MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

SO NOW I'M GETTING HAILED ON IN CANBERRA

I'm starting to think I harbour a bad weather curse. If only I'd returned to Aus earlier, the drought would have broken years ago. Watch out Brisbane, I'm arriving tomorrow!

(BTW it is REALLY hard to get a good photo of hail.
Don't mock me.)

DARK AND STORMY

So much for my escape into sunshine. A few days ago Brisbane was hit by the biggest storm in twenty years. I thought it was awesome. It broke about 3pm, the sky darkened, the rain started pounding down on the roof, and the thunder was the loudest I've ever heard. Lightning flashed, the noise of the rain was overwhelming and the thunder was ear-splitting. I love storms and was enjoying it thoroughly. Then there was a clap of thunder that made me physically jump and sent a twinge of fear tingling up my spine. At that point I knew that this was more than a wicked summer thunderstorm.

When I was living here in 1998, one day about this time of year saw me huddled in the office with workmates while a massive storm raged outside. Looking out the window I saw a roof flapping through the air and trees being whisked down the street. The storm on Sunday sounded at least as angry as that one, and even though I couldn't see any household pets flying around the sky where I was, I was sure there would be carnage elsewhere. And there was, check out this Youtube video below to get an idea of the ferocity of the storm.

Of course, everyone else in Brisbane was well aware that there was a big scary storm coming. I've just been a bit oblivious because of the family medical situation at the moment. I still can't talk about details, but it's traumatic to say the least. I've led an exceptionally lucky life. When something like this happens it puts all other concerns in perspective. I don't like talking about serious topics in this blog, as you may have noticed. It's just a bit difficult when my whole world is revolving around this person battling in a hospital bed at the moment. I'm flying to Sydney tomorrow, and it's going to be so hard to leave. Thanks to everyone who has sent messages of support, I'll keep you updated offline about how things are going.

LEAVING LONDON. AGAIN.

My last few weeks in London flew away from me "with indecent haste" (that's for you, S!). I'd like to say it was with a whir of parties and reckless indulgence in the full spectrum London's hedonistic pleasures, but mostly I was just working, job-hunting and packing. During my last two weeks the weather turned particularly cold, which helped alleviate somewhat the trauma of leaving my fabulous friends, house, and lifestyle in London for a return to the mundanity of my home country. Once again I miss out on a frosty christmas, and will be forced to sweat my way through the festive season in the southern hemisphere. Same old, same old.

I've been offered a job back with the government department I worked for up until four years ago, which is good. Annoyingly, there are about a thousand security hoops I need to jump through until that offer can be formalised and I can start work. I need to start earlier rather than later to help build my case for a return visa to the UK, so the delay is really frustrating. Until that comes through, my plan was to hang about and visit family up in Rockhampton but a family medical situation means I've been down in Brisbane instead. I can't really go into details here, but lets just say I've spent more time at the hospital than I ever have before and hopefully ever will again. It's not been the relaxing break I was hoping for, but on the other hand it's been great to be able to be here and support my family rather than my usual modus operandi of insulation through geographical distance.

I've also been quite impressed with the changes in Brisbane since I last lived here. There has been a lot of infrastructure development - new busways and stations, redeveloped train stations, a new cafe and shopping precinct in the Valley and a big public square in the city. It's really impressive. Plus the weather has been fabulous. Apart from my first day, in which I almost melted into my boots, it's been pleasantly warm. I've conquered my jetlag thanks mostly to a marathon sleep-free session. I last woke up in London at 7am on a Tuesday and didn't sleep until around 3am Thursday morning. A couple of ten-hour nights seems to have put me back on track now.

I've not really contacted any of my Brissy friends as I'm busy spending most of every day at the hospital, so don't be offended if you haven't heard from me. I wouldn't mind coming back up here again for a weekend some time soon though. My first priority is to get this job sorted out and start working. Did I mention it's in Canberra? Try to suppress that involuntary shudder, at least it will provide me with the motivation to get the hell out of there and go back to the UK!

OUT OF TIME, OUT OF PLACE

Due to a spectacular demonstration of inconsistency and incompetence by the Home Office, I've been forced to re-evaluate the amount of time I've used up on my Working Holidaymaker visa. The result is that I now have only four weeks left to work in London, rather than the twelve weeks I thought I had. To say that I'm bummed out is a massive understatement. The worst thing about this situation is that I don't yet have enough points to qualify for a new visa, and will need to head back to Australia and work for a few months until I do. Grrrr.

So now I'm closing down my life over here (temporarily!!) and desperately looking for work back in Aus. I figure that if I can get work starting by mid-November, I should have earned enough points to apply for a new visa in 3 months. Add to that the minimum 6 weeks it will take to process the visa once I've applied, and I'm looking at around 5 months in Australia as a minimum. Sooo, if anyone has any tips for finding short-term, relatively well-paying contract work I'd love to hear your ideas. I'm guessing it may be easiest to get a project manager-type role given the time frame and my most recent experience. I'll live anywhere - Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Karratha - and will be available from mid-November.

Must find work! Must get visa! Must be able to return to London! Help!!!

OH, CANADA!

Four days after landing back in the UK from Croatia, and I was off to the airport again. This time it was out to Canada where I was attending a friend's wedding. I was looking forward to the break, as three days of work in London and one early-morning train to Stratford-upon-Avon had given me no time to recover from Croatia. Sleep deprivation and vitamin deficiency had left me absolutely shattered.

So I flew off to Toronto on Air Canada (no thanks to bloody Zoom Airways) and was met at the airport by the husband of my father's cousin. I didn't even know my father had cousins. Apparently that makes this guy the husband of my first cousin once removed...whatever! I was just happy to be collected from the airport. Having someone waiting at the airport NEVER happens to me. So I had a free lift to a nice cozy bed for the evening which was absolute luxury. These cousin-type-people lived in Burlington, so the next morning after a short tour of the town I caught a train into Toronto where I was hoping the real action would be.

Well, the only action I saw was behind my eyelids. I'm always surprised by my complete lack of tolerance for jetlag. You'd think being the 'seasoned traveller' I like to think I am, I'd have it all sorted. Alas, I was too knackered to go out for pre-wedding drinks on the Saturday evening but luckily pulled myself together in time for the big day on Sunday. My friend's wedding was fantastic. Held at a yacht club, it brought back happy memories of my sailing trip of a week earlier and the service itself was very moving - I think I must be getting softer in my old age ;) The reception was much more fun than the average wedding, in my humble opinion. The happy couple were just so happy! And they had a lot of time for each of the guests, which I have found quite rare in my experience. Usually I feel like I'm intruding on a family 'do'. This one however was great.

My next adventure was a day trip to Niagara Falls. I was expecting a disappointing trip to an over-hyped tourist trap, however it was absolutely amazing. The power of the falls was exhilarating. I flew over them in a helicopter but couldn't make sense of the sights my eyes were seeing. From a distance I thought I was looking at smoke from a fire, but as we flew closer I realised it was the spray rising from the centre of the falls. Once back on solid ground, I took a trip on the Maid of the Mist, a boat which has been taking tourists to the bottom of the falls since 1846. The view, and sound, and feel of the spray on your face needs to be experienced.

Having seen Niagara Falls, I was done with Ontario and jumped on a train to Montreal, Quebec. I'm in love with that city. It is beautiful.

Greenery, water, art, french language, I could definitely live here. Goddamn immigration legislation. I met some fabulous people at my hostel and spent a glorious few days wandering around, reading, absorbing, debating, recuperating. This was a wonderful holiday, and seemed longer than the nine days I was actually away. Oh to live an idle life!

SAILING IN CROATIA

Another year, another squillion brain cells killed by spending a week sailing with thirteen alcoholic lunatics. I've been delaying writing this post until I can consult with the other witnesses and develop a consistent record of who, what, where, when, why and how, but that's not going to happen. I'm afraid I haven't had the time to launch the level of investigation that would be needed to piece together 14 different snippets of memory to emerge with a consistent record of even one drunken evening, let alone the nine nights we spent in Croatia. I think the majority of hijinks on this trip are to be forever consigned to the collective unconscious, a vague tugging feeling in the back of our memories whenever we walk past a docked cruise ship with a dinner bell on the bow located enticingly close to a swinging mooring line.

This much I know: we started in Dubrovnik. I have a 'thing' for walled cities. York, Chiang Mai, Derry, Buda(pest), I love them all. Walking the Dubrovnik wall was especially rewarding. Towering above the city, you see the orange rooftops bunched below on the one side, and the shimmering expanse of the Adriatic Sea on the other. It was simply gorgeous.

Unable to collect the yachts until Sunday, we had three whole days in Dubrovnik. While my usual modus operandi is to wander around looking at pretty things with no knowledge of what they are, this time I was armed with a Croatia guide book (courtesy of Westminster Libraries) so I marched off to see what I could see. I saw a lot. It was interesting at the time, but since then has completely flown out of my memory attic.

By the third evening everyone had arrived, and the adventures were about to begin. This year we had four Australian girls, two Australian guys, three Kiwi guys, one Kiwi girl, one Austrian girl, one Polish girl, one American guy, one English guy. We had two yachts again (I think they were both 42-foot) and were christened Brokeback and Four Wenches (or 'Four Inches' if it was said in a Kiwi accent). I think the consensus was that the former name was due to BGB's choice of headwear on our first day and the latter because that boat had four women on board. But that could have been a cover story. Four Wenches was the designated Party Boat.

The start of a sailing trip is always exciting. We pooled our money and went off to buy groceries. For most of us on Brokeback, it was our second year sailing so we drew on our knowledge of what did and didn't work when trying to prepare food in the galley of a violently-heeling yacht. I think the other boat just bought alcohol and crisps. Back to the marina, the boats were loaded up and we were off at last. It felt so good to be back out to sea - the last few days staring dreamily at the islands off Dubrovnik had me craving the feeling of salt in my hair and sand in my toes.

After lunch and a swim in a little bay, our first overnight stop was in Ston. We moored parallel to each other, which means the boat closest to land has people climbing all over it at all times of the night. Hence the requirement to designate a Party Boat. There were salt flats opposite and a pretty town down the road, however I remember virtually none of it. Our first night was very, very messy. F demonstrated his ninja moves by trying to walk off the boat onto the land (forgetting the wire 'railing' around the edge), tripping over and saving himself from a face-plant into the concrete by turning it into a pushup. Add to that some gate-crashing Austrians from a boat further along, a visit from the police with a noise warning, 17 giggling drunkards crammed into the galley of one boat trying to be quiet and trick the police into thinking we'd gone to bed (while one of us was upstairs by the police car asking 'the cute one' out) and you'll get a sense of the general level of mayhem in store for the next week.

I can't really distinguish many of the other days from each other. I know we went to the beautiful national park island of Mljet. Our first night at Polace involved us arguing with a restaurant owner over the price of the bill and the cost of filling our water tanks. In the end we refused to pay, left the next morning to Pomena on the other side of Mljet, and bumped into the waiter from the offending restaurant who was moonlighting as a ferry operator. While we spent a gorgeous day cycling around the national park and swimming in crystal-clear water, the evening saw three of our boys run through a bar in their underwear and another warning by the police. After the second police visit of the evening we were threatened with confiscation of our passports. Our next night was in Korcula, a renowned party-town, however everyone was unsurprisingly a bit knackered. A small group of us still managed to stay out for some nightclubbing and dancing-on-a-stage action so the whole team wasn't let down.

On our way to Sipan the next day, we stopped as usual for lunch and a swim in a bay. Disturbingly, a police boat pulled in about half an hour later and started coming toward us. Our fears of being stalked were allayed, as it was a standard paperwork check. After a quiet night moored out in the harbour in Sipan we sailed back to Dubrovnik and spent our last night on the yachts there.

Croatia was pretty, but it really didn't compare to last year's sailing trip in Greece. Croatia was much more expensive, both the food prices and mooring fees were at times exorbitant. My first meal in Dubrovnik cost £60, however that was probably more down to the naive ordering of BGO (fish platter vs fish of the day) than a concerted Croatian con job. I have a feeling that the combination of people that came this year were more raucous than last year, however the constant attention by the police was really uncalled for on most occasions. And Greece was breath-takingly gorgeous. At the end of this trip I was utterly, completely, physically and mentally exhausted. I arrived back home in London around midnight on Sunday, and had four days back at work before flying out to Canada for another week. I was broke and broken.

ZOOMING INTO DEBT

Just found out today that the airline I was flying into Canada for my friend's wedding in 2 weeks time has gone bust. Bloody Zoom Airways! I found out about it because I have a mate who was supposed to be flying back to the UK from Canada on Zoom. He was advised after sitting on the tarmac for almost an hour that the plane was not allowed to depart. This friend was supposed to arrive back to London with days to spare before we fly to Croatia to go sailing, and instead finds himself stranded in Calgary. His girlfriend has just spent six hours on the phone and internet rescheduling his flights which will allow him to arrive in Dubrovnik only one day late.

Bloody Zoom Airways! Grrrr!

PUNTING IN CAMBRIDGE

I've really been going all-out with the iconic British experiences lately, haven't I? The most recent was punting in Cambridge.

This last bank holiday weekend a group of eight of us headed north to Cambridge to celebrate my flatmate's birthday. The majority of the group drove up there on Sunday, and I was one of three who caught the train Monday morning. I was glad I missed out on Sunday's adventure. When we arrived in time for a lazy brunch on Monday we were greeted by the sight of one of the worst collective hangovers I've ever witnessed (from the outside at least). Baggy eyes, drawn faces, one girl couldn't even face breakfast and was sleeping (and allegedly throwing up) in the park down the road.

It was a beautiful day though, and as the whole point of travelling to Cambridge was to get on the river they managed to pull themselves together and off we went...to buy beer and wine to help us punt. Half of us decided to hire our own punt, while the others decided to be big, scaredy, girly-pantses and join a boat with a professional punter. So while they were gliding smoothly down the river Cam, learning a little local history about Kings College or Trinity College, we spent an hour lurching from one side of the river to the other, bashing into any boats that got into our way, and generally looking quite the opposite of sophisticated.

I can proudly say that we didn't technically hit the side of the canal/river once, due entirely to the fact that the person sitting in the front of the punt - designated the 'paddle-girl' regardless of gender - was charged with leaning forward and pushing off from the wall before the boat hit it. We also didn't lose the pole, despite a few close calls which nearly saw the punter tumbling in the water.

We ended the day by ambling around the town centre, visiting a street market, and having a relaxing lunch and quiet beverage for those who had recovered enough to partake in the amber ale. All in all a lovely, sunny day spent in good company. Happy birthday, J xx

WIMBLEDON & THE PROMS

I remembered some more things I did during my 3-month blog blackout:

Wimbledon
Eating strawberries and cream at Wimbledon is, for some reason I haven't bothered to research, a quintessential London experience. Despite knowing pretty much nothing about tennis, I decided it would be worth checking out. I left work a little early on the 23rd of June (Day One) and caught a Tube to Southfields where I met up with a friend before following the throng of people to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

It seemed to me that queueing to get into Wimbledon is just as much a tradition as the tennis. Every queuer was given a brochure on queueing etiquette as well as a sticker that said "I Queued For Wimbledon 2008", which made me think there must be people whose whole experience of Wimbeldon is the queue. The line moved quickly, however, and after about 45 minutes we walked through the turnstiles and into the ground. The atmosphere was fantastic. People were milling around, eating, drinking and being merry. The sound of cheering and clapping drew us to Court Three where we watched Mario Ancic (hot Croatian) beat Michael Llodra (left-handed French dude).

Things got even better once we acquired free tickets to Centre Court. A friend who was meeting us inside had accidentally lined up in the taxi queue instead of the ticket queue and was rewarded with free tickets from the amused Australians in front of her. We went in and watched the women's singles: first Bartoli beating Lisicki then Radwanska beating Benesova. Even though I'm not a huge tennis fan, the enormity of sitting on Centre Court during Wimbledon still had me giggling like a girl - it was seriously cool.

It was an awesome evening, so good in fact that when two of my work colleagues said they were skipping out of work early on Thursday to go to Wimbledon I decided to join them. The Day Four queue was a whole different experience. Four days of sunny London weather had brought the crowd out in droves. The queue that had stretched about 50 metres back from the gate on Monday now snaked all the way around the car park and back into a field. It was so long that the crowd marshalls had us form 3 additional lines to the left of the main queue at the end: essentially queues to get into the queue. As you can imagine, this was not a 45 minute wait. Two (strangely not entirely unpleasant) hours later we finally entered the ground.

I wasn't optimistic about topping the amazing experience of free Centre Court tickets from Monday, but I think I actually pulled it off. Due to the fortuitous timing of a toilet break, we were directly outside Court 7 just after it was announced that Venus and Serena's doubles game had been moved to that court. We were able to get some really good seats and watched the Williams sisters beat Radwanska (who I had watched on Centre Court on Monday) and Domachawska after a valiant attempt by the Polish girls in the second set.

All-in-all it was a great experience and I'll definitely be going back next year.


The Proms
"Promming" is another essential English experience. It involves (not surprisingly) queueing outside Albert Hall to buy five quid standing-room tickets to one of the concerts. The Proms are eight weeks of (primarily) classical music concerts each summer that attract a wide range of people and not just the usual classical music crowd. Some friends were visiting from the north of England so we went along to Prom 5 on 20th of July. We saw Bella Hardy sing, Martin Simpson play guitar, and a band called Bellowhead rock my world. They're an 11-piece band that plays traditional music in a contemporary, funky style. When they walked on stage I was expecting a jazzy/Cat Empire-type experience but their sound was much deeper and there were some great theatrics from the singer. There was moshing involved, and not just by me. If you're ever around when they're touring you should seriously watch them play. Dates here.

TWISTED TIME LORD TALES

I just read that David Tennant (Doctor Who) is dating actress Georgia Moffett. I love it. Moffett played the Doctor's daughter in the sixth episode of the most recent series and is the real life daughter of former Doctor Peter Davison. So this means the 10th regeneration of the Doctor is dating his on-screen daughter, whose real-life father is the 5th regeneration of the Doctor and is therefore a younger version of himself.

Twisted tales indeed...

(Goddamn I'm a geek)

FRANKIE IS MOONLIGHTING

It seems Frankie (my faithful weblog confidente) has starting moonlighting as a government-sponsored drugs advice website. Cheeky beggar. If you're interested in drugs you can check out his alter-ego here www.talktofrank.com :)

STILL ALIVE

I can't believe it's been over 3 months since I last posted. My excuse is that I moved house in May and we only had the internet connected earlier this week. So much for my (unpublished) resolution to post one blog per week. Still, keeping a new years' resolution until April is pretty darn impressive if I do say so myself.

So what have I been up to since April? I have no idea. That's why I'm supposed to be writing this damn blog! I imagine my memory as being this massive dark attic, stuffed full of useless treasures from days gone by (the lyrics to Ice Ice baby, the technical name of that pump that doctors use to test blood pressure, the words and tune of a Japanese children's song about frogs). The memory attic is so crowded with rubbish that there is hardly any room to store any new, interesting pieces that I collect. So some things I throw in there get wedged down behind the other junk, out of sight, but can be found later on with a bit of fumbling around. Other things, however, don't fit at all and are lost forever. It's like I fling my experiences into the memory attic but they just skim over the top of the storage piles and fly out the window, never to be seen again.

Here's a quick overview of some of things I can still see peeking out from behind my memory of the time I nose-dived into the netball court in front of all the boys in high school and landed with my skirt over my head (wish I could toss that memory out the attic window):

Moved house
I moved from the stroller-strewn streets of SW11 north to the tree-lined avenues of West Hampstead. Most importantly, I'm no longer living in a room the size of a kitchen pantry.

Note to internet stalkers - the attached photo isn't of my new (or old) house, it's from a cute town in Norfolk. So there.

Visited York
York is a beautiful, lovely, quaint city. I dragged a London buddy up with me to visit a friend of mine and we had a fantastic weekend. I've always loved walled cities. I love walking around the cobbled streets and imagining I can hear the footfalls of people taking those same steps hundreds of years ago. Highly recommend you visit.

Cruised to Dover
One of my flatmates has the pleasure of working for a boss who is so rich he doesn't think twice about offering her his red Audi convertible any weekend he's out of town. We took full advantage of his generosity and went on a day trip to some places that I can't remember but were near Dover. There were castles and forts involved, and at one stage I could look over the channel and see France. Curse my overstuffed memory attic.

Visited Manchester
I also had a really good time visiting a Vina-friend in Manchester. I was a bit spoiled as my friend introduced me to some really cool people, and took me to funky bars, quirky cafes and other places I would never have found on my own. I'd definitely like to go back for another peek. Unfortunately I'll have to do the touristy thing next time as my friend has since moved to Birmingham. I could go visit her there instead, but as I was more than a little disturbed by the dress and customs of the local Mancunians, I'm not sure if I'm ready to face a city full of Brummies just yet.

Cruised to Norfolk
Last Sunday was another red convertible day, so we hit the highway and went to Norfolk. There was less climbing over, around and through English Heritage properties than the other road trip (one of my flatmates is recovering from a broken ankle) but lots of top-down cruising beneath shady green canopies and under a clear(ish) blue(ish) sky. Bring it on!

I've no doubt there has been another 40 things happen that I could have written about here, but they're just out of my reach at the moment. I solemnly promise to try very hard to write more regularly from now on. And if I don't, you can assume I've just lost the key to the attic.

HARDER, BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER

People are strange. I love YouTube.

REJECTED

This is Don Hertzfeldt's Academy Award nominated short film. If you don't like Southpark-style humour, I can tell you now that this ain't gonna be your bag, baby. However if you do, this animation is freakin' fantastic!

LIFESTYLES OF THE (SOON-TO-BE) RICH AND FAMOUS

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be in the film industry? Actors memorising lines, being attended to by personal stylists, sipping champagne at fancy premieres. It's a life of action, parties and glamour, right? Or is it? I decided I wanted to find out.

I was invited to the filming of a short film to be entered into the London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film. With free entry, aspiring film-makers are in the running for loads of great prizes including the opportunity to be featured on the Sci-Fi channel. The catch? The entire film has to be written, shot and edited in 48 hours. Madness.

In order to ensure people weren't entering pre-prepared material, participants were called to a briefing at 10.30am on Saturday where they were given an envelope containing the title of their film and a prop and line of dialogue to be included. The team I was observing were called The Mind Is Buddha, and their little white envelope revealed:

Title: Owls of the Forest
Prop: Chrome desk lamp
Dialogue: You wanna know who I love? Well it's a different person every day.

The producer/directors had already sourced a restaurant in Farringdon in which to set the film. They also had some rough ideas about plot, but it obviously needed to be flexible enough to incorporate the random title, props and lines that would be thrown at them. In the end, the story went a little something like this: an entrepreneur has invited some movers and shakers of the food world to preview his new restaurant. Exploiting the latest in Japanese aromatechnology, he's purchased a machine that allows you to experience the taste of food without actually eating anything (that's the science fiction part). So you have an empty plate in front of you, and at the flick of a switch your taste buds suddenly experience the sensation of medium-rare steak, a 1986 shiraz, or maybe potatoes with garlic sauce. Mmmm. Never mind that this sensation could pop into your mouth while you're in the middle of a sentence, this is cutting-edge technology and, in the words of the soulless investor invited to the meal, imagine how much money you could make selling this to Ethiopia!

While everything starts well, it wouldn't be interesting unless something went drastically wrong. In this case, a recently-fired chef who resents the restauranteur for replacing his specialised craft with a machine sneaks in and messes with the settings so that our glamourous and influential guests in the restaurant get some rather unpleasant gastronomic sensations. And unlike actual food that you can spit out or stop eating once you realise it's rotten, there was no such relief for our virtual-food diners. The scene in which the posh guests start being 'fed' rancid food was truly hilarious. With no time to script this film, all the lines are improvised and the actors didn't hold back. I had tears of laughter rolling down my face while this scene was being shot. I won't spoil the end of the film (and don't look too closely at the next photo unless you'd like to make a very educated guess), as those of you based in London should come along and watch it at the Apollo West End in a few weeks' time. For my overseas readers, I'm hoping it will show up on YouTube or somewhere after the competition has closed so you don't miss out on the action.

So is this film going to win? Well, 87 teams showed up to receive their briefings on Saturday morning and by the time the Monday deadline rolled around 18 of those had realised the immensity of the task and were no doubt cowering under their duvets in the foetal position. That left 68 filmmakers still in denial who managed to submit a completed short film by the 1pm deadline. The competition results will be known in about 2 weeks (which is a bit of a rip off as I think the judges should have a 48-hour turnaround as well) but all films will be screened at the Apollo West End in a couple of weeks' time. I haven't seen the final cut of Owls of the Forest, but in my humble opinion there's definitely enough nutritional goodness in there to warrant a Michelin Star if the ingredients are mixed properly. Bon appetit!!

IT'S SNOWING!!!

It's snowing in London. How cool is that? I woke up this morning to see snowflakes brushing past my window and my street transformed into a winter wonderland. In spring. I've managed to be out of town any other time there's been real snow here (as opposed to sleet that melts the moment it hits the ground). I have some Australian friends staying with me so we went outside and started having snowball fights. Very immature. Very good fun.

GUESS THE SONG TITLE

I know it's really lazy to post videos, pictures and games instead of writing, but a friend just sent me these today and I think they're awesome :)

HOW'S YOUR GEOGRAPHY?

Mine's a bit more crap than it should be Check this out:

TOTALLY CREAM CRACKERED

The last few weeks have been pretty huge. I started a new job at the beginning of March - it's for the same company I temped with for a few months last year so it's been really good coming back into a familiar environment. The people there are great, many of them completely bonkers, so I fit in quite well. The company is an employers' association and I'm back with the Business Development team as a project manager. Last year I was on the sponsorship side of things, which I didn't enjoy much at all, but now I'm involved with longer-term strategic alliances. So for example I'm project-managing a £25,000 feasibility study on whether we should start up our own insurance company to cover Employment Tribunal prosecutions of our members. Insurance is quite boring, but this project is exciting. Really, I'm not just telling myself that!

And because I live in London and I'm me, I've also been partying. A lot. Given that it's 10pm on a Sunday and I'm still feeling queasy from last night's adventures (which didn't end until 5.30 this morning), I would suggest that I may have been partying a little too much. One of the best parties I've been to for a long long time was my friend's 30th birthday costume party. The theme was Punks and Pirates, but another mate desperately wanted to dress up as a Stormtrooper so it became Punks and Pirates and Steve the Stormtrooper. Steve's costume was awesome. The mask was bought from a costume shop but the entire rest of his outfit was made from polystyrene and that plastic packing material that Ikea furniture comes wrapped in (in the photo it's the stuff covering his head and neck). He made it all himself and looked amazing.

The next week was the highly-anticipated (by me at least) Jonathan Coulton concert which was just as good as I had hoped. Except that he didn't play Mr Fancy-Pants. I had way too much horrible pink wine and got so toasted that I went up to him afterwards and berated him for not playing the song. I also remember telling him that "a dingo ate my baby". That wine was evil. I felt very, very ill the next day but still managed to catch a bus down to Bournemouth to visit a friend for the Easter long weekend.

The photo disguises the fact that we were exposed to bone-chilling temperatures, arctic winds, hail and sleet. Seriously. It's the first time I've been hailed on while walking along the beach. It was a fantastic weekend though. Most of the time was spent indoors eating, drinking and being merry. Very merry. I don't want my blog to give the impression that I drink all the time, but the fact is I do drink all the time. Not in an alcoholic kind of a way, more like in a "that's just what you do here" kind of way. I'm thinking of having a detox month in May, just to let my liver know I care.

So that was last weekend, my adventures last night centred around the disco party boat I mentioned in my post on 1st of April last year. Last year I crashed this girl's birthday party (she was the wife of a friend of a friend who I had never met), but in the intervening 12 months I've not only become friends with her myself, but also temped at her company and therefore met a lot of the hunky Polish blokes that she employs. So last year's boat full of muscly strangers became this year's boat full of muscly acquaintances. It was a good night. Despite managing to avoid every one of the tequila shots being passed around all evening, I still woke up this morning a bit worse for wear.

So no wonder I'm feeling knackered (or "cream crackered" as they say here). My vow is to be a little more civilised this coming weekend, and to actually post a blog that doesn't involve me complaining about a hangover. I just don't think a post about the joys of finding a pair of shoes I don't hate or the annoyance provoked by an unclean microwave would make for interesting reading. Maybe I should let you be the judge.

MR FANCY PANTS

I'm a little bereft of inspiration today. I'll write in the next few days, but to keep you entertained at present, I've included below a couple of Jonathan Coulton clips to edu-ma-cate those of you I've convinced to come along and see him on 20 March in Camden. The song is called Mr Fancy Pants and is performed live in the first clip by a very wobbly and enthusiastic fan, and transposed for the ukelele in the second clip. The ukelele chick is really cool, I hope you like them :)

JOCO IN LONDON!

Mr Code Monkey is coming to London! It's sooo cool. I know some of you have (unfortunately) been within earshot when I've decided to belt out one of Jonathan Coulton's songs whilst sitting in the pub or walking down the street, but now you'll have the chance to go along and hear someone who actually has talent perform them. For those of you who I haven't yet converted with my fervent speeches and cleverly sequenced selection of YouTube clips, you can find out who the hell I'm talking about by visiting http://www.jonathancoulton.com or searching his name in YouTube.

Basically he was a computer geek who decided to chuck in his programmer job and make music fulltime. He started off with a podcast called "Thing A Week" where he released a new song every week for a year. It's very cool stuff, more similar to Flight of the Conchords than the Foo Fighters, so I'm guessing we're unlikely to need covered shoes, earplugs and first aid supplies for moshpit injuries. Jonathan Coulton (JoCo) releases his songs under a Creative Commons license which means we common folk can use his music to make video clips or whatever as long as he's referenced. And now many, many geeky-type people (who unlike me are very likely to know the difference between a megabyte and a megapixel) have made video clips to his music using World of Warcraft, Sims 2 or just by making a knob of themselves on a webcam.

It seems it's not 100% confirmed as yet, but it's very likely he'll be flying over from the USA to play at Dingwalls in Camden on 20 March. Hooray! That's the night before Good Friday so I'll be harassing people individually to make sure they're still in town and keen to come along. I knew there was a reason I kept forgetting to book my bus down to Bournemouth for the Easter weekend :)

I've included below a clip of a girl playing Tom Cruise Crazy on a ukelele for your viewing and listening pleasure. I posted my favourite Code Monkey video on this blog last November so you should also click on that in the archives. I'm very excited, I already have four people who I'm going to drag along with me but I'm counting on the programmer buddy who first inducted me into the Cult of JoCo to boost up numbers further. Come along, you'll love it, hooray!

Ninja Edit: I just noticed I have the Code Monkey clip on the sidebar here as well under the Play With Me section. Give it a whirl, is geeky goodness :-)

HAPPY LEAP DAY!

I think the Leap Day that occurs once every four years should be a holiday, don't you? It's a unique day: a "catch-up" day because the mathematics of a 365-day year doesn't quite match the physics of the earth's orbit around the sun. I think that deserves a public holiday; that way I could catch up on the sleep I've missed because the mathematics of working all day and socialising in the evening doesn't quite match the physics of requiring 8 hours of rest every night.

I've been very slack in writing since I moved back to London. Partly it's because life has been so hectic. I've been looking for a job and a flat, catching up with friends, trying to enjoy all that London life has to offer (to those on a modest budget at least) and doing all this while flitting around between friends' sofas while I wait for my new room to become vacant. The other reason I've been so slow at writing is because now that I'm settling back into normal life I assume that I don't have anything interesting to say. Being on holidays is one thing, I can convince myself that someone might like to read about my adventures in Slovakia or Abu Dhabi, but who really cares if I found a great new place for a massage today, or that I helped a guy who fell down the Underground stairs during peak hour, or that I learned the Polish work for "f*ck off"?

I think in order to blog you need to have a pretty big ego; to assume that people care about your thoughts and opinions. I don't have a big ego, but I guess I can just pretend that I'm writing to my sister and that will make it seem a little less self-indulgent. I'll see how that works out:

So, dear sister, what have I been up to these last few weeks I hear you ask? Well apart from watching Camden burn to the ground, I've been going to the theatre, doing walks both in London and out in the countryside, hanging out with friends, drinking in pubs, proofing and editing my mate's first novel, joining in as a member of the studio audience for a BBC4 quiz show, catching up on series two of Doctor Who and checking out the hot Polish labourers who come into the office where I'm temping. And no it wasn't one of them who told me to f*ck off.

Being back in London is O for Awesome (Kiwi in-joke there) and I'm trying my damnedest to arrange my work and financial situation in such a way that will allow me to switch to a longer-term visa before my current one expires next February. A pox upon all of you with British Ancestry visas or EU passsports!! I hope to have some good job news in the next week or so - will keep you posted.

CAMDEN TOWN IS BURNING DOWN

I definitely coined that phrase before Amy Winehouse blabbed it during her Grammy acceptance speech. It was while I was standing in the street, mouth open, staring at the flames leaping 30 metres in the air as the Camden markets burned. Some friends and I had arranged to meet up for drinks there last night. I was in the West End eating dinner with one of them when we got a text from another saying that there was a big fire in Camden. Fearing that they'd close down the tube and I'd miss out on drinking the night away at my favourite pub, we high-tailed it over there asap. Stepping outside the tube station I saw just how big the fire was, and these photos don't come close to doing it justice. It was awesome. My inner pyromaniac was enjoying every second of it; while one mate was cautioning me to stay back because it was "dangerous", I was itching to race closer and snap some photos before the cops and firemen pushed back the crowds. It was sooo not dangerous, we were at least two blocks away. Eventually the cops did close down the street so we went to the pub as planned. A nice little distraction, and just like the time I revelled in the building across the road from my office collapsing into the street last year I feel a guilt-free pleasure in enjoying this spectacle of destruction because nobody was injured. Damn London is fun.

PISTOL SHRIMP

I had a pretty tame Australia Day, which was just what I was after. Some friends and I did a cultural pub walk around Chelsea, but being broke and unemployed I was very restrained and sensible. Someone sent me this YouTube clip of a Pistol Shrimp, which I think is kinda cool, so I'll share that with you and delay writing anything interesting until one day when I'm feeling more inspired.

ABU DHABI

I liked Abu Dhabi. It's a strange place, a bit bland to look at and it seems to lack a strong cultural identity. I guess this is not surprising given that the city as we know it sprang into existence only recently when the progress-loving Sheikh Zayed gained power in 1966. Prior to that, the emirate consisted of a few camel herders living in mud huts in a vast expanse of desert. When oil was discovered in 1958 there were only 15,000 people living in Abu Dhabi, and now barely fifty years later it's the capital of the United Arab Emirates with a population of around 1.5 million. It doesn't have the buzz or eccentricities of its neighbour Dubai, and if truth be told doesn't seem to have much personality at all. I was only there three and a half days yet managed to see all the major sites except for one massive mosque.

So why did I like it? Basically because I was there with good friends who had an insider's view of which sites are worth visiting and also a car to get us there in comfort. Travelling by taxi is a bit of a nightmare because of the bizarre system of street addresses. Basically there isn't one. Despite the fact that the streets are all signposted using a grid system, nobody follows or understands it so you have to describe your destination by using landmarks. Obviously a bit of a challenge for a clueless tourist such as myself. This is where my fabulous friends' local knowledge and car ownership came in handy. I was visiting a mate who I haven't seen since he left Vietnam for the UK five years ago. We kept in contact once he moved to Cambridge but despite the best intentions to catch up we could never manage to be in the same country at the same time. He was one of only three people who I knew were living in Britain when I decided to move over here (the others being in York and London) but in a display of spectacularly bad timing, he moved to Abu Dhabi just one week before I landed at Heathrow. So it was great to finally catch up and spend some time hanging out with him and his wife.

I arrived at the start of the weekend (Friday-Saturday) and on the first day we checked out the Abu Dhabi Heritage Village and were treated to a strange performance. It consisted of two rows of Arabian chaps clad in the traditional long white robes (called dishdashes) and headscarves singing across at each other while swinging canes in unison. The tune was quite catchy, but unfortunately distorted through crap speakers. It was a world apart from our destination the next day, which was the gold-encrusted Emirates Palace Hotel. It can be described by only one word: opulence. It's a massive complex with its own private beach and the day we were there they were setting up a stage for the upcoming Elton John concert. Riiiight.

All in all it was a fantastic trip and my mid-journey recovery from jetlag made me even more excited about heading back to London and getting stuck back into life. I've been on holiday for the last six months and as fabulous as that has been, I'm really a bit over it and looking forward to working again. Well, more looking forward to earning money than the actual working part. I haven't gone completely mad.

SNAPPLE, GET IT?

I'm back in London now, but I'm still a bit tired and don't feel like writing about my Abu Dhabi stopover yet. Here's a link to a comic to entertain you until I get motivated to write more. I think it's funny. Did I mention I'm tired?

THINK ABOUT IT

I'm about to fly back north into the winter. Here's a little something to think about while I'm squished inside a smelly plane hurtling through the sky for hours and hours on end:

MY PERFECT HOLIDAY?

Study study study study study…I’ve spent the last seven days studying solidly. I really know how to holiday, huh? The background is that I started a Professional Certificate in Editing and Proofreading back in 2006, with the intention being to get some freelance work to supplement the meagre income I was earning from my job with an arts charity in Sydney. The course was designed to be completed “at your own pace”, so predictably I only completed a few units of study before it got lost amongst more exciting pursuits like preparing for my relocation to the UK.

It wasn't completely forgotten, though. I even called the distance education provider before leaving Aus to ask whether I was able to defer the study for a year or so (to save myself the added hassle and weight of transporting my study materials over with me in the initial load) and was assured that this was possible. However, when I was sorting through the pile of my mail at mum’s house over Christmas I came across a letter saying that if I did not complete all remaining assessments by 5 February 2008 I would not be eligible to be awarded the certificate. Confusion! Panic! I had paid something like $800 for this course so I wanted the piece of bloody paper to go with it! I was determined to complete all remaining units and post them off before flying back to London in mid-January.

Christmas is not a good time to study, so I grabbed the course materials from my mum’s house but didn’t look at them straight away. New Years is also not the best for studying, so they stayed unopened and stowed away amongst my luggage during this time too. I was staying with my little sister on the Sunshine Coast by now, and her birthday is on 3 January. It would be just plain rude to study on my little sister’s birthday! I made her a nice breakfast and lunch, we hung out for the day and she partied well into the night, which left Friday a little delicate. The 3rd was a Thursday, so her actual birthday party was that Saturday night. We went out to Maroochydore with a bunch of her friends and danced the night away. It was a really great night. So great, in fact, that Sunday was a complete write-off.

So finally, on Monday 7 January, I opened my study materials determined to complete the five or so assessments I thought I had left by 16 January which is the day before I’m scheduled to fly back overseas. At this point, I discovered I actually had ten units and assignments to complete.
Ten.
Not five.
Ten assignments in ten days.
That didn’t sound very fun at all. And indeed it hasn’t been overly fun. I’ve been studying like a big fat nerdy-pants, trying to get one assignment per day into the post box. I’ve since revised my travel plans and am going to spend the night in Brisbane tomorrow which means I really need to finish and post them all today. It’s 8:30 in the morning, and I still have two assessments to finalise and send off by the end of the day.

So what am I doing wasting time writing this entry I hear you think? Good question! I don't know! Gotta go study!

SUMMER SUNSHINE (AT LAST)

The past two weeks have been wet and windy. I spent Christmas at Bargara, which is a beachside town near Bundaberg, and there was so much wind that the surf lifesavers were warning people not to swim at the beach. Luckily there's a lagoon thing just beside the beach so we could swim in there without fear of being caught in a rip and dragged out to our death. It was a huge family Christmas, the first we'd had since 1999 according to my uncle, which is why I trekked all the way back from the UK to be here. I'm glad I did, it was really nice. We were all staying at holiday units by the beach, and it was very bizarre to be sleeping on a bunk bed in a small cottage with both parents, both sisters, my brother and my future brother-in-law. Staying in adjacent cottages were my uncles, aunts, cousins and second cousins. I must be getting old and nostalgic, because I actually enjoyed the family-ness of the whole thing. Plus I got to feed grapes to a friendly possum I named Flopsy. You can't fault a holiday that involves playing with a possum.

The wild weather continued when I arrived back in the Sunshine Coast. The rain was unrelenting, the wind reaching speeds of up to 100km/hr at one point. Beaches were closed and the New Year's Eve fireworks cancelled due to the danger of debris being blown into buildings (or people) and starting spot fires. This is a photo of the view from my sister's house on New Year's Day. As if everyone wasn't feeling yucky enough. And for the benefit of my UK readers, the sky is not supposed to be grey and palm trees are not supposed to lean over like that. The cause of all this chaos was a low pressure system meandering down the coast. While the hard-core surfers were overjoyed with the wicked waves, the surf lifesavers and police were going nuts. Twenty-five beaches were closed, lifesavers were being flipped out of their rescue boats and having to be rescued themselves, and police were called to beaches to stop people entering the treacherous waves. There were stories on the news of young, reckless, inexperienced body boarders and surfers getting rescued and then running back in the surf laughing. Idiots.

It wasn't until Saturday that the weather cleared up. This was just in time to annoy my sister, who returned to work on Monday after spending all but the last weekend of her holidays hiding from the abysmal weather indoors. Whereas I, the pale elder sibling, would be relatively content with grey skies protecting me from the evil sun, I'm now the one free to frolic on the beach all day long. Of course I'm not actually doing that, I'm just sitting indoors sweating. It is hot, hot, hot.

I did take the opportunity of seeing blue skies for the first time in three weeks to go wandering along the 'sunshine strip' between Mooloolaba and Maroochydore. I walked up to Alexandra Headland, plonked myself under a shady tree and watched some pelicans fighting over fish scraps. In a brief burst of youthful energy I decided to climb up the tree as well. I used to love climbing trees as a child. I loved climbing this tree as well, but noticed it was a litttttle bit harder to stretch my legs up to the next branch than it was when I was ten. I think I need to do yoga or something. Maybe I could add that to my ever-expanding list of new year resolutions.