "Wooh, Yeah!", they are busy displaying a startling lack of geographical knowledge, saying things like "Ryan, you are, like, so awesome, dude" or drinking heavily until one of them "barfs". It's like watching some cheap, straight-to-DVD knock-off of American Pie, or some other risible "frat-com".
Furthermore, the pre-existing Canadian contingent have now become mortally embarrassed about the presence of these new, loping jackasses. Yesterday, my friend from Montreal, Etienne, was giving me a Canadian geography lesson and, amongst other things, describing the differences between Provinces (eg Saskatchewan, Manitoba etc) and Territories (eg Yukon) before going on to discuss that the joke amongst Canadians, from British Columbia to Quebec, is that people from Toronto are idiots. And where are this new lot from, I asked? Yep. Toronto. Thus confirming all of Etienne's suspicions.
They had everyone's backs up on the first night when, after neighbours had complained about noise coming from the hostel courtyard, Miranda's continual bout of late night shushing seemed pass through one Can-idiot ear and out the other. "Seriously. Shut up!" said Miranda "We could get fined $600 because of the noise". "Well why don't we all chip in, and then we can make as much noise as we like" bellowed the drunken Canadian. "Shhhhhh!", shushed Miranda before adding "Doesn't really work like that, Ryan", knowing the council can close down hostels with just the stroke of a pen.
Meanwhile, I was on the sidelines tutting disapprovingly and wondering which unlucky person had to share a room with them that night. Turns out it was me. And is their behaviour in the bedroom any different? Well, if I told you they came in at 2am, turned the big light on, whooped and brayed at full volume, snored and then in the morning woke everyone with their alarm at 7am, even though they didn't hear it and didn't need to get up, I think you'll understand why I hope a mysterious and agonising plague is released upon Toronto.
--------------------------
Since I wrote the above, there has been another development. I wearily plodded home yesterday evening after two night's continually interrupted sleep, and not looking forward to that night either, only to be met at the front gate by the Can-idiots, fully backpacked up and steaming out towards the airport shuttle pick-up point. "Are you leaving?" I said, barely disguising the optimism in my voice. "Yeah" whooped one, before adding that uniquely North American goodbye, "Peace!". Well, actually, for me, peace and quiet.
I instantly hugged Miranda and Etienne and Dan before Miranda told me that even if they hadn't left, she wouldn't have extended their rent past Wednesday anyway. As a result Etienne, Matin and I celebrated by going to bed at 10 o' clock for a good night's sleep. Not all in the same bed, obviously.
The case in point: The perception is that Canada is a sensible country; less coarse than the States and devoid of their neighbour's hopelessly overly-schmaltzy, highly-commercial Coca Cola culture.
But, so far, and against type, the cleverest man I have met was American. And the biggest idiot, a Canadian. The American was a 25-year old Cornell University graduate who resembled a cross between an Arabian Vizier and Ming The Mericiless, was gay, and was engaged to Paddy Ashdown's son. I am not joking about the last part - intriguingly, he knew that Ashdown was some kind of English politician, but didn't quite appreciate how prominent he was.
Conversely, however, we are currently in the midst of an invasion by Canadian Idiots. Or as they now known around the hostel, Can-idiots. These are the kind of bellowing, baseball-capped doofuses parodied and loathed the world over, although more readily associated with USA. When they are not wearing said baseball caps at a jaunty "rap" angle, or punching the air and going "Wooh, Yeah!", they are busy displaying a startling lack of geographical knowledge, saying things like "Ryan, you are, like, so awesome, dude" or drinking heavily until one of them "barfs". It's like watching some cheap, straight-to-DVD knock-off of American Pie, or some other risible "frat-com".
Furthermore, the pre-existing Canadian contingent have now become mortally embarrassed about the presence of these new, loping jackasses. Yesterday, my friend from Montreal, Etienne, was giving me a Canadian geography lesson and, amongst other things, describing the differences between Provinces (eg Saskatchewan, Manitoba etc) and Territories (eg Yukon) before going on to discuss that the joke amongst Canadians, from British Columbia to Quebec, is that people from Toronto are idiots. And where are this new lot from, I asked? Yep. Toronto. Thus confirming all of Etienne's suspicions.
They had everyone's backs up on the first night when, after neighbours had complained about noise coming from the hostel courtyard, Miranda's continual bout of late night shushing seemed pass through one Can-idiot ear and out the other. "Seriously. Shut up!" said Miranda "We could get fined $600 because of the noise". "Well why don't we all chip in, and then we can make as much noise as we like" bellowed the drunken Canadian. "Shhhhhh!", shushed Miranda before adding "Doesn't really work like that, Ryan", knowing the council can close down hostels with just the stroke of a pen.
Meanwhile, I was on the sidelines tutting disapprovingly and wondering which unlucky person had to share a room with them that night. Turns out it was me. And is their behaviour in the bedroom any different? Well, if I told you they came in at 2am, turned the big light on, whooped and brayed at full volume, snored and then in the morning woke everyone with their alarm at 7am, even though they didn't hear it and didn't need to get up, I think you'll understand why I hope a mysterious and agonising plague is released upon Toronto.
--------------------------
Since I wrote the above, there has been another development. I wearily plodded home yesterday evening after two night's continually interrupted sleep, and not looking forward to that night either, only to be met at the front gate by the Can-idiots, fully backpacked up and steaming out towards the airport shuttle pick-up point. "Are you leaving?" I said, barely disguising the optimism in my voice. "Yeah" whooped one, before adding that uniquely North American goodbye, "Peace!". Well, actually, for me, peace and quiet.
I instantly hugged Miranda and Etienne and Dan before Miranda told me that even if they hadn't left, she wouldn't have extended their rent past Wednesday anyway. As a result Etienne, Matin and I celebrated by going to bed at 10 o' clock for a good night's sleep. Not all in the same bed, obviously.
Monday, October 22, 2007
No Light At The End Of The Tunnel
Last year I wrote a blog entry about the piss-poor performers in Akabane town square and, actually, seeing as Lou is over there at the moment, I've half-a-mind to ask her to just swing by to see if that "modern dance" prat is still there, whirling his arms around like a windmill on crack.
Anyway in the meantime, in lieu of the demented Japanese street "performer", I have the ones in Sydney to keep me entertained. Unintentionally entertained, obviously. Every day I take the pedestrian tunnel leading under Central Station to my office, and every day down that tunnel I run the gauntlet, darting between slow-moving pedestrians and busted-up buskers.
Most are bog-standard. Two or three are good. Two or three are so bad, they're good. So then, the ones who immediately spring to mind:
1. The Fortune Teller:
Ageing, bearded, floral-skirted Orc, clearly pushing triple figures. She sits on a small foldaway seat at the side of a dinky table scattered with all kinds of dog-eared paraphernalia. I have only ever seen her have one customer: a large Afro-Caribbean woman in an equally bright frock who, in fairness, looked as batty as she did. Perhaps they were friends. "Alright, Glenys...can you tell me my fortune?", "Course, Rita, but I doubt it will have changed since I saw you this morning...."
Most of the time she sits perched on her little seat reading at the newspaper, gurning elastically at passers by like something out of Bo' Selecta. If she really could see the future, she should perhaps find out what days she's likely to receive any customers and then only turn up on those days. See? She's not thinking ahead.
2. The Chinese Puppeteer
Ageing, Oriental prune with a permanent rictus grin, clearly pushing triple figures. The actual puppet itself is a rather splendid Oriental doll complete with embroidered Kimono-esque dressing gown, porcelain face and also is meant to be playing some kind of flute-like instrument. Similarly, attached are multiple strings from every conceivable body part, tied up to two crucifixes above the puppet's "stage". In theory then, you have so much control over it, you could make it alternate between the Moonwalk and the Macerena, in between getting it to pick out the raisins from a bag of Revells.
Why then does the old gimmer only make it turn left and then turn right in time with the music, which incidentally is some generic Chinese pan-pipe music crackling through a ghetto blaster at the side. Christ, you could make that thing do anything: solve a Su-do-ku, rewire a plug, write a letter to the Radio Times. But no, just left and right for me. And all the while, the man as this permanent look of amazement, as if to say "Look! He's dancing in time to the music. Watch this.... Left!.... Amazing. Now watch this..... Right!...... Can you believe it?"
It's still better than Thunderbirds though.
3: The Fake Rolf Harris
Ageing, Aussie one-man band, clearly pushing quadruple figures. The best one of the lot can be found right up the top end of the tunnel - yet for him, alas, I don't think there's any light at the end of it. He's a grizzled Aussie Cowboy-type figure armed with a guitar and a didgeridoo which he attempts to play simultaneously and fails. Usually (and I will have to get a bit technical here) he tunes his guitar to an "open chord" position which means he doesn't have to use his left hand to fret any notes, rather he can just strum/flail away and get one decent chord from the guitar.
His other hand which under normal circumstances would be on the fretboard is used for holding some Aboriginal woodblocks. Then on top of that he has a didgeridoo resting on his chin but, as his other two hands are busy, he faces the wall of the tunnel (with his back to the audience) to props up one end of the didgeridoo against the tiles.
Trying to describe the combined effect is quite difficult, but if you imagine a man dressed like he fell into the props cupboard on the set of Blazing Saddles, facing a wall with his back to you, farting through a didgeridoo, thwacking out one single monotonous chord and rapping some woodblocks on the tiles, and hopefully you'll come to the conclusion that, really, you should carry on walking.
Anyway in the meantime, in lieu of the demented Japanese street "performer", I have the ones in Sydney to keep me entertained. Unintentionally entertained, obviously. Every day I take the pedestrian tunnel leading under Central Station to my office, and every day down that tunnel I run the gauntlet, darting between slow-moving pedestrians and busted-up buskers.
Most are bog-standard. Two or three are good. Two or three are so bad, they're good. So then, the ones who immediately spring to mind:
1. The Fortune Teller:
Ageing, bearded, floral-skirted Orc, clearly pushing triple figures. She sits on a small foldaway seat at the side of a dinky table scattered with all kinds of dog-eared paraphernalia. I have only ever seen her have one customer: a large Afro-Caribbean woman in an equally bright frock who, in fairness, looked as batty as she did. Perhaps they were friends. "Alright, Glenys...can you tell me my fortune?", "Course, Rita, but I doubt it will have changed since I saw you this morning...."
Most of the time she sits perched on her little seat reading at the newspaper, gurning elastically at passers by like something out of Bo' Selecta. If she really could see the future, she should perhaps find out what days she's likely to receive any customers and then only turn up on those days. See? She's not thinking ahead.
2. The Chinese Puppeteer
Ageing, Oriental prune with a permanent rictus grin, clearly pushing triple figures. The actual puppet itself is a rather splendid Oriental doll complete with embroidered Kimono-esque dressing gown, porcelain face and also is meant to be playing some kind of flute-like instrument. Similarly, attached are multiple strings from every conceivable body part, tied up to two crucifixes above the puppet's "stage". In theory then, you have so much control over it, you could make it alternate between the Moonwalk and the Macerena, in between getting it to pick out the raisins from a bag of Revells.
Why then does the old gimmer only make it turn left and then turn right in time with the music, which incidentally is some generic Chinese pan-pipe music crackling through a ghetto blaster at the side. Christ, you could make that thing do anything: solve a Su-do-ku, rewire a plug, write a letter to the Radio Times. But no, just left and right for me. And all the while, the man as this permanent look of amazement, as if to say "Look! He's dancing in time to the music. Watch this.... Left!.... Amazing. Now watch this..... Right!...... Can you believe it?"
It's still better than Thunderbirds though.
3: The Fake Rolf Harris
Ageing, Aussie one-man band, clearly pushing quadruple figures. The best one of the lot can be found right up the top end of the tunnel - yet for him, alas, I don't think there's any light at the end of it. He's a grizzled Aussie Cowboy-type figure armed with a guitar and a didgeridoo which he attempts to play simultaneously and fails. Usually (and I will have to get a bit technical here) he tunes his guitar to an "open chord" position which means he doesn't have to use his left hand to fret any notes, rather he can just strum/flail away and get one decent chord from the guitar.
His other hand which under normal circumstances would be on the fretboard is used for holding some Aboriginal woodblocks. Then on top of that he has a didgeridoo resting on his chin but, as his other two hands are busy, he faces the wall of the tunnel (with his back to the audience) to props up one end of the didgeridoo against the tiles.
Trying to describe the combined effect is quite difficult, but if you imagine a man dressed like he fell into the props cupboard on the set of Blazing Saddles, facing a wall with his back to you, farting through a didgeridoo, thwacking out one single monotonous chord and rapping some woodblocks on the tiles, and hopefully you'll come to the conclusion that, really, you should carry on walking.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
"I", Said The Fly
The mosquitos are back. And so are the flies. And the flies here are arseholes.
Here they bathe in the light of an Insect-o-Cutor when they fancy topping up their tan. Here, when they smash into the window for the third time, the window usually breaks. Here the flies don't say "bzzzzzz", they say "what are you looking at?". Here when you swat them with a newspaper, they grab the newspaper, tear it into a fetching paperchain and hand it back to you, together with a precis of the main stories.
A few of us had decided to go to the Fountain Cafe for breakfast - so called because it's a cafe and it's by a fountain (presumably, the same theory was employed when they named the Snowy Mountains). Within moments we were being divebombed and aerially bombarded by what seemed to be a whole swarm of flies, but in reality turned out to be about 3.
The persistence and aggression of these little buggers is impressive and as we peppered our conversation with the frequent "bugger offffffs" and "piss offfffs", angular elbow movements and absent-minded swatting of brows, I realised the development of the traditional Aussie corked hat must have been a boon for the early settlers. It certainly wasn't a fashion statement, anyway.
Here they bathe in the light of an Insect-o-Cutor when they fancy topping up their tan. Here, when they smash into the window for the third time, the window usually breaks. Here the flies don't say "bzzzzzz", they say "what are you looking at?". Here when you swat them with a newspaper, they grab the newspaper, tear it into a fetching paperchain and hand it back to you, together with a precis of the main stories.
A few of us had decided to go to the Fountain Cafe for breakfast - so called because it's a cafe and it's by a fountain (presumably, the same theory was employed when they named the Snowy Mountains). Within moments we were being divebombed and aerially bombarded by what seemed to be a whole swarm of flies, but in reality turned out to be about 3.
The persistence and aggression of these little buggers is impressive and as we peppered our conversation with the frequent "bugger offffffs" and "piss offfffs", angular elbow movements and absent-minded swatting of brows, I realised the development of the traditional Aussie corked hat must have been a boon for the early settlers. It certainly wasn't a fashion statement, anyway.
Running On Empty
Is this the most boring email ever to grace an inbox?
---------
Paul,
In a situation where:
* we have been to the RailCorp panels of professional services providers (P07001 - P07005) to secure a Type 1 professional services resource but have been unsuccessful, and
* we now propose to go to the State Procurement 881 panel,
do we need to prepare a separate submission for approval to invite a tender from the 881 panel or will it be sufficient to go straight to the 881 panel explain and explain this in the submission for approval to award the contract?
Peter
-----------
I don't know who Peter is, but he sounds like a lot of fun. Yes, never a dull moment with the P-Meister. He is Krazy. Yes, Krazy with a "K".
Every now and again, despite his wife's advice, he wears his navy tie, not with his navy suit, but with his cornflower blue suit. What a rebel. And sometimes on his way to work, he plays his INXS CD out of sequence - just to mix it up. Man, someone stop that guy - he's out of control.
This place continues to amuse me. The last thing I want to do is come across as snide or unjustifiably vindictive, but I there's something amiss here. I could be afflicted by a terrible naivety, but I just don't know if what these people do has any point to it. Well, it has a point in that it buys them a cornflower blue suit, and pays the Foxtel bill, but I mean what does it actually do?
Most of these people are contractors, hired management consultants who sit in silence, all day, updating documents, chuntering in a subdued yet overly-businesslike fashion down mobile phones which, incidentally, double as PCs, cameras and TV remote controls.
Listening in on their conversations and talking to them about their tasks, it almost seems as if they are trying to build some kind of castle from thin air, vaguely waving their arms about as they direct where the invisible bricks should go. And to the casual observer, the result is a still an empty plot of land. I'm reminded of a famous Goon Show sketch where, whilst in the desert, Eccles, Neddy and Bloodnok encounter a house which they find to be mirage, only to see Eccles fall out of the sky, remarking "I went upstairs".
Was that a useful analogy? Probably not. But, in short then, I am saying that any minute now I expect people to start falling from the sky, realising their job doesn't consist of anything tangible; nothing they can hold, see or touch. Today's charts relay and condense the results of the last set of charts, which were in fact a forecast of what was to be in today's charts, anyway. This spreadsheet is a spreadsheet about other spreadsheets, all of which referenced this spreadsheet. "Maybe we should touch base and have a discussion about what needs to be discussed next time we discuss how previous discussions have gone"; "We're currently undertaking a Stage 2 feasibility study to discover whether the Project Management Team can effectively forecast for Contingency Budgeting, so we can go straight ahead with implementing a Solutions Matrix to address the issues raised in the Test Summary Report. I think you'll agree, that's pretty exciting. Also my wife's left me and I feel so alone....".
The whole thing is so circuitous, so self-referencing, so tautological that you wonder if any work has any influence on anything in the real world. Like a self-contained, Mobius-strip-shaped little universe or a snake eating its own tail, until it feeds itself into nothing.
Yes, I worked in the advertising industry, which is not exactly the most laudable of professions, but the end result was for all to witness; on TV, on the radio, in a magazine, on the internet. And I'm not knocking them . They have kids to feed and Audi's to fuel, but I remain fascinated by the fact that what they do is so artificial, so invisible, so ethereal that no one has ever noticed their output doesn't actually consist of anything.
---------
Paul,
In a situation where:
* we have been to the RailCorp panels of professional services providers (P07001 - P07005) to secure a Type 1 professional services resource but have been unsuccessful, and
* we now propose to go to the State Procurement 881 panel,
do we need to prepare a separate submission for approval to invite a tender from the 881 panel or will it be sufficient to go straight to the 881 panel explain and explain this in the submission for approval to award the contract?
Peter
-----------
I don't know who Peter is, but he sounds like a lot of fun. Yes, never a dull moment with the P-Meister. He is Krazy. Yes, Krazy with a "K".
Every now and again, despite his wife's advice, he wears his navy tie, not with his navy suit, but with his cornflower blue suit. What a rebel. And sometimes on his way to work, he plays his INXS CD out of sequence - just to mix it up. Man, someone stop that guy - he's out of control.
This place continues to amuse me. The last thing I want to do is come across as snide or unjustifiably vindictive, but I there's something amiss here. I could be afflicted by a terrible naivety, but I just don't know if what these people do has any point to it. Well, it has a point in that it buys them a cornflower blue suit, and pays the Foxtel bill, but I mean what does it actually do?
Most of these people are contractors, hired management consultants who sit in silence, all day, updating documents, chuntering in a subdued yet overly-businesslike fashion down mobile phones which, incidentally, double as PCs, cameras and TV remote controls.
Listening in on their conversations and talking to them about their tasks, it almost seems as if they are trying to build some kind of castle from thin air, vaguely waving their arms about as they direct where the invisible bricks should go. And to the casual observer, the result is a still an empty plot of land. I'm reminded of a famous Goon Show sketch where, whilst in the desert, Eccles, Neddy and Bloodnok encounter a house which they find to be mirage, only to see Eccles fall out of the sky, remarking "I went upstairs".
Was that a useful analogy? Probably not. But, in short then, I am saying that any minute now I expect people to start falling from the sky, realising their job doesn't consist of anything tangible; nothing they can hold, see or touch. Today's charts relay and condense the results of the last set of charts, which were in fact a forecast of what was to be in today's charts, anyway. This spreadsheet is a spreadsheet about other spreadsheets, all of which referenced this spreadsheet. "Maybe we should touch base and have a discussion about what needs to be discussed next time we discuss how previous discussions have gone"; "We're currently undertaking a Stage 2 feasibility study to discover whether the Project Management Team can effectively forecast for Contingency Budgeting, so we can go straight ahead with implementing a Solutions Matrix to address the issues raised in the Test Summary Report. I think you'll agree, that's pretty exciting. Also my wife's left me and I feel so alone....".
The whole thing is so circuitous, so self-referencing, so tautological that you wonder if any work has any influence on anything in the real world. Like a self-contained, Mobius-strip-shaped little universe or a snake eating its own tail, until it feeds itself into nothing.
Yes, I worked in the advertising industry, which is not exactly the most laudable of professions, but the end result was for all to witness; on TV, on the radio, in a magazine, on the internet. And I'm not knocking them . They have kids to feed and Audi's to fuel, but I remain fascinated by the fact that what they do is so artificial, so invisible, so ethereal that no one has ever noticed their output doesn't actually consist of anything.
No "Non-PC" PCs
Received this email today:
HOW CAN I AVOID BREACHING RAILCORP’S ICT POLICY?
The ICT policy prohibits you using the RailCorp email system to send sexually explicit or otherwise inappropriate material.
In considering whether material is inappropriate, you can ask yourself:
“If I printed out that picture, would it be acceptable to pin it on the wall in front of all my fellow staff, my managers, and in public view as representing the image RailCorp wants to present to the NSW community?”
Examples (not an exhaustive list) of inappropriate items are:
· Nudity, both male and female
· Swimsuit, lingerie and underwear pictures
· Images/text/videos/jokes/cartoons which may offend on racial/ethnic grounds or on religious grounds
. Pictures/cartoons:
o which show or concentrate on human genitals/sexual anatomy
o of animals apparently engaged in sexual acts
o involving bodily functions (eg: vomiting, urinating, defecating)
o of medical/surgical procedures or of wounds/injuries
All of these items may cause offence and/or discomfort for someone in our workplace, and therefore they are not appropriate.
You should have no expectation of privacy in relation to your use of email in the workplace.
Bloody spoil sports...........
HOW CAN I AVOID BREACHING RAILCORP’S ICT POLICY?
The ICT policy prohibits you using the RailCorp email system to send sexually explicit or otherwise inappropriate material.
In considering whether material is inappropriate, you can ask yourself:
“If I printed out that picture, would it be acceptable to pin it on the wall in front of all my fellow staff, my managers, and in public view as representing the image RailCorp wants to present to the NSW community?”
Examples (not an exhaustive list) of inappropriate items are:
· Nudity, both male and female
· Swimsuit, lingerie and underwear pictures
· Images/text/videos/jokes/cartoons which may offend on racial/ethnic grounds or on religious grounds
. Pictures/cartoons:
o which show or concentrate on human genitals/sexual anatomy
o of animals apparently engaged in sexual acts
o involving bodily functions (eg: vomiting, urinating, defecating)
o of medical/surgical procedures or of wounds/injuries
All of these items may cause offence and/or discomfort for someone in our workplace, and therefore they are not appropriate.
You should have no expectation of privacy in relation to your use of email in the workplace.
Bloody spoil sports...........
This Sporting Life
Now I'm not a fan of sport as you know.
In fact, I'd rather spend my Sunday watching the Antiques Roadshow and then Last Of the Summer Wine because, even if Henry Sandon had undervalued a particularly nice teapot, and even if Cleggy failed to launch a rocket made from a bathtub, the combined duration would still be shorter than a football match.
But this last two weekends have been big dates in the Australian sporting calendar and I thought it only fair I celebrate this with my post-colonial cousins.
AFL
First up, the Aussie Rules (or AFL.) Grand Final which myself, Lou, her Melbourne friend Jude, Brian, Franc, Claire, Etienne and Martin all headed down to a bar in Darling Harbour to watch. Obviously, I knew next to nothing about the sport and even with an Aussie, Jude, attempting to explain the rules I was none the wiser.
So how was the game? Well, allow me a digression. Imagine this: when it used to rain at school, we would be confined to the classroom for a "wet-break" where dinner ladies would wheel out reams of blank paper and big stubby Crayola crayons in an attempt to keep us amused for an hour.
If the rain let up, the kids would be let back into the playground and the joy upon being free from the inside of the classroom would result in every child hyperactively zooming around in an impossibly tight turning circle as if just having received an intravenous injection of Kia Ora. From the air it no doubt looked like the physical representation of 2 dozen catherine wheels, spinning wildly and chaotically.
Now, if you'd chucked a ball in while you were at it, you'd have yourself an AFL game.
It's unfathomable: some people are running this way; some people are running that way; there's someone running diagonally for a bit, then back this way. Players dart over there for a while then come cow-tailing it back, then they get tackled and hare it back round and head off in other direction. What's going on?
The whole thing looks like a 22 sprint races being run simultaneously, one for each player, and each with their own unique criss-crossing start and finish point.
And this goes on for ever. 4 quarters of 30 minutes each with a 10 minute break in between means the entire game is pushing 2 and half hours. And that's a long time to be racing around like you've taken an entire packet of Pro-Plus washed down with Red Bull.
I tell you what though. I'll readily admit that even though the game appears an indecipherable hyper-steroidal free-for-all, those players are very, very physically fit. They have to be, being forced to spend two hours of legging it about like they're on fire. They run more than footballers do, and for longer. And, even though tackles are far less brutal than rugby, they run more than rugby players too.
At the end Geelong (near Melbourne) had beaten Port Adelaide by 119 points clear, the biggest ever margin in a Grand Final. Back at the hostel Alex (or Mr Tumnus) was sulking. He's as Australian as drinking Castelmaine XXXX from a billabong, and is a die-hard Port Adelaide fan and little did we know at the time, he was to be disgruntled yet further by an even bigger sporting humiliation........
Rugby
The following weekend was England vs Australia and, despite everyone expecting a thrashing, we headed down to Darling Harbour again to watch the match. This time, however, the bar we had visited the previous week had turned into a meat market complete with gyrating slappers with belts for skirts. Clearly not showing the rugby then.
So we ended up in an old man's pub round the corner, together with a healthy gathering of Aussies and Poms alike. To be fair the Aussies were very gracious singing God Save The Queen as well as their own national anthem, and banter between opposing supporters was light-hearted. The only dissenting voice came from a 70-year old git who looked like he'd been kicked awake in a shop doorway, who routinely barracked the screen with chants of "Break their hands, boys" and was so obnoxious that the other Aussies in the room told him to shut up.
He later fell into conversation with two of our party, Chris (now fully recovered from the train vomitting incident) and Claire. He told them both he had a phD in Econometrics despite looking like a pin up for The Real Ale Drinkers Calendar circa 1974 with his chunky lambchop sideboards and pot belly. Clearly a bit mental.
In fact, after speaking to him for 4 minutes Claire had started surreptitiously kicking me as if to say "rescue me". Martin (from Koblenz) and I wondered how best to do this. "Perhaps I should just go over there and kiss her" he suggested. "Don't think Claire would like that" I responded "Perhaps you should go over there and kiss him".
The game was very exciting, as you no doubt know. So much so that the two German girls, Alischa and Julia, who had never seen a rugby match before, were instantly hooked. The tension built towards the end and the final victory sent the English contingent diving for their mobile phones to send text messages to friends and enemies across the world. The Aussies didn't make a fuss and slunk away quietly, until only the English were left.
I arrived back at the hostel to see Alex (Mr Tumnus), freshly-miserable from Port Adelaide's defeat the week before, being harrangued by three drunk Englishman. "Your team lost at Aussie Rules, and now your rugby team lost as well....dear oh dear oh dear" barracked Noel from Nantwich. "You didn't even score a try" countered Alex, barely containing his rage. "Doesn't matter" said Noel "You still lost". "Yeah, well stop going on about it" retorted Alex "If the Aussies won, I wouldn't have been taking the piss. At least we're modest in victory". "What?!" said everyone in unison "Are you joking? You'd have been banging on for weeks".
And, for someone who doesn't like sport, it was all rather entertaining.
In fact, I'd rather spend my Sunday watching the Antiques Roadshow and then Last Of the Summer Wine because, even if Henry Sandon had undervalued a particularly nice teapot, and even if Cleggy failed to launch a rocket made from a bathtub, the combined duration would still be shorter than a football match.
But this last two weekends have been big dates in the Australian sporting calendar and I thought it only fair I celebrate this with my post-colonial cousins.
AFL
First up, the Aussie Rules (or AFL.) Grand Final which myself, Lou, her Melbourne friend Jude, Brian, Franc, Claire, Etienne and Martin all headed down to a bar in Darling Harbour to watch. Obviously, I knew next to nothing about the sport and even with an Aussie, Jude, attempting to explain the rules I was none the wiser.
So how was the game? Well, allow me a digression. Imagine this: when it used to rain at school, we would be confined to the classroom for a "wet-break" where dinner ladies would wheel out reams of blank paper and big stubby Crayola crayons in an attempt to keep us amused for an hour.
If the rain let up, the kids would be let back into the playground and the joy upon being free from the inside of the classroom would result in every child hyperactively zooming around in an impossibly tight turning circle as if just having received an intravenous injection of Kia Ora. From the air it no doubt looked like the physical representation of 2 dozen catherine wheels, spinning wildly and chaotically.
Now, if you'd chucked a ball in while you were at it, you'd have yourself an AFL game.
It's unfathomable: some people are running this way; some people are running that way; there's someone running diagonally for a bit, then back this way. Players dart over there for a while then come cow-tailing it back, then they get tackled and hare it back round and head off in other direction. What's going on?
The whole thing looks like a 22 sprint races being run simultaneously, one for each player, and each with their own unique criss-crossing start and finish point.
And this goes on for ever. 4 quarters of 30 minutes each with a 10 minute break in between means the entire game is pushing 2 and half hours. And that's a long time to be racing around like you've taken an entire packet of Pro-Plus washed down with Red Bull.
I tell you what though. I'll readily admit that even though the game appears an indecipherable hyper-steroidal free-for-all, those players are very, very physically fit. They have to be, being forced to spend two hours of legging it about like they're on fire. They run more than footballers do, and for longer. And, even though tackles are far less brutal than rugby, they run more than rugby players too.
At the end Geelong (near Melbourne) had beaten Port Adelaide by 119 points clear, the biggest ever margin in a Grand Final. Back at the hostel Alex (or Mr Tumnus) was sulking. He's as Australian as drinking Castelmaine XXXX from a billabong, and is a die-hard Port Adelaide fan and little did we know at the time, he was to be disgruntled yet further by an even bigger sporting humiliation........
Rugby
The following weekend was England vs Australia and, despite everyone expecting a thrashing, we headed down to Darling Harbour again to watch the match. This time, however, the bar we had visited the previous week had turned into a meat market complete with gyrating slappers with belts for skirts. Clearly not showing the rugby then.
So we ended up in an old man's pub round the corner, together with a healthy gathering of Aussies and Poms alike. To be fair the Aussies were very gracious singing God Save The Queen as well as their own national anthem, and banter between opposing supporters was light-hearted. The only dissenting voice came from a 70-year old git who looked like he'd been kicked awake in a shop doorway, who routinely barracked the screen with chants of "Break their hands, boys" and was so obnoxious that the other Aussies in the room told him to shut up.
He later fell into conversation with two of our party, Chris (now fully recovered from the train vomitting incident) and Claire. He told them both he had a phD in Econometrics despite looking like a pin up for The Real Ale Drinkers Calendar circa 1974 with his chunky lambchop sideboards and pot belly. Clearly a bit mental.
In fact, after speaking to him for 4 minutes Claire had started surreptitiously kicking me as if to say "rescue me". Martin (from Koblenz) and I wondered how best to do this. "Perhaps I should just go over there and kiss her" he suggested. "Don't think Claire would like that" I responded "Perhaps you should go over there and kiss him".
The game was very exciting, as you no doubt know. So much so that the two German girls, Alischa and Julia, who had never seen a rugby match before, were instantly hooked. The tension built towards the end and the final victory sent the English contingent diving for their mobile phones to send text messages to friends and enemies across the world. The Aussies didn't make a fuss and slunk away quietly, until only the English were left.
I arrived back at the hostel to see Alex (Mr Tumnus), freshly-miserable from Port Adelaide's defeat the week before, being harrangued by three drunk Englishman. "Your team lost at Aussie Rules, and now your rugby team lost as well....dear oh dear oh dear" barracked Noel from Nantwich. "You didn't even score a try" countered Alex, barely containing his rage. "Doesn't matter" said Noel "You still lost". "Yeah, well stop going on about it" retorted Alex "If the Aussies won, I wouldn't have been taking the piss. At least we're modest in victory". "What?!" said everyone in unison "Are you joking? You'd have been banging on for weeks".
And, for someone who doesn't like sport, it was all rather entertaining.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Helter Swelter
It's October. And today it is 36 degrees. I'll write that again - this time in words for the deaf aids - Thirty-Six Degrees.
It's like being in a wind tunnel with a blast furnace. If I was on a beach I think I'd be mopping at my brow with me hanky like some Midlands Pavarotti.
I'm so hot I'd wrestle naked with Eskimo in a freezer full of icepops.
No duvet for me tonight, then.
It's like being in a wind tunnel with a blast furnace. If I was on a beach I think I'd be mopping at my brow with me hanky like some Midlands Pavarotti.
I'm so hot I'd wrestle naked with Eskimo in a freezer full of icepops.
No duvet for me tonight, then.
All's Well That Ends Whale
With only a few days to go until she returns home, Lou, my lovely missus, decided to arrange a mystery trip for us.
Despite my constant questioning she refused to give me any clues as to where we were going, and it was only when she hinted "You need a jumper and a camera" that I guessed correctly; it was pushing a sweltering 27 degrees and in this weather only the sea could be that cold. Turns out, we were going whale watching. Good stuff.
I immediately began brushing up on my Moby Dick quotes - "To the last, I will grapple with thee" and "From hell's heart, I stab at thee" - ready to deploy them in case I became accidentally entangled with the harpoon and found myself trussed to the side of the beast. Obviously, that wasn't likely to happen, but I just wanted to show Lou how cultured I was.
So after I'd been put right on the differences between whale watching and ....well, whaling .....we set off. At Darling Harbour we loaded up onto a double decker boat about the size of a small corner shop, and buzzed-off Eastwards out to sea, passing under and past the ubiqitous opera house and bridge. About 1 hour 30 minutes later, Sydney's skyline was pencil-feint in the heathaze, and with the boat pitching and buckling in the Pacific, I began to feel rather queasy. Lou had taken her travel sickness tablets and so was zonked out on the back seat, but other people were surreptitiously making use of the windsock-style honk-bags distributed at departure.
Just when the sweat was beginning to pool in the small of my back and my mouth had gone dry, the driver - who was an Englishman and a Christopher Ecclestone lookalike - spotted two blowhole sprays and made off for a spot about 200m away. Predictably, there was a mad dash for the top deck where several people were already poised with their digicameras, together with one big black American guy and his missus, who had some kind of proper super-duper, hi-tech, ground glass, long-lensed Olympus effort.
With the engine off and drifting aimlessly, the whales began breeching closer. Now we could see them arcing and curling through the waves, the instantly recognisable Y-shaped tail signalling their departure from the surface. At was at this point, however, people who were attempting to take photos were beginning to discover all they had was a series of snaps featuring just the ocean; it was impossible to know where they would surface next, and when they did breech, in the time it takes to fire off a shot, they'd surged off in another direction. Usually down.
Nevertheless we did have one very close encounter. About 20 minutes in one whale pierced the surface metres from the boat, eliciting a chorus of oooohs and aaaahs from the throng. I scrabbled for my camera but completely bungled it - first by turning it off and, then, after I'd turned it back on, by accidentally selecting the wrong mode. Bugger. To my right I heard the big American with the expensive camera chuntering as well ; he'd obviously missed the moment too. Luckily, Lou got off a few shots from a crouching position with her old-style Nikkon, but as she's a photographer and uses good old-fashioned film, I don't know yet whether the encounter exists on record.
Then it was over. We'd had our allotted time and so turned tail and made for Sydney, now obscured by a brilliant blast of late-afternoon sunshine. Actually, it wasn't over. About 40 minutes out of Sydney, a fellow passenger descended the stairs to announce: "look....dolphins" and again there was a mad scramble to the top deck, and to the front of the boat. We peered over the edge to see a dolphin just feet in front of the bow, scything through the foam at incredible speed. To the casual observer it could have looked like we were chasing it down, but we most definitely weren't. No, the dolphin was playing. Apparenty, they often join the returning boats, racing along with them across the ocean. And, sure enough, after a few moments they had peeled away and disappeared.
Another great trip, then. But next time I'll need to be quicker with the camera.
Despite my constant questioning she refused to give me any clues as to where we were going, and it was only when she hinted "You need a jumper and a camera" that I guessed correctly; it was pushing a sweltering 27 degrees and in this weather only the sea could be that cold. Turns out, we were going whale watching. Good stuff.
I immediately began brushing up on my Moby Dick quotes - "To the last, I will grapple with thee" and "From hell's heart, I stab at thee" - ready to deploy them in case I became accidentally entangled with the harpoon and found myself trussed to the side of the beast. Obviously, that wasn't likely to happen, but I just wanted to show Lou how cultured I was.
So after I'd been put right on the differences between whale watching and ....well, whaling .....we set off. At Darling Harbour we loaded up onto a double decker boat about the size of a small corner shop, and buzzed-off Eastwards out to sea, passing under and past the ubiqitous opera house and bridge. About 1 hour 30 minutes later, Sydney's skyline was pencil-feint in the heathaze, and with the boat pitching and buckling in the Pacific, I began to feel rather queasy. Lou had taken her travel sickness tablets and so was zonked out on the back seat, but other people were surreptitiously making use of the windsock-style honk-bags distributed at departure.
Just when the sweat was beginning to pool in the small of my back and my mouth had gone dry, the driver - who was an Englishman and a Christopher Ecclestone lookalike - spotted two blowhole sprays and made off for a spot about 200m away. Predictably, there was a mad dash for the top deck where several people were already poised with their digicameras, together with one big black American guy and his missus, who had some kind of proper super-duper, hi-tech, ground glass, long-lensed Olympus effort.
With the engine off and drifting aimlessly, the whales began breeching closer. Now we could see them arcing and curling through the waves, the instantly recognisable Y-shaped tail signalling their departure from the surface. At was at this point, however, people who were attempting to take photos were beginning to discover all they had was a series of snaps featuring just the ocean; it was impossible to know where they would surface next, and when they did breech, in the time it takes to fire off a shot, they'd surged off in another direction. Usually down.
Nevertheless we did have one very close encounter. About 20 minutes in one whale pierced the surface metres from the boat, eliciting a chorus of oooohs and aaaahs from the throng. I scrabbled for my camera but completely bungled it - first by turning it off and, then, after I'd turned it back on, by accidentally selecting the wrong mode. Bugger. To my right I heard the big American with the expensive camera chuntering as well ; he'd obviously missed the moment too. Luckily, Lou got off a few shots from a crouching position with her old-style Nikkon, but as she's a photographer and uses good old-fashioned film, I don't know yet whether the encounter exists on record.
Then it was over. We'd had our allotted time and so turned tail and made for Sydney, now obscured by a brilliant blast of late-afternoon sunshine. Actually, it wasn't over. About 40 minutes out of Sydney, a fellow passenger descended the stairs to announce: "look....dolphins" and again there was a mad scramble to the top deck, and to the front of the boat. We peered over the edge to see a dolphin just feet in front of the bow, scything through the foam at incredible speed. To the casual observer it could have looked like we were chasing it down, but we most definitely weren't. No, the dolphin was playing. Apparenty, they often join the returning boats, racing along with them across the ocean. And, sure enough, after a few moments they had peeled away and disappeared.
Another great trip, then. But next time I'll need to be quicker with the camera.
One Day My Prints Will Come
Last week I was charged with printing out 720 CountryLink training manuals (CountryLink being the OZ equivalent of, say, Intercity). Truly, a job worthy of my talents. Each print run had 84 pages, so that was 60480 pages. It was 122,398 seconds of my life I wasn't going to get back.
So I invented a new game to entertain myself.
If it was a Japanese gameshow it would be called (adopts shouty/grunty Oriental voice): "Super-Printout-Treasure-Hunt-Charrenge!!!!!!!!!!!", accompanied by epilepsy-inducing flashing limegreen captions.
The game is thus: because it's too much for one printer to handle, and because people waiting for one piddly printout are held up by what appears to be an entire tree's worth of paper, I have to stagger the workload.
This means finding other random printers in random parts of the building, installing them on your PC and then sending your Bible Of Dross to print out possibly across the other side of the building. Of course it's not always obvious where these printers are. And so when your print is complete you can go on a little treasure hunt around the labyrinthine corridors looking for any printers with a two ton wodge of paper sat in its out tray.
Strictly speaking you shouldn't do this. Each department has been assigned a printer and has a discreet budget for paper and toner etc. and so today I got rumbled:
"Hi Philip
It appears that what you have been printing has turned up at our printer – level 4 south side facing the tracks.
As this is a large document can you please pick it up instead of reprinting the document.
In future please try to double side print large documents
Regards,
Ellena"
Note how the email is poilte, yet subtle in its recriminations.
"CountryLink"? More like "Cunt Really, Inc."
So I invented a new game to entertain myself.
If it was a Japanese gameshow it would be called (adopts shouty/grunty Oriental voice): "Super-Printout-Treasure-Hunt-Charrenge!!!!!!!!!!!", accompanied by epilepsy-inducing flashing limegreen captions.
The game is thus: because it's too much for one printer to handle, and because people waiting for one piddly printout are held up by what appears to be an entire tree's worth of paper, I have to stagger the workload.
This means finding other random printers in random parts of the building, installing them on your PC and then sending your Bible Of Dross to print out possibly across the other side of the building. Of course it's not always obvious where these printers are. And so when your print is complete you can go on a little treasure hunt around the labyrinthine corridors looking for any printers with a two ton wodge of paper sat in its out tray.
Strictly speaking you shouldn't do this. Each department has been assigned a printer and has a discreet budget for paper and toner etc. and so today I got rumbled:
"Hi Philip
It appears that what you have been printing has turned up at our printer – level 4 south side facing the tracks.
As this is a large document can you please pick it up instead of reprinting the document.
In future please try to double side print large documents
Regards,
Ellena"
Note how the email is poilte, yet subtle in its recriminations.
"CountryLink"? More like "Cunt Really, Inc."
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