Gimme Delta

Neighbours star and singer Delta Goodrum (a.k.a. The Lovely Delta Goodrum) seems to be all over the place at the moment – every time I turn on the TV or open a magazine (perhaps I’m reading the wrong magazines). Another Neighbours star turned singer – ho hum. Apparently she’s my friend Shae’s cousin’s cousin. Impressed? From the few shadows I’ve glimpsed on the wall of the BBC’s website-cave I see she’s also made an impact in the UK.

What a name though – Delta! If I have a child can I call it Omega? Or, like George Constanza in Seinfeld, Seven? How do lots of celebs get away with names that would get most kids beaten up in the playground? You don’t think twice when an actor has a name like Harrison or Keanu.

I don’t tend to follow celebrity babies in the press, but Anne pointed out to me that Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker called their newborn James. I find this quite refreshing in this day and age, especially when people like David and Victoria Beckham exist. Why celebrities, like the Beckhams, feel they have to differentiate their own children from the masses with ridiculous names I don’t know. Is great wealth and a privileged childhood not enough? It’s self-defeating as an elitist move, as plebs soon follow suit and call their children things like Marrakech and Tyranny. The latter is genuine and was related to Anne by a doctor friend in the UK who helped to deliver the poor child. I’ll bet he was tempted to declare it dead at the scene and smuggle it out of the hospital, to save the wretched creature from the agony of growing up with such stupid parents. Honestly, you need a licence for a dog, as they say.

My family aren’t innocent when it comes to strange names. I’ve been looking into my family tree recently, and, when searching through records of birth, marriages and deaths, I came across some great names. One of my ancestors was called Alcimus Coulthurst, son of Ithiel. The best name I found was Beppjebbah. It’s a name that sounds like it needs an exclamation mark after it. It’s the sort of word you would find useful it if you were a magician. When you performed a particularly impressive magic trick you could shout “BEPPJEBBAH!” and everyone would be rightly taken aback. As a name though I feel it’s lacking a certain finesse.

I’m not against novelty names per se. At a barbeque in London a few years ago we met a couple who had called their two boys Joel and Ethan. I had to ask if they’d been named after the Coen Brothers (film directors) and the couple said they were, and were quite chuffed someone had picked up on it. Fantastic. If I pretended I’d never met these people then I could call my kids Joel and Ethan and say it was my idea.

For once I think the French have got it right, only having certain “legal” names (although they choose silly names like Pierre and Jean for a man!) The rest of civilised society (controversially implying the French are civilised) should follow suit in order to stop silly people giving their kids ridiculous names. Stephen’s a sensible name I think, as are Peter, David, John, Michael, Tony, Simon, Richard and Tom. Let’s stick with those names for boys, and I’m sure we could come up with a similar number of proper girls’ names. We’d then have a set list of legal names and no imagination would be needed on the part of new parents.

Once this has been finalised, if you want to call your child a name that’s not on the sacred list you’d have to submit it to a committee (I nominate me) and the committee (me) would decide whether or not it’s allowed. If you name your child without the committee’s approval and give it a silly name you are liable to have your child put into care to avoid it being emotionally distressed when it gets to school.

Tough but fair, I think.

Tuesday = Movie update

Four more movies to fill you in on this week. If anyone has any comments about my movie reviews remember you can add a comment below. I try to keep them brief, so you should count yourselves lucky.

As I said yesterday, we got free preview tickets to The Good Girl from Richard. This is a little indie film starring Jennifer Aniston, and has been getting some good reviews. It also has the guy from Donnie Darko (the best film of 2002!) in it, and he plays a similarly messed-up character in this. JA's character works in shop and is stuck in a loveless marriage. She has an affair with Mr Darko and things get a bit messed up. It's not a cheery film, but has enough funny moments to keep it from getting miserable. JA's pretty good it really and the supporting cast are very good too. Four stars.

We saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding on video. Anne wanted to see it, I didn't particularly. Being a good boyfriend I let her hire it (good old me). It was OK, I suppose, but a bit run of the mill. We've spoken to a few Aussies who were very disappointed by this film. This may be because there's a large Greek population here, and the Aussies know a fair bit about Greek culture and stereotypes (they're talking about making The Kumars At No 42 here with a Greek family). There's a lot of Greek culture not touched on at all in this film. I'll give it two and a half, as it wasn't too bad, it just lacked any killer moments.

We saw The Sting on video, a film made before either of us were born. I've seen this a few times before but not for a few years. I'd forgotten just how entertaining it is. Paul Newman and Robert Redford are just great in it. Five stars.

Also on video, also entertaining, and also starring Robert Redford, was Sneakers. I'd seen this years ago but could barely remember it. It's a fun caper, despite having plot holes a mile wide in it. The cast have fun and so did we. Three and a half stars I say.

We now have a three day week at work. It's Anzac Day here on Friday. I suppose that means we should watch Gallipoli...

Easter update - see the diving pig!

I've put some new photos up on our Yahoo photo album, including some of The Royal Easter Show we went to last weekend. See racing pigs, the diving pig, and a snake crawling up my arm. More slithering, I suppose. Link is on the left of the diary.

Cheered in the pub

Hello. Stephen here with an Easter update.

On Thursday it was our eighth pub quiz. We came first in each of the seven previous quizzes, and given that first, second and thrid places all get a prize we were hoping for a little booze to see us through the week. When the results were read out the whole pub cheered us. There was a lot of love in the room.

We hadn't won. We hadn't even come second.

We came fourth (out of six).

Disater had stucken. When we arrived Sim, the manager of the pub, was dancing around saying that she'd been getting together a mega-team to beat us. The previous week the quizmaster had told her she'd die before she beat us, and she'd taken this to heart. She was sure her team would beat us, especially since we didn't have Richard to help us.

As it was, the quizmaster split her team into two. Those teams came first and third. If he hadn't split them we'd have at least come third! In second place was a team of eight people of a few nationalities. The two of us can't feel too bad about being beaten by a team of eight, I suppose.

But whilst our pride took a bashing, we were quite touched by all the cheering and good-natured ribbing we got for coming fourth. It really felt like we were part of a small community, and that's quite nice when you're so far from home.

We'll pick ourselves up and keep going. It's the only thing to do.

Wet Friday

We'd planned a few things for the Easter Weekend, including a 9km walk (from our Walking In Sydney book). However, it was raining on Friday, so (after Anne had got the toothpaste out of my hair) we decided to go for a swim and to an art gallery. Being Good Friday, we found everything closed and so wandered about in the rain for a while before deciding to give up and go to the cinema (Richard - my Empire writing stalkee - had given us free preview tickets to The Good Girl). We bummed around the rest of the day, having a coffee and cake in a coffee shop and then hiring a video.

Wet Saturday

Still raining on and off on Saturday. We went to The Australian Museum, a big museum with aboriginal stuff, dinosaurs, insects, skellingtons, minerals and evolutionary biology. We spent over two hours in there, which isn't bad for less than two pounds each! We swam in the afternoon, and that pretty much wiped us out for the rest of the day. Again, we collapsed in front of a video in the evening.

Grape Trail

Rain again on Sunday - bah! Fortunately we had a tour booked which didn't rely on good weather. We did a bus tour of The Hunter Valley. This is a wine growing region about two hours north of Sydney. In a group of 16 (including us) we were taken to three wine-growing businesses, had a tour of the facilities and drank small amounts of lots of different wines at each. We were also given some fortified wine and spirits, including a "dragon's breath" liquer, which had chillis in it. I was a bit pathetic and scrunched my face up at this one. How it burned! Anne, of course, took it like a man and reckons she could drink some more.

We were very drowsy after the second winery, and had a nice steak lunch. We collapsed, slightly hung-over, in front of a video in the evening. See a pattern here?

Mosman Trek

Finally, a non-rainy day! We bounded out of bed at the crack of 10am, and walked to Circular Quay to get a ferry to Cremorne. From there we walked (over) nine kilometers up to Mosman and beyond. We passed the zoo we went to a few weeks ago, and got some great views of the harbour. The weather was perfect for walking - dry but not too hot. We're both shattered now, so I expect we'll spend the rest of the day flaked out, reading the paper. Perhaps a video tonight - I don't know.

I hope we have dry weather next weekend when we're going for a bushwalk in The Blue Mountains. Aren't we outdoorsy?

An inquiry into the success or otherwise of Anne And Stephen’s Big Adventure. April 2003 - first interim report

So we’re almost ten weeks into our year-long Big Adventure. The mathematicians and accountants out there will realise almost instantly (once calculators have been consulted) that that’s nearly 20 percent of the Adventure done and over and gone with.

This seems like a good time to assess how Anne and I are currently feeling about the task we’ve set ourselves. First though, I’ll just say a little about our reasons for jacking in our jobs, renting out our flat in London, leaving our friends and families and travelling half way around the world.

We’d never done this sort of thing before, whereas a few of our friends had done it straight after uni. We both wanted to but, once we were both on the career ladder and the property ladder, we thought we never would. Too many ladders to worry about, you see. Bloody ladders. After more than six years out of uni though, we felt we could do with taking a breather and re-evaluating what we’re up to. Are we doing the right careers, or should we make a change? Do we want to live in stressful London, or should we move elsewhere?

We didn’t want to wait for a nervous breakdown or mid-life crisis to make us ask these questions.

And we wanted to see a bit of the world, of course.

There’s some disagreement between Anne and me about whether this is a Year of learning or a Year off learning (I say the latter and she the former). That single consonant is the source of much gainsaying and mirth between the two of us, as you can probably imagine. How we laughed.

Happy talk

We were talking the other night and have decided we’re both really happy and relaxed living and working in Sydney. (This is especially good for me, since I regularly seem to be a bundle of stress in London.) We don’t have many responsibilities here, and I guess that’s part of the reason for our comparatively happy demeanours. For example:
-We have no car (one fewer thing to think about);
-We don’t own our tiny Sydney flat (many fewer things to think about);
-Our jobs are short term contracts so there’s little time to get to dislike them (and the things we do dislike about our jobs we know will be out of our lives soon enough).

Of course, this life is a little unreal and unsustainable, partly for those reasons above. We want to own our home, we often need a car at home, and we don’t want to be on short-term contracts. So these aren’t long-term solutions for us. They do make us think though, and I guess we need to change things at home based on what we learn.

The usually-pleasant weather (even in autumn) might have something to do with it too. Also the feeling that the whole of Australia is out there waiting for us to explore it.

Could I be the IT geek people have always said I was?

I’m already starting to think about where I want my career to go. I’ve always been reasonably good at, and quite enjoyed, IT and at the moment I’m thinking of trying to move into that area when I return. Since I’m accountant a good way to do that may be through learning more about accounting systems. This could all change in the next ten months of course, but that’s where part of my brain is right now.

I’ve also realised that the office I worked in before I left the UK had a nice, friendly atmosphere. (A month at unfriendly-GE made me realise that. I’m not yet able to judge The ABC yet, having been there only a week.)

Looking after the cents

A big thing we’re learning here is budgeting. Having been reasonably well off in the UK we didn’t have to think about this too much, and so didn’t save as much as perhaps we should have done. We’re now trying to keep to a budget. Not as small a budget at people travelling straight from uni would be on, perhaps, but a reasonably tight budget nonetheless. We’re trying to record everything we spend, which now seems to me to be a key way to control spending, and it’s good to know that we can manage quite happily. We’re finding it quite easy really (though our budget will have to shrink once we’re not earning!)

I suppose part of this is because we can’t really buy much, as anything we buy (and don’t consume) we’d have to carry around with us when we leave Sydney and travel round Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and the US. Having a reduced social life helps too I guess, and we wouldn’t want to carry that over to the UK (unless I offend too many people with this diary).

It will be interesting to see how this budgeting goes when we’re travelling – after all when you’re working nine-to-five Monday to Friday there are fewer opportunities to spend money. I’ve really no idea what that’s going to be like, and how we’re going to fill our days when we move on from Sydney. Anyway, this budgeting is good as it’s showing us how to do it and making us see that we could reduce our expenditure in the UK if needed (say, for example, I decided to stay at home and be a house-husband, sending Anne out to work).

A way to go

There’s still work to be done. I got a little stressed when I had three days off work last week and thought I may not get work for a few weeks (not a lot stressed, but a little). I’ll have to work on that over the next forty-two weeks.

We’re aware that we might hate travelling – no routine, nowhere to settle etc. If we do I guess we’ll look to settle and work somewhere else for a few months. At the moment though, I don’t think we will hate it. We’re both quite excited about it all and our feet are getting itchy.

We have some trips and things planned for our time in Sydney though, so we’ll enjoy that first.

Brokenman.net

Everywhere in Sydney, chalk messages are popping up on the street which say "brokenman.net? 'D' ?". Obviously some kind of marketing campaign for a website - this website.

Seems a bit odd, doesn't it? Select D and you're faced with some pictures of places in Sydney. Apparently a puzzle to solve. Anne likes puzzles - I may get her onto this.

This article in the Sydney Morning Herald sheds a bit of light. Seems like it's been going on for quite some time!

A different world

A friend, Simon, has been inspired by little me and has started his own blog here. Simon was in the Sixth Form with me, and is married with two children (one of them less than two months old). This will surely be the antidote to my blog. I’ll keep my eye on it, and expect great things since he works in IT and has free access to a PC (rather than having to pay by the hour at internet cafes).

One of his first posts sets out a day in the life of a man with two kids, and is very different to anything you’ll read here. He doesn’t even appear to watch any movies on the day in question. Odd, I know.

Simon’s clearly not so open-minded and tolerant as I am since he doesn’t allow his wife to post to the blog. Shame on him, the outmoded dinosaur. Having said that, I only allow Anne to post at weekends.

I’m thinking of banning Anne from visiting Simon’s blog, lest the baby photos distract her and she turns into a soppy fool.

Is He Dave Gorman? Yes.

We’ve booked tickets to see a show at The Sydney Opera House on Wednesday 23rd April. We’re quite excited about seeing a show there, as it’s such a cool building. Seeing it for the first time is a breathtaking experience, and I’m happy to report that I still get a funny feeling from laying eyes on it.

The show we’ve booked to see is that of British comedian, Dave Gorman. You may have heard of him from his book and TV show “Are You Dave Gorman?” in which he hunted down other people with the name Dave Gorman. He seems to be making a name for himself with comedy shows about obsession. He’s at the Melbourne Comedy Festival at the moment and is bringing his show, Googlewhack here for some dates from next week. It’s a comedy show about the Google search engine. That’s right – look impressed.

Search me?

Which brings me on, rather nicely to…

A fun thing about having a web-site is that I’m able to see what links people have followed to get here. Most people who read this site know us personally, and either come here directly to http://kent-taylor.blogspot.com or come via our homepage at http://www.stephenkt.co.uk. Some people, however, search for something on Google, or another search engine, and end up here by chance.

So far I’ve had a number of visitors who’ve come here by searching for information of limited edition ranges of Magnum Ice Cream. That won’t be so surprising to regular readers.

The other day someone came here after searching for a picture of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. Fair enough, but sorry to disappoint.

The top one so far though has to be the person in the US who searched for: gagged lisa kudrow . Blimey! That’s quite a specific request. It puts in my head a slightly worrying image of a man sitting alone by his PC thinking “Gosh, you know I really like that girl who plays Phoebe in Friends, and I like seeing pictures of her lovely face. However, what I’d really like to see is a picture of the blonde actress gagged -mmmmm. And just maybe, with the help of the interweb, I can find a picture of just that.” When he clicked the link and came here I reckon he must have been more disappointed than those who read this site and don’t like my film reviews (see below for this week’s round up).

Since becoming interested in this strange phenomenon I’ve found that these strange searches are a big thing in the “blogosphere” (the collection of people who blog). I can see why – they’re pretty amusing.

With all this in mind, and a tentative desire to become part of the seedier part of the interweb, can I just say: Jeri Ryan (actress who plays Seven of Nine in Star Trek Voyager) wearing a tiny bikini. And for the ladies: Ben Affleck all oiled-up and and wearing just a pair of Speedos. Let’s see who that turns up.

(Yes I know - that isn’t so much fun. The fun ones are where you write something perfectly innocent and someone comes upon your site whilst searching for smut.)

Approving moving pictures

Only three films seen this week – one at the local arty cinema and two on video.

At the cinema we saw Punch Drunk Love, a film by P T Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) starring king of silly comedies Adam Sandler. Unlike the director’s previous two films, which were very long and reasonably weighty, this is just over 90 minutes, a great length for a romantic comedy, which is what it is. It’s kind of like an off the wall Adam Sandler comedy done well, with interesting direction and classy cinematography.

Sandler’s character is an unstable, occasionally violent, lonely loser, and he meets and falls for Emily Watson. He needs to sort out a few problems with his mental state and some bad boys from Utah before he can settle down with her, and he does this in an entertaining way. The film’s score is worth a mention and at times reflects Sandler’s character’s confused state well. It’s hard not to like Adam Sandler, even when he’s in rubbish films, so it’s nice to see him in a quality movie. Four stars.

The next film was re-titled Joyride (or Joy Ride) in the UK, but I think the original title, Roadkill, is a more appropriate title. It’s about some youths who play a trick on a trucker using a CB radio. The trucker turns out to be a psycho and the kids spend the rest of the film being chased and harassed by him. Not much of a joyride! It’s Immensely silly, but quite good old-fashioned fun. Three stars. Late addition - apparently I got that wrong - it was Joyride in the US but re-titled Roadkill in the UK and Oz. Maybe this comments feature wasn't such a good idea. Thanks Tony!

Lastly, The Hard Word. This is an Australian film starring Mike from Neighbours. From looking at the video box it wants to be an Aussie Lock Stock and it does have quite a few nice moments, and some good characters. It all ends up being a little small and a bit silly though, so doesn’t entertain quite as much as Lock Stock did when it came out. Still deserves three stars though. I’ve no idea why it’s called The Hard Word.

Quiz night number seven

Last night was our weekly pub quiz at our local bar. Our friend Richard came along, who not only knows a lot about art and movies, but is the son of two geography teachers so has a good knowledge of that subject. This is good because, whilst Anne has a pretty good grasp on where countries are in the world, my geography is just awful.

Wayne, the quiz-master, decided to handicap us this week since we've come first every week so far. He decided to lop four, five or six points off our score at the start and I had to blindly pick which. I drew six, so the challenge was on.

The bonus round, where we often pick up a lot of points if it's about movies, was dead hard. We had to list the 13 artists or bands whose names begin with A or B who had number one hits in Australia in the 1990s. We got two right (Billy Joel and Bryan Adams). Like idiots we missed ones we really should have got like Britney Spears, The B52s and Ace Of Base! Anyway, this didn't matter as we still won by eight points despite the handicap. We should be careful not to annoy everyone there.

It's a nice atmosphere there and we stayed chatting to a few people after, including the pub manager who was on a rival team.

Magnum quest - nearly there

I've now have eight of the nine Magnum ice-creams in the Sixties Nine range. Phew ¡¦almost over. I had the Cinnamon On The Moon one yesterday. It had cinnamon flavoured chocolate on the outside. I wasn't looking forward to it, but thought it best not to leave it until last as that would taint my appreciation of the range. It wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, but it wasn't great. Only the Guava Lamp to go now. Thank God.

When Anne and I were sitting in the park in the sun at the weekend there was a couple nearby each eating a Magnum from this range. He had the John Lemon and she had the ChocWork Orange - probably my two favourites in the range, and the ones I had near the start of my quest/chore. They seemed to be mocking me, saying,
"L­ook at us, look at us: not being subject to an ill-considered self-imposed quest to go through every single ice-cream in the range, we can eat the best ones and not bother with the ones we have no interest in. After this weÃÓe going to go and buy the same ones again. You are a fool, and we are best."

This quest may have been a mistake. I'm afraid nine limited-edition luxury ice-creams is just too much. There aren't enough flavours in the world to make nine new Magnums (on top of their regular range and last year's Seven Deadly Sins range) without making some of them mediocre, or even unpleasant. Walls/Streets should learn this lesson and learn it well.

Pun Time!

My Magnum-misery could be lessened by a task I'm setting to make this diary more "interactive" (buzzword of the nineties). Use the comments box below this entry (and only this entry) to submit ideas for other Ice Creams which could have been in the Sixties Nine range. Here's three I've thought of to get the ball rolling.

The Viet-Naan (an ice-cream bar with the flavour of this Indian bread canÃÕ be much worse than the musk-flavoured Candy Warhol)
Barley Harvey Oswald
Cuban Missile Cassis

Who needs horoscopes?

Stephen here. It was raining this morning when I went to work (which was nice as it meant I wasn't pining for another day in the sun). As I stood in line at reception at ABC's offices at about 9.30am on my first day of work there, I was reading the back page of The Sydney Morning Herald. There was a short article about how this flash new ABC building in Ultimo, on which much public cash was spent, has a leaky roof. It said there were buckets in the foyer to catch the drips. How odd, I thought, to be reading about the very building I'm standing in. I looked around but couldn't see any buckets, and figured their information was a little out of date.

Then I felt a drop of water on my back. Then another. And then some more. The roof had decided to leak on me as I read the article. I told the man at reception that the roof was leaking, and he looked at me suspiciously. I felt like holding the paper up and shouting "It is leaking! Look: The Sydney Morning Herald says so too!"

Good Day Sunshine

It's a beautiful sunny day today, and I've been for a job interview. The job is at The ABC - the Australian equivalent of The BBC. It's based in an area of the city called Ultimo, which sounds rather like the name of a superhero, don't you think?

I'm waiting to hear whether I got the job. I'm on tenterhooks - literally - and hoped to have something to report by now (4.30pm). I'm getting a little anxious now, since recruitment consultants have confirmed my suspicions that a lot of potential recruiters will be taking the next two weeks off.

I've spent the afternoon looking into things to do at the weekend and relaxing. I had a sunbathe and read in Hyde Park again with my picnic lunch. There were hundreds of tiny school children everywhere! I tell you, I don't know where they get their energy from. Not one of them stood still for a second. It was like they were trying to make a large scale model to demonstrate the principles of Brownian Motion. (Though they'd neglected to include a representation of the smaller particles which hit the bigger particles, so it wasn't a very good model. Or, rather, that's not a very good analogy.)

For the last hour I've been fiddling with my blog template (twenty years ago people would have followed that with "Oo-er missus"). You may have noticed (who am I kidding?) that the layout has improved a little lately. This is thanks to my looking into HTML a bit, and to my friend, Tony, in the UK who has been busy looking at the source coded and offering advice. It's a good time for me to take an interest in the technical side of web-publishing - when I'm paying by the hour in internet cafes for web use.

Anyway, my latest addition to this diary is a comments facility. Blog readers can now add comments to each post. Who'll use it? Possibly no one - we'll see. Try it out by leaving a comment on today's entry (click on "comments" below).

When Anne finished work last night, after she'd quizzed me about the jobs I'd done during the day (sigh) we went swimming at an indoor pool. Very good of us, I thought, though we were aching and exhauseted all night. We woke this morning groaning and complaining like people three times our age.

Look at me, at The ABC

Hooray - I've got the job! (The above title is a play on the current ad campaign by The ABC. It appears on the side of buses here. I can't believe you didn't know that.

I start tomorrow (Thursday). Look at me - three days off work and I'm a nervous wreck. I really have to work on this by the end of the year. I'm sure I'll be fine when we're travelling proper, but we'd decided to try to pay our way through Sydney with work.

Anyway, a little about The ABC (or what I know of it). It's funded by the government, and not by a licence fee. As with The BBC they call it "Auntie". I don't know why - I was a bit surprised by that. Then again, I don't know why we call The BBC Auntie in the UK. It sounds like I'll be recording processes and suggesting improvements. It should involve a bit of Excel work, including designing worksheets and models - that is good, I like that. I can hear people clicking on links to leave this page as I write. We'll see how it goes.

The building at Ultimo is new pretty spectacular. Here's a link to some info about it.

Now I have a job, and an income, I can get started on the final two Sixties Nine Magnums. Anne wants to see Punch Drunk Love tonight. I think we'll make this a celebratory cinema visit. (Anne's current contract finishes on Friday. She may be entertaining you by blog next week.)

Poetry In Motion Picture Criticism

And so it was, it came to be
I (Stephen) wrote reviews in rhyme
To keep the diary fresh (and see -
I really do have too much time).

I’ll try to keep it up throughout
I’ll keep the lines a-coming strong
The rhyme’s OK, though I don’t doubt
The scansion’s where I may go wrong.

You’re all on tenterhooks to find
What films we’ve watched in the last week
Well wait no more, if you don’t mind
I’ll say which shine, and which ones reek.

Samedi nous avon regarder
Un movie dans la cinema
Read My Lips - un film Francais
Quoi je dit? Je ne sais pas?

C'est un film mal? C'est un film bon?
C'est tres bon est jamais mal!
C'est un movie interessant
Et je declare quatra etoiles.

One film down we saw another
Also rating above par
This one: All About My Mother
Helmed by Pedro Almodovar.

A strange tale set in Barcelona
That twists your mind and never bores
Involves a dead young organ-donor
A nun, and some trans-sexual whores.

This European film is great
It makes you sad and makes you laugh
See it tomorrow - don't you wait
Number of stars: four and a half.

Thought we'd hire a film on Sunday
But, of course, it's two-for-one
So two films more for us - I must say
That is my idea of fun!

Kissing Jessica Stein was first
A lesbianic tale it spins,
Quite different, funny, I've seen much worse
Three stars - a decent ninety mins.

Second was a yarn by Oscar
Wilde, and not one of his sternest
From the rhyme you may guess it's The
Importance Of Being Earnest.

Colin Frith (ex Mr Darcy)
With old Judi Dench he spars
In a tale that's pretty farcey
Once again, it gets three stars.

And so that’s it – that’s all we saw
Four and no others (yes – it’s sad)
Same time next week I’ll write some more
On this week’s films – both good and bad.

A man of leisure?

So I don't have a job - you'd think I'd be bumming around in the gorgeous weather we're having at the moment. However, I got up on Monday morning and, after a jog, the chores began. Anne had left me a list of things to do (I'm not kidding). First I went and joined our local library - not so much a chore, more a way to save money on books. I also went to a second-hand book shop and bought a book on walking in Sydney (saved ten bucks on the price we nearly paid for it new!)

OK, so those two things weren't too much slog, but when I got back to the flat I cleaned it from top to bottom! Our flat's pretty small (think slightly above-average hotel room) so that took about an hour. It needed doing - you know you're in trouble when your feet stick to the kitchen floor.

Then it was off to do more chores outside. (After a pleasant picnic lunch, read and sunbathe in the park.) I went to book a youth hostel for a weekend hike we planned to do in the Royal National Park near Sydney, only to be told there are no beds available at weekends until the end of May! I booked it for then, but if we're both out of work at the same time we may be able to do it in the week sometime. We're looking around for other outdoorsy trips to do in the meantime. In nice weather going for long walks can be lovely. We've realised that the fact that we're lazy and unadventurous in the UK isn't our fault - it's the climate.

Then off to Woolworths Metro to do the weekly supermarket shop. That was slightly hellish. Just trying to stop the checkout girl giving you three times as many plastic bags as you need is a challenge. They're terrible at wasting plastic bags here. There's murmurings of introducing a tax on use of these bags, as has happened in Ireland. After visiting Dublin last November I'm a strong supporter of this small tax - it's had a great effect there.

So you see - I hardly sat down all day! Poor me. The weather's nice again today (Tuesday) but is forecast to get worse as the week goes on. Therefore I hope to find a job soon. (One day off work and I'm getting edgy!) It's Easter weekend the weekend after next and Anzac Day on the 25th April so we have a four-day week followed by a three day week. I'm a little concerned that people won't be recruiting contractors as they'll be taking holidays. We'll see.

Must I spend my life correcting Anne?

Anne said yesterday that we did nothing on Sunday. Not true! We visisted the Anzac Memorial and looked at their display detailing the Anzac's involvement in a number of wars and conflicts, then trailed round Sydney trying to find flight deals. It was only in the afternoon we sat in the sun reading books and magazines. Bliss!

Stephen the Unemployed

Bums. It seems I no longer have a job. (This is Stephen, by the way.)

My time at GE Insurance ended today. When I started they said it would last for between two weeks and two months (depending on instructions from their head office in Melbourne) so they were honest with me. What annoys me a little is that they kept me hanging on until Friday afternoon to let me know whether I’d be required on Monday. Such is a temp’s lot in life I suppose.

(I’d already told recruitment consultants I was on the market again, and would have left with a day’s notice if something better had come up, so it swings both ways.)

Anyway, now that I’ve left this pretty dull job in a slightly unfriendly department I’ll tell you an odd thing about the place. Two odd things.

Just act like I’m not here

First, hardly anyone spoke to me there. Now, I’m not that loud or confident when I first start a job so I wondered if perhaps I wasn’t making enough effort for the first few days. However, after a week a new PA joined and sat near me and two other temps (one of whom spoke to me, the other was very quiet). After a few days she was told she should send an email around the office introducing herself, saying that she was a permanent member of staff. Apparently people were ignoring her because they assumed she was a temp! I think I pretty much gave up when I heard that, and satisfied myself by doing the crossword on my own in a food court at lunch time, whilst eating my noodles (brilliant Asian food over here!) I was surprised because we had a lot of temps at The Economist and they were generally welcomed into the fold. Makes me appreciate my old employer.

So I’m not that sad to leave.

Please – avert your eyes

The second odd thing was the toilets in the offices (the men’s – I didn’t think to check in the ladies’). The floor was really shiny. REALLY shiny – you could see your reflection in it. It wasn’t slippery – just shiny. Not so bad, you might say – at least it shows it’s clean. Well, yes. However, in addition to this there was also a gap of about a foot between the floor and the bottom of the cubicle walls. This gap is a bit too big for human decency in my opinion.

Anyway, put these two seemingly unrelated facts together and it means that when you’re sitting on the loo you can see the reflection of people as they wash their hands. Given basic laws of reflection this must mean that they can see you sitting on the loo too. (I never dared to check this out when someone else was in a cubicle.) I found this a little disturbing, and I must admit it hampered my movements.

Sorry to bring the tone down there.

Do what makes you uncomfortable

Anyway – part of the aim of this Big Adventure is to take us out of our safe, secure environment and challenge ourselves. This sudden unemployment is surely just a part of that adventure. I’m trying to be like George Costanza in that episode of Seinfeld where he decides to do the opposite of what he would normally do in every given situation. I’m looking forward to a few days bumming around and enjoying Sydney. I hope the weather’s nice. And I hope it doesn’t last more than a week – we need the money! I probably can’t justify having any more Magnums now until I find another job. Again – bums!

The Sixties Nine vs The Seven Deadly Sins

SKT here. More news on my progress with the Magnum Sixties Nine range. I had a Jami Hendrix (instead of Jimi Hendrix – do you see?) the other day, which is like a normal (Classic) Magnum, but with bits of cookie (biscuit to you and me) in the chocolate coating and strawberry “jam” layers running through the ice cream. It was pretty good. Yum!

However, now for some bad news (for me, not for those of you in the UK).

My research into Magnum Ice Creams abroad uncovered a limited edition range that was out in Oz last year – The Seven Deadly Sins. There’s a Peppermint Envy Magnum still out here, which I assume is a left-over from that range. Perhaps it is really nice and, when faced with it being withdrawn from sale at the end of the promotion, the Aussies came together as one to protest. Their protests probably fell on deaf ears at first, but over time Streets (Aussie name for Walls) were worn down and gave in, magnanimously agreeing to continue selling the popular snack. So that proves that Streets do have ears after all. Hold on - that joke doesn't work in Oz.

Some of those seven sins aren’t pleasant though, so it’s a bit odd that they’ve made a luxury ice cream with a Wrath theme, for example.

Anyway, one of Anne’s friends got in touch to gloat, sorry – inform me, that this Seven Deadly Sins range is coming out in the UK this summer (it may already be out - run to your local Bejam to find out!) (QUICK!)

So you lot enjoy your luxury ice creams, and let me know what they’re like. Perhaps you could try each one and then rate them in order of preference, sending me a summary with a brief comment about each one. I hope one of them is as bad as the Sixties Nine Candy Warhol [shivers at the memory]. I will collate opinions on this limited edition range and let you all know in due course what the general consensus is.

Please don’t tease me about missing out on this range on two continents though. Remember that my limited edition range has nine units within it. Yours has seven. I win by the sheer physical amount of numbers.

In the meantime, I think I still have two more Sixties Nine Magnums to nosh on.

Bruiser Glazier

Anne’s sister Kerry wasn’t taken in at all by my tale of Anne’s violent nature:

"I didn’t guess straightaway – but I was suspicious when you wrote that the Home and Away ladies were coming onto you, then I finally
twigged when you claimed Anne punched the dunken beauty. Headbutting is more Anne’s style"

The Truth Is Back In Here

Stephen here. First, if you've not read yesterday's post about the celebrity party - read that before you read this.

Done that?

Good.

Right. I hope everyone took yesterday's prank in good humour. Some people were taken in who I thought would see right through it. I used to think that April Fools jokes were only played by sad, sadistic individuals with too much time on their hands. Now, of course, I know better. Here's some of the feedback I got.

1) "Do you know what? I've just recounted the entire story to my boss who sits opposite me. At the end of it I said that I couldn't really believe it had happened because it's so far fetched, and as the words were leaving my mouth the horrible, horrible truth suddenly burst into my trusting, innocent, stray-kitten brain.

There SHALL be revenge for this. Maybe not for years and years... but one day... Oh yes!"

2) "I believed you right up to the part where you play chess with Ray Meagher - that was just too much for me!!!!"

3) "Of course I was always going to be the one who fell for the april fool."

Anyone who knows Simon Brown can probably guess who that last one's from.

Anyway, rest assured it will be all truth an no lies from now on in this diary. I did enjoy causing mischief from the other side of the planet. Anne has asked me to point out that she's not a violent person.

For those who asked, here's how to work out the answer to the title of yesterday's pack of lies.
Pilfer a loo – disturbed and lacking energy today (5,4)

Pilfer a loo – disturbed means it's an anagram of PILFER A LOO
and lacking energy means miss out the letter e from the anagram

Patronising explanation over.

Pilfer a loo – disturbed and lacking energy today (5,4)

What a night! Anne and I had a bizarre time last night, ending with a fight and a game of chess.

Through my friend, Richard, who writes for Empire here we managed to get tickets to a celebrity screening of the new movie, Ned Kelly at Fox Studios. The film was fine, but more important and fun was what happened after the show. There were loads of (Aussie) celebrities at the cinema, and journalists kept thinking we might be famous (I think they may have thought this because we were “dressed down” – we have few smart clothes with us!) I thought about stringing them along by pretending to be a lavatory magnate or something, but that would have just been cruel.

So after the show, Richard managed to get us into a huge bash at Fox Studios. I’d never been to one of these things before, and didn’t recognise most of the Aussie celebrities, but was still star-struck by the likes of Harold and Lou from Neighbours! We got chatting to Donald Fisher from Home and Away (now ex-H&A) who was a real laugh, and had some outrageous stories to tell. The party wound down at about midnight, but Donald Fisher invited the three of us to a post-party party at his place – a huge mansion on the outskirts of Sydney! Unlike us he didn’t have to work the next day, but we were hardly likely to turn him down. Most of the cast of Home and Away were going, though sadly no Neighbours cast members, due (apparently) to a bitter rivalry between the two productions.

When we got to the party it was, if anything, more lavish than the Fox Studios do. We were tired, but still had the energy to imbibe a fair amount of champagne. The trouble really started when this sexy (but drunk) Home and Away actress (I don’t know who she plays – I’ve not watched the show in ages) decided she liked me. She kept coming on to me (not in a subtle way!), despite the fact that Anne was standing right next to me! Anne put up with it at first, but eventually pointed out that I was there with her. This actress got really violent and started lashing out at Anne. The music stopped, and this girl screamed at Anne and tried to pull her hair. I’ve never seen Anne violent before, but she wasn’t putting up with this! Anne punched the actress right in the stomach, and this girl fell – gasping for air. I couldn’t believe it!

I thought we were going to get chucked out for sure, but I think Mr Fisher found it quite funny – apparently this girl is always making an exhibition of herself after a few drinks. The party quietened down after this, and we ended up playing chess with the guy who plays Alf Stewart until 3am! Anne wiped the floor with him, though fortunately kept her fists to herself this time. Alf Stewart kept calling Anne “Bruiser”.

It goes without saying that I’m knackered at work today.

(If you’re not big on cryptic crosswords, get someone who is to decipher the title to this entry.)

Stephen’s Weekly Movie Round-Up

Here it is once again – a round up of the films Anne and I have watched in the last week. Now you’ll know what to stick in your DVD players, and what to stick in the box marked “to the charity shop, and fast”. My mum tells me she skips the films reviews – you might want to too!

Bend It Like Beckham
We’ve come all this way and we watch a film set in West London – fools! This is a fun British film about a British/Indian girl who enjoys playing soccer (for a girls’ team), but has to contend with her strict-parents forbidding her to play. Seemed a bit far-fetched to me, since soccer’s such a dull, dull game, however it was well made and pretty funny. Fairly forgettable I suppose, but it’s the sort of film Brits can do well. Notably, the hero’s overly-skinny white girl friend played Natalie Portman’s decoy in Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, I gather. Yes – look impressed.

Three and a half stars (and I only called the game “soccer” to annoy British soccer fans).

Men In Black II

Much the same as the first Men In Black film, but without the novelty value. Some of the effects were poor, and most of the jokes weren’t funny the second time around. The writers obviously thought, “The talking dog was popular in the first film – let’s put him on-screen more in the sequel and we’re guaranteed laughs”. They were wrong – the dog is funny in as much as a talking dog is a funny idea, but there’s nothing new here. Tommy Lee Jones was one of the best things about the first film, and here he does nothing. Yawn!

Watch the first film again rather than hiring this. The film lasts a paltry 84 minutes (including closing credits) so I suppose the best that can be said about it is that it’s mercifully short,

One and a half stars.

Bowling For Columbine

Anne’s already given her review of this, so let me add my tuppence-worth. It’s a well-made documentary about gun-crime in the US, and the violent nature of the US in general. I was expecting Michael Moore’s conclusions to be that there’s more shootings in the US because of easy access to guns. However, whilst that’s undoubtably a factor, it can’t be that simple – Candians have easy access to guns too, but they don’t have anything like the gun-crime rate of the US. He makes a case for a cycle of fear and paranoia in the US perpetuated by the media. Frightening, funny, sad and well deserving of the Oscar.

Five stars.

Mission: Impossible 2

I knew this was a bit poo, but it was on the TV and I knew it was filmed in and around Sydney so wanted to watch it again (I saw it at the flicks when it came out).

Whilst I like it being a different style of film to the first film, which was more clever and sophisticated, I think the John Woo action scenes just made it seem like any other OTT action film. There was little intelligence and a lot of stupidity. Tom Cruise has grown his hair since the first film, presumably so it waves about “artistically” when viewed in slow motion. And what’s with those doves??

Two and a half stars.

You do the math

Stephen here again (Anne seems to be a reluctant blogger). We’re starting to think in dollars a bit more now, rather than converting everything to sterling. Anne’s managing to make the change a bit better than me. When we talk about the price of something I still often append it with “…that’s about X pounds”.

Now we’re earning Aussie dollars, and given that we plan to be here for about eight months in total, I really should try to stop doing this.

So how to change the currency you think in? The first thing to do is to gauge the price of staple goods. For example:. a cup of steaming hot Joe (coffee). We did this by looking at a few coffee shops and finding out the price of a standard “flat white” (that’s what they call a white coffee – or white americano – here). We included in this survey Starbucks and McDonalds, to give our benchmarking exercise an upper and lower limit. From then on we didn’t need to convert the price of a coffee as we could quickly gauge if it was reasonable or not. And whether we could afford cake to go with it.

For items we don’t buy regularly conversion to sterling can still be helpful. The conversion rate is about 2.8 dollars to the pound. We found this a bit difficult at first, and the mathematician in me didn’t like the rough “divide by three” method as the would be 6.7% (to 1d.p.) lower than the actual figure, and so we’d be convincing ourselves things were cheaper than they were.

And so we figured out an algorithm using what we called “Numerical Analysis” at uni. Our improved method was to divide by three and then add 10%. This was much better as it over-estimated the sterling amount, but only by 2.7% (to 1 d.p.). That’s a 60% reduction in the magnitude of the systematic-error, and an overestimate rather than an underestimate, which is preferable.

The accountant in me is happy with this as he considers a 2.7% error to be immaterial. Especially given that 2.8 dollars to the pound was the rate when we left the UK, and that could well have moved by now!

Let’s see an example of this in practice:

Example 1.1
Stephen wants a slice of almond and cherry pie, which costs $3. How can Stephen tell how much this is in sterling, given that he can’t divide by 2.8 in his head, and doesn’t own a cool calculator-watch because Anne said the look stupid and he wasn’t allowed one?

[You may say that Stephen can easily see quite quickly that the cake would be just over a pound, but that gross simplification neglects to remember that Stephen is a boring accountant and therefor requires an answer in pounds and pence.]

Let’s put our algorithm into practice:
3 divided by 3 is 1. Add 10% to 1 and you get 1.1. Therefore the delicious almond and cherry slice is 1 pound and ten pence (overstated by 2.7%). (Sorry – no pound sign on these silly, silly keyboards.)

Stephen buys the cake, happy now he knows how much it would cost in sterling to with 2.7% (barring any transaction costs of exchange, and movement in the exchange rate in the last seven weeks). The attractive, comely serving-wench smiles alluringly at him as she takes his money, not realising that Stephen has a beautiful girlfriend and therefore hasn’t even noticed this girl’s Cameron Diaz-esque good-looks and barely-covered body.

You see – who said foreign travel was difficult? Next time you go abroad be sure to take with you an accountant/mathematician and a scientist. The fun and laughter will be never-ending.

I hereby grant permission to anyone who is thinking about writing a maths text book to use my real-life example of applied maths.

Same ol', same ol'

Quick one from Stephen. Last night was quiz night number 5 at The Brighton Bar. We got Shae and Andrew to come along, and they brought a friend, Jim.

Jim used to live in London and worked for, wait for it, The Economist. What is it about working at The Economist that makes people want to escape to somewhere antipodal? It really wasn't that bad!

Jim is also very good at pub quizzes, and we won by an embarrassingly large margin.

I did make one silly, silly mistake where I asserted that the song "Nobody Does It Better" came from On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I can hear you all laughing at me. When I realised I was wrong I wanted the world to swallow me up. At least between us we managed to name 5 Robin Williams movies from the second half of the nineties, and also assign years to almost all of the best movie Oscar winners from 91 to 2000 (we got Forrest Gump ans Shindler's List mixed up - grrr).

Perhaps I need to watch more films.

Electile Dysfunction

The NSW state elections, which I’ve mentioned before, were held on Saturday. The polling stations were open from 8am until 6pm. I initially thought that was odd, and wondered how workers would be able to vote, until I realised that this wasn’t such an issue when the election is on Saturday, as opposed to stupidly holding elections on Thursday as we do in the UK.

It’s compulsory to vote in Australia, and you can be fined for failing to vote. Not sure how I feel about that: it seems a bit harsh, but then again it would mean you don’t have elections with pitifully low turnouts (UK again!)

I won’t keep you in suspense any longer: The Labour party and Bob Carr – the incumbent state premier – won. John Brogden and his Liberals (Tories) lost ground and were worse off after than they were before (Don Bob shuts John’s Gob). This is, apparently, surprising and bad for the Liberals, who claimed a moral victory all the same (naturally).

So Bob Carr, beginning his third term in office, is on the way to becoming the longest serving state premier ever.

Many of the results were announced by 9pm – I guess they counted as the day went along, rather than closing the polling stations and the starting the count. They announce before all votes are counted – even on Monday morning when the results were in the paper they stated that only 80% of votes had been counted in some constituencies. Weird huh?

Voting is a little complicated. They have a preference voting system, so you number your candidates in order of preference, with your favourite candidate getting a number 1 next to their name. You have to fill in 1 to 16, and may go on to fill the sheet. With the ridiculous number of candidates here that can go on to nearly 300 in some places, and quite a few people fill the sheet! (I think the rules have changed to reduce the number of candidates recently – last time the ballot papers were so big they became known as “tablecloth ballots”!)

On counting, candidates are knocked out when they have the fewest votes, and the votes for that candidate are re-allocated to the next candidate on those ballot papers (the number 2s). This process continues until there are only two candidates left, and then whichever gets more than 50% wins. This can lead to a candidate who wins on Number 1 votes (but gets less than 50% of the total) losing the election – as I notice happened did in Manly on Saturday (click on link to see what I mean).

I know that no voting system is seen as perfect, but that must be a real downer for the loser! I guess it would stop the situation where a left-wing “issue” candidate with no hope of winning takes votes away from a Labour candidate and lets the Tories in, for example.

Anyway, this may seem a little dry but it’s quite interesting to watch an election taking place in a foreign country. Even if it is only Australia, which hardly seems foreign at all sometimes.

A proper gander at Fox News

SKT here. Before I get around to reviewing my weekend movies here a tale. I was doing a particularly fiendish dot-to-dot puzzle the other day when I got distracted by the news on an Australian network TV channel. There was a report about the biased war news reporting they’re getting on some channels in the US. They showed a clip from Fox News. It went something like this (NB this is from memory, so it may not be exactly as broadcast):

-----------------------------------

[A male and female presenter ?each trying to out-smile the other]

Male news presenter: Good evening. I’m Chip Brady

Female news presenter: And I’m Malaysium Crudup. Welcome to Fox News.

[Titles: TARGET: SADDAM’S HEAD AND BRAIN]

CB: Later, a brief report on the un-American communists protesting in the US against The Godly Liberation Of Iraq. But first, Iraq has fired several missiles into Kuwait. Knowing Saddam, I expect the missile warheads probably contained kidnapped babies. And kittens.

MC: That’s terrible Chip ?Saddam clearly is the evil man President Bush has been describing all along. I’m so glad America and its citizen have never supported bad terrorist organisations.

CB: I’m with you there Malaysium ?not only is Saddam, by his own admission, not a Christian, he’s also evil enough to openly fire aged-missiles when faced with a conquering force.

MC: And laying land-mines. That really is the lowest thing a state can do. Land-mines should be banned across the world.

CB: [getting message through earpiece] Er…Malaysium, remember not all land-mines are evil, just Arab land-mines.

MC: Of course ?sorry. [quickly changing subject] The big question is: is Saddam now dead, or sitting in a bunker somewhere? Fiddling with children.

CB: Even if he is dead, Malaysium, his generals may still fight on, despite the fact that every other Iraqi adores the coalition forces.

MC: Later in the programme we’ll be showing footage of US forces giving grateful Iraqi prisoners water, Hershey Bars and some cool Harry Potter stationery. Our forces truly are a glorious gift from Christian-heaven aren’t they Chip? Let’s hope they manage to completely wipe out Iraq’s infrastructure in order to liberate those poor Iraqis.

CB: So long as they can still receive Fox News International of course!

[They both laugh uproariously. The glare from their overly-white teeth is blinding, though fortunately dulled somewhat by the poor-quality NTSC picture.]

CB: And now we go over to Jamal Hamass in Washington for a report on how all right-thinking Muslims in the US adore President Bush.

MC: [Not realising her mike is still on] Jamal ?what a funny name!

---------------------------------

I think that’s the gist of what was said, at least.


A cad and my awards

Spent four hours watching the Oscars last night ?phew! Enjoyed Michael Moore’s speech, and was chuffed he won. I’d not seen the nominations, so they were as much of a surprise to me as the winners.

Anyway, I watched three pretty good films at the weekend. Here are my thoughts for you:

Catch Me If You Can

Saw this at the cinema on Friday. It came out in the UK just before I left, with a fairly low-key release for a Spielberg film. It’s a fairly small sixties-set light-hearted tale, based on a true story, of a teenage con man (Leonardo DeCaprio). An FBI agent (Tom Hanks) spends years trying to catch him.

I thought it was excellent. It has the best opening titles I’ve seen in ages, and has a fine John Williams score that really adds to the movie. What might be a lightweight comedy in another director’s hands becomes more than that with Spielberg. There are plenty of nice touches that make this stand out from the usual fare. Christopher Walken is great as DeCaprio’s character’s downtrodden father. I was chuffed to see him nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

It’s as well that Leonardo DeCaprio seems to have lost his heart-throb status, since he’s a good actor, and screaming girls tend to make you forget that.

Five stars.

Road To Perdition

From the director of American Beauty, this is a gangster flick with (again) Tom Hanks. This time Hanks is a hit man for Irish immigrant gangster Paul Newman. Hanks’s son sees him ‘whack?someone and the film is about the consequences of that.

Newman is impressive considering he’s nearly 80! How he finds the energy to act at his age, along with making all those salad dressings and sauces, is a mystery to me. And Hanks is pretty good as a killer, which wasn’t a given following his many, many nice-guy roles.

It’s had comparisons to The Godfather, but I don’t think they help. It’s not that similar, or as good. It is good though - four stars.

Ghost World

This is based on a comic (graphic novel?) about two misfit girls fresh out of high school. They wander around moaning about everything and everyone and one of them befriends Steve Buscemi’s oddball character.

It has some very funny moments, and the two leads are really good. It seems to flounder a little at the end, though that’s not really a criticism since the whole film doesn’t have much plot as such.

Four stars.

All in all ?a damn good batch.

Tony Blair and me – really so different?

Hello - Stephen here. As a quick appendix to Anne’s post on Sunday, I was struck on Sunday night at how my path and that of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, seem to intersect on occasion. Lessons I learn are similar to those facing Mr Blair. Bear with me on this.

So, yes, Anne allowed me to watch two videos in a row on Saturday night. These were Road To Perdition and Ghost World (not Ghostworld, as Anne hilariously wrote!) I was, as she said, chuffed by this. Things were coming together as never before, and two quality movies in one night (reviews later) was my dream come true.

But every silver lining…

On Sunday, after a relaxing day at the dragon boat races, I innocently suggested renting another video. I was only after watching one video, note – I wasn’t being silly here. But no. Anne said that since we had watched two films on Saturday night it would be nice to spend Sunday evening playing cards and listening to music. Gah!

Of course it was a nice evening, and I won at rummy. This shouldn't be taken as Anne being proved right though - I want to point that out right now. This was her manipulating the situation and making it impossible for me to protest. Somehow women have the knack of doing this. If I were to complain, as should be my right, I would have been the one who came out looking selfish and spoiled. I did all I could and magnanimously made the best of my lot, but I was entirely aware that nearby there was a video crying out to be watched.

It became clear to me that by watching two films on Saturday night I had effectively signed a deal with the devil. When you sign such a deal you must read the small print, as there’s always a price involved. I know now that when offered what appears to be my dreams on a platter I should tread carefully and think through all the possibilities.

And this seems to be a lesson Blair may be learning in the near future.

[Stephen nods sagely to himself whilst typing.]

My bit for peace

I (Stephen, not Anne) left work yesterday at about 6.30pm. The sky was eerily misty, apparently because of a sandstorm elsewhere(!) There was a protest march going through the city. They were protesting about some skirmish or other which was going on a long way away. The traffic was at a standstill. I later saw on TV that the state premier, Bob Carr, was trapped in his car when protesters surrounded it and attacked it with paint. If they had our tabloid press out here, I imagine we’d see a headline like: Yobs Mob Bob Carr’s Car. This was a silly effort as he’s the state premier, whereas the war is a federal matter. Fools.

Anyway, I went all out for their cause on the way home by eating my sixth limited edition sixties-themed Magnum ice cream. This one was called Peace Man-go. A weak pun compared to some of the others in the range, but appropriate for the day I thought. It was shaped like a heart (or, rather, shaped like the idealised "heart-shape” – no heart is shaped like that) and had mango ice cream with mango-flavoured chocolate on the outside. Yummy. This protesting lark can be fun.

Reading the papers and BBC News web site this morning, I see my efforts may have been in vain. Bush and Blair truly are deaf to the voice of people. At least I tried.

Don’t lose, choose booze

You’ll have noticed that yesterday it was Thursday again. That means it was quiz night in our local bar. Regular readers will know that Anne and I have been each of the previous three weeks and won a $40 bottle shop voucher each time. We don’t drink a lot (often, but little), so our small studio flat is getting a bit full of Toohey’s New beer and bottles of wine!

Well, we won again yesterday. It was surprising because we weren’t doing very well up until the last round, and I failed to recognise the theme tune to Little House On The Prairie (is that how you spell prairie??) in the last round. I was able (eventually) to name five Sean Connery films from the nineties, which I was happy with.

Win we did though, and we now have to find somewhere to store more “grog”. I think we’re going to buy more expensive wine this week.

In bonus rounds. we also won a Jim Beam baseball cap and T-shirt (we now have two such T-shirts – we can coordinate). We need to bear in mind that once we leave Sydney (May? June?) we’ll need to carry all this with us in our rucksacks.

Pub quizzes are very popular here apparently, and some people at my work thought we were very clever for winning. However, I’ve found out that a lot of these quizzes offer big cash jackpots, and ours doesn’t, so it looks like all the big quizzers go to those. There are only ever four or five teams at our quiz.

Rather than go for the big buck, Anne and I are happy to be a big fish in a small pond. Two big fishes, I suppose. Two big fishes with lots of alcohol.

Turning...into...techie...geek

I've been learning a little HTML from using Blogger. I've also come across a little Java, and have put a week-counter and a clock on the left of the diary (so you can see how many weeks we are into the Big Adventure^tm, and what time it is here). Admittedly I found the code on other people's sites, but I've had to tweak it myself.

I think I'll become a web-developer when I return home, like everyone else on FriendsReunited. (You see - I've even figured out how to make that link, and all the links I put up yesterday, open in a new window when you click them!)

(I notice that some of the archives are currently missing. I don't think that's my fault - Blogger is famous for it, I gather.)

Magnum chores

In my quest to get through all nine in the Sixties Nine range of Magna, I had a Candy Warhol the other day (a pun on Andy Warhol). It wasn't nice. The chocolate on the outside is white (like Warhol's hair, I suppose) and has lots of coloured bits in it (unlike his hair). The bad part is that it has "musk" flavoured ice cream in. What's that about?

Are they taking the Mickey? Isn't musk something animals secrete? It tasted quite bad anyway. I ate the whole thing, obviously, but I can tell you that I didn't enjoy it. That's five out of nine done now. I hope the other four are better than the Candy Warhol. That one deserves considerably less than 15 minutes in the limelight.

What am I going to do when I've had all nine?? (Continue eating the Choc Work Orange ones, I suppose.)

Blogging all over the world

Stephen here. The idea is that I’m here for a life experience and to decide what I want to do when I grow up. However, I seem to be spending more time finding out about “blogs” (web-logs) like this. At blogger.com (where I have to go to update this diary) there are links to other blogs. It’s interesting to see a few.

Some are terribly mundane, and some are very interesting. It’s mostly American teens writing about their lives, but there are more interesting blogs (like ours, for example). This guy is a CNN reported based near Iraq. This guy has some funny things to say in his day-to-day life. This girl has some issues.

If you have some hours to kill try looking around a site called Blogarama (there’s a link to this in the column to the left of this diary).

Will blogs change the face of journalism as we know it? No – they’re mainly used by indulgent teens to moan about how unfair life is. As we all know, if you want to change the world you don’t write a blog – you write to The Metro.

That was the tweak that was

Whilst reading other people’s blogs I’ve realised that our blog is quite basic, in terms of functionality. (You can always tell a web-geek when they use the phrase “in terms of functionality). I’ve been tweaking my blog here and there to improve it, but there are some things I can’t do without access to the files on my main web page on my Freeserve site, which I can’t do until I get home to the UK.

My latest tweak is to make the archive links appear in a drop-down menu. That’s right – look impressed.

Another tweak I’ve done is to enable the web site to record each word you look at, and flag to me when you misunderstand a joke.

Miss Vegemite-eee-eee

I recommend you do.

I may rave on about Tim Tams, and I do like the way Aussies put a slice of beetroot in a beefburger, but I don't like all Aussie food indiscriminately. I don't like Vegemite. (Pronounced, presumably, to rhyme with Yosemite.) (Which spoils the title to this diary entry.)

I'd heard of this foodstuff a lot, especially in Neighbours. It's like Marmite, I suppose, but worse. When we were staying with Shae and Andrew in Manly, Shae raved about it and said we must try it. I rose to the challenge and almost immediately gagged and spluttered - like a child eating sprouts.

It's the devil's custard, and you should stay away from it as you would a rabid wolf. A rabid wolf that leaves a nasty taste in your mouth.

Yuck!

Only in Australia

I was reading the NSW State Electoral Office's web site (don't ask) and came across this:

The Least Successful Election

The worst ever election was held in June 1974 when the voters of a town in Western Australia re-elected as mayor the man whose death had caused the election in the first place.

Apologising to the 8,731 electors who had voted to have the mayor reinstated for a further year, the town clerk apparently described the occurrence as a bad mistake. It was, he said, the result of confusion on the part of those preparing the ballot paper.

When it was announced that the mayor had been elected by a sizeable majority, there was, not surprisingly, a considerable public outcry, not least from the sister-in-law of the deceased. On hearing the result, she said, "I know George was very popular with the townsfolk, but I was still surprised to hear his election victory announced on the radio, driving back from the crematorium."

Video tasty

As Anne has said, I bought a VCR at the weekend. Having discovered DVDs a few years ago I didn’t think I’d ever be happy to watch a video again. The pictures are fuzzy and the sound poor. Compared to the TV reception we have here, however, the pictures and sound are fantastic. And there aren’t ads every 10-15 minutes as there are on the network TV films (grrr!)

I was therefore excited and happy to get a VCR, as you can imagine. It cost me about 65-70 quid (couldn’t find a second hand one) and I intend to sell it when I leave Sydney and get a fair proportion of that back. That’s how I justified my purchase to Anne. My excitement was increased when I joined the local video library and they said we get two films for the price of one for the first month of our membership. Yay!

Now, I don’t want you thinking we’re just going to sit in and watch films all the time. After long days walking around Sydney at the weekend though it’s the perfect way to unwind. We watched two videos at the weekend (for the price of one!) and here are the judgements:

Signs

I enjoyed this. A few people had told me that it was disappointing (including an Empire film critic!) so perhaps this managed my expectations. It’s a story of alien invasion, shown through the eyes of a disillusioned preacher (Mel Gibson) and his family.

It all ties up a bit neatly at the end I suppose, but I was entertained. At least I was once I’d got over the fact that videos are still made in a 4:3 ratio rather than widescreen – yuck! Four stars.

I read that Mel Gibson’s next film is about the last days of Christ’s life and is in Latin and Aramaic – without subtitles! Funny Mel Gibson.

Eight Legged Freaks

This is an affectionate parody of/homage to monster movies of the fifties. It makes little attempt to be taken seriously and doesn’t even really try to be scary. It’s about spiders which grow in size due to chemicals.

The cast have fun, and I’d say it’s worth watching for a laugh. Three stars.

We also watched a film on telly:

Enemy of the State

Being shown on channel seven, this 131 minute film (per the IMDB) was stretched out to two hours fifty minutes (170 minutes) thanks to the ads. That’s a 30% increase in length due to ads (ignoring any PAL speed-up issues). Also, there was some poor editing of naughty words (“Kiss my BOTTY“). I think you can sympathise with my VCR-buying now.

Anyway, this is a really fun film, with Will Smith and Gene Hackman. Will Smith is targeted by John Voight, a bad NSA man, and is reluctantly helped by ex-NSA man Gene Hackman. Anne was jumping up and down with excitement during the spy-satellite scenes, like a small child on tartrazine - bless. Four stars.

Auditors from the past in the present. In Sydney.

I went for drinks last night with three people I used to work with in KPMG. One of them was the guy who pounced on me as I left work the other week. We drank and put the world to rights and I caught up on gossip. They’ve all been here a couple of years or more, and were able to give me lots of tips on what to do in and around Sydney when we’re not watching videos.

Sydney’s such an international city – there are loads of Brits working over here. When you see the harbour, with the opera house, ferries and bridge it’s easy to see why people are attracted. Add to that the climate, and the weird animals wandering around the parks (I’m still enjoying seeing ibises, bats and cockatiels everywhere!) and you wonder why everyone doesn’t come here.

It hardly feels like we’re away when I keep meeting people I know from London, and I can be in email contact with people. Travelling isn’t what it used to be. Not that I know what it used to be, but it wasn’t like this I reckon.

It was St Patrick’s Day, but these weren’t St Patrick’s Day drinks since I don’t celebrate that day. I’m English, not Irish for crying out loud. I’m not going to dress up in green as an excuse to drink – it doesn’t suit my curmudgeonly manner.

Any of you without Irish blood who went for St Patrick’s Day drinks on Sunday or Monday is wrong. Thus I have spake, and ever it must be so.

Travel bungs up the sinuses

I (Stephen) have a cold. It’s not the flu – it’s a just a cold. And when I say it’s just a cold, that is not to belittle my condition in any way. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not the flu since if it was the flu I wouldn’t be writing this as I wouldn’t be out of bed. It’s a cold and I will fight for the right to be able to moan about colds because I will not exaggerate my condition by pretend it’s the flu. It’s not the flu, it’s just a cold.

Stephen P.I.

At work on Thursday my (cold-ridden, sniffy) mind wandered and I remembered a guy called Richard with whom I’d worked in Sainsbury’s. I worked there, mainly in the fruit and veg section, at weekends when I was in the sixth form and in some of the summers when I was at uni. I’d not seen Richard for eight or nine years and wondered what he was up to. I typed his name into Google to see if he has what nerds would call a “web presence”. I wouldn’t call it that, obviously – I said nerds, remember?

I found a few references to someone of that name having written some film reviews for magazines and some reference books on films. This was a stroke of luck, as I figured if anyone I knew would do such a thing it would be him. I looked him up on Friends Reunited (should have done that first really) and found that he was indeed a writer. His listing mentioned that he was off to Oz, though this was from over a year ago.

So I went back to Google and searched for his name along with “Australia”. It came up with his contact details at the Oz edition of Empire film magazine where he is now a writer. He's right here in Sydney! I read this magazine every month in the UK so I was very impressed. I called him at his office and checked if it was him. It was. He remembered me and he came along to the weekly trivia quiz at our local last night. What a small world! If it hadn’t been for me and my private eye/stalker ways I wouldn’t have got in touch with him.

To top off the coincidences, this morning I saw this article on Yahoo news about people stalking people and tracking down long-lost friends on Google.

Pop quiz, hotshot!

So Richard joined Anne and me for our third pub quiz. We’d come first each of the two weeks we’d been and each time had won $40 of bottle-shop vouchers. Given that we’d only won by a narrow margin each time, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion.

This time we had a secret weapon. The Richard I knew from Sainsbury’s had an encyclopaedic knowledge of, among other things, films and sport. The latter was particularly important, since Anne and (especially) I fall down on sports questions. Things hadn’t changed and he helped us to our third victory.

Embarrassingly we won by a clear 12 points, thanks mostly to our new team member. The other regulars there must hate us. As it was we got talking to them afterwards and (I hope) they don’t hate us. They seem like nice people and it’s good to have a regular Thursday night fixture. These wins will make our inevitable first loss all the more painful though.

Letting agents of hell

Stephen reporting in. We’re having a bit of a problem with the letting agent through whom we’re renting our flat in Sydney. Nothing serious, we just can’t get a straight answer from them on something. They’re called Adept Property, but Anne now calls them Inept Property. Ahahahahahaha - we win!

You see, we don’t think they are adept!

(We think they’re inept.)

Dr (Anne) who?

I’m working proper hours (9 until 6ish, unless I do overtime), but Anne is working from about midday until about 8 or 9pm (so she can phone and bother people in the evenings once they get home from work). Consequently, we don’t see much of each other at the moment.

This might be for the best, as in the month between quitting our jobs back home and getting jobs here we barely left each other’s side. Much as this must have been a pleasure for Anne, I detected that once or twice my chirpy, friendly wit and banter may have been a bit too much for her.

So I reckon, once Anne’s been through two months or so of calling strangers on the phone all day and trying to ram financial services down their necks, she’ll finally appreciate me.

Meanwhile I get some time alone for colouring-in.

Election 2003

Stephen here. There’s an election here in 12 days. This has encouraged me to read up on how things work here a bit. It confused me at first but I think I have it now.

The coming-elections are for the state of New South Wales (NSW). I don’t know if the other states are currently having elections too, but I don’t think they are – I reckon I would have heard something as I’ve been reading The Sydney Morning Herald every day and watching local news. In NSW Labor (no U – the buffoons) are in government at the moment, with Bob Carr as their leader (The Premier).

Very Australian, having a government leader called Bob. In the UK he’d surely be called Robert. It was never Jim Major was it? And Maggie Thatcher was just a nickname. I’m sure there are people in the UK who think we’re being incredibly liberal calling Blair Tony, rather than Anthony (if that’s his name, it may not be). Again, insufferable warmonger is just a nickname for Mr Blair.

The main opposition are the Liberals, the right wing party – presumably the equivalent of the Tories in the UK, only more electable one would think. Their leader is a 33 year old man called John Brogden. The Greens are also here, and some independent candidates and smaller parties, but I think I’ve listed the main two. The likely winners seem to be Labor, so the status quo looks like it’ll be maintained.

Both leaders seem pretty amiable. It’s interesting coming at this from a state of ignorance, as I have no preconceptions about these people.

The state governments only deal with state issues, so the Prime Minister’s apparent unwillingness to listen to the people and his keenness to jump into an ill-thought-through war against Iraq supporting the aggressor (the US) is not currently being brought up as an issue.

The state government has an upper and lower house – though unlike the two houses in the UK both houses are elected.

Each state has this system of government, and then on top of this, covering all states is the Federal Government (which also has an upper and lower-house). The Liberals are in power at the moment, with John Howard, the Prime Minister, the leader.

Do these many different governments seem a bit much to you? They do to me! Australia has a population of, what, 20 million people? Do they need two-house state governments for each of the six states (NSW, Queensland, Western Australia, Southern Australia, Tasmania. Victoria – I think that’s the lot) and then a federal government as well? (I’m not sure what the Northern Territories and the Australian Capital Territory do – but they’re not states.) This is not including the local councils, which they also have. Sounds like too much bureaucracy to me. I may try to change things while I’m here and sort out the former-colony for Her Majesty.

Movie Overload!

Given that we’re on a budget, and tend to be wandering around Sydney or going on trips when we’re not working, we tend to collapse in front of the TV in the evenings. Work is really exhausting us too at the moment. I guess that’s a combination of not having been to work for a month, and not being used to the heat.

We have an old TV in our little apartment, which doesn’t even have a remote control. That’s right – we’re really roughing it! Getting up to change the channel is a hell of an effort, I can tell you. I feel a bit unclean watching this little screen, especially as the picture’s not that good and I’m used to a beautiful big Sony Wega flatscreen widescreen TV. Anne thinks watching the pathetic little git of a telly we have now will be good for me. She likes to see me squirm.

There are plenty of movies on network TV here, especially at the weekend. Let me update you with the films we watched in the last few day, whilst exhausted:

Ransom – Mel Gibson in an entertaining film I saw at the pictures when it came out. Good, solid thriller with a good cast of baddies. Four stars.

Forces of Nature – Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck in a road-movie with BA trying to get to his wedding (to miserable-whingeing-Abby from ER) and meeting SB on the way. Pretty poor in lots of ways, but gains a star for having an ending I liked. Ben Affleck’s character is called Ben in the film, which I found a bit distracting. Two and a half stars.

Big Daddy – I’ve generally tried to avoid Adam Sandler movies, but found myself laughing out loud a few times in this silly film, despite myself. Two and a half stars.

So they’re not terrible films, but I’m on the look out for a cheap VCR so I can rent films I missed at the cinema and do want to see, rather than be forced to watch films I missed at the cinema for good reason. Obviously I’d rather get a cheap DVD player, but the TV’s so old it doesn’t even have the right sockets for a DVD player. Pity me.

Anne would probably allow me to buy a VCR (and then sell it on when we leave Sydney). (Not that I need my girlfriend’s permission for everything I do – I don’t.) She may be a bit annoyed if I arrive home one night with a 32 inch widescreen TV.

A few photos

A few more photos have been uploaded to the photo album ("Big Adventure Photos" link to the left of the diary), including one of Anne at the zoo (very up to date - see her diary entry below) and one of me at the pictures! None of Motivational Mouse, sadly.

Hope you like the new diary format. I thought this was better as it gives the posts more room.

It’s a small world (after all)

SKT here. As I left work on Thursday I heard, “Is that Stephen Kent-Taylor?” It was a bloke I used to work with at KPMG (I left KPMG in 1999). He’s now working for KPMG in Sydney, whose offices are, I gather, near where I’m working. Weird huh?

I then had a Cherry Guevara Magnum (a pun on Che Guevara the Cuban revolutionary) - my fourth in the series of nine. It was good, but not up the awesomely high standard of the Chocwork Orange Magnum.

We two (trivia) kings

We followed through on our intention, as revealed in Anne’s post yesterday, and last night returned to our local pub (or “hotel”, as they call them here) to try our hand at the trivia quiz for the second week running. Regular readers will recall that last Thursday we came first, and won $40 of bottle shop (off-licence) vouchers. That bought us two bottles of Banrock Station (white wine) and twelve bottles of Tooheys New (beer) – not bad given our tight budget!

The quiz is in three rounds, and after last night’s first round we were joint last (there were five teams there). Oh dear, we thought, last week was a big fluke. Two large teams on the other side of the room were very vocal and were winning. We were ashamed. Our brains had been put to the test, and had been found wanting.

However, we pulled ahead to third place after the second round and then went on to win, after storming the third round! Another $40 voucher – lovely, thank you very much. OK so we spent $24 on beer during the quiz, but we’re still up.

Anne’s knowledge of capital cities helped us out. She knew the capital of North Korea and brilliantly guessed the capital of Syria. I knew the capital of Romania, thanks to learning all the European capitals with a housemate at uni, but I’m useless outside Europe.

My enviable strengths came to light on the TV Theme Tunes part of the quiz, where I correctly identified the theme tunes played as L.A. Law and Mork & Mindy, thus proving that my childhood was well-spent. I was annoyed at myself when, asked to name five Nicole Kidman movies from the nineties, I included Dead Calm which was from the eighties, apparently. Damn my sickening inability to remember production dates of movies.

We were both poor on the intros round, where the first ten seconds of a song is played and you have to give the title. I got “Mmm mmm mmm mmm” by The Crash Test Dummies, and Anne got “Unbelievable” by EMF, but the rest were odd US M.O.R. A.O.R. bands. And, of course, Crowded House. We were also poor on sports, though Anne was better than I was, obviously.

All said, we are a good team. We are unbeaten. I’m setting us up for a fall really, since both weeks we have won by less than two points. Only adds to the drama.

Four nights, three and a half days ago

Hello – it’s Stephen. Sorry, but I forgot to say that I watched Six Days, Seven Nights on TV on Sunday night. If I don’t add it here then the film review element of this web diary will be incomplete.

This is a pretty mediocre film starring Han Solo and Anne Heche. They’re a mis-matched pair who get stuck on a desert island together, whilst their partners look for them and then give up on them. Nicely, Han Solo ends up battling the guy who played Jango Fett in Star Wars Episode 2 Attack Of The Clones (SWE2AOTC). Jango ends up dying when a rocket goes wrong – the same way (well, similar to the way) his son, Boba, dies in SWE6ROTJ!

Anne Heche’s character works for a magazine in New York, and so doesn’t think much of Indiana Jones’s pilot character. Of course, by the end they’re in love and entering a relationship which, let’s face it, doesn’t have a future.

David Schwimmer (Ross from Friends) plays Anne Heche’s other half. This is a bad sign. Without exception, no Friends star is ever good in a movie. Ever. With the possible exception of Lisa Kudrow, I suppose.

Jack Ryan is watchable in anything, so it gains a star from having him in, but otherwise the film’s a bit silly. Reasonable waste of a Sunday evening I suppose. Two stars. And that’s quite generous.

The last-of-the-summer whine

SKT here. So apparently it’s autumn in the southern hemisphere. Happened on Monday, I gather, and I reckon that’s a bit rough. I came here for warmth and sun, and though it’s still quite warm (too warm to be wearing a suit) it’s quite windy and grey in Sydney at the moment.

I was quite enjoying what little we saw of summer. The girls in Sydney were wandering around wearing not a lot, which was quite good. I don’t pretend that this is all for my benefit, of course – it’s for the benefit of all the (straight) men out here.

In contrast to the hipsters ‘n’ cleavage look in Sydney, in Tokyo there was a very appealing fashion of short skirts and long boots. (Appealing on the women, that is – it was a bit tacky on the men.) So you see I am getting a cultural experience out of my trip.

And please don’t email me telling me that’s sexist. It’s not.

Anne is Mr Benn (metaphorically)

When Anne realised that a job in science was going to be hard to come by she got a bit sad. However, the flip side of this is a chance to try something different – a chance to be like her hero, Mr Benn. Anne could go into the metaphorical magical fancy dress shop and try on any outfit she liked: secretary, PA, waitress, welder, sex-trade worker… the possibilities were endless, and she wouldn’t be restrained by her A level choices or degrees.

However, the job market here is pretty dire, so things were a little different. She still is Mr Benn (metaphorically, not actually), but as she entered the fancy dress shop (job market) she found that the picture was not as she remembered from the telly. Most of the racks were empty of outfits (jobs) and the outfits (jobs) that were left were door-to-door sales outfits (jobs) or were similarly poor. What’s more, the magical shopkeeper had gone away (on holiday probably) and left a miserable, disinterested school kid who didn’t want to serve (return calls) in charge of the fancy dress shop (job market).

I suppose Festive (or was it Festival?) Road, where the real (fictional) Mr Benn lived and walked down to get to the fancy dress shop, is represented in this metaphor by the route between London and Sydney. Via Tokyo. However, that doesn’t really add anything to the image and I will omit it so as not to get bogged down.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that Anne’s having trouble finding work.

Missing archives

Admin. It was pointed out to us (thanks Tony) that some of the earlier archives were missing. We've sorted this out now, so you can all breathe a sigh of relief. Phew.

Steve-o's jobbie

Stephen here - hello. As you can see from the heading, I'm getting the hang of the Aussie lingo (language). You'll also have gathered that I have a job!

After two weeks bumming around Sydney, and a whole month since I left The Economist, I've just finished my first day of work at GE Capital - a large American company (very large). People at The Economist will draw breath when they hear I'm helping out with balance sheet recs. Everyone else reading this will just glaze over, having no clue about (or interest in) what a balance sheet rec is.

So Anne and I are going out for a Thai tonight - our first proper meal out in Oz. We've been taking this budgeting thing quite seriously, and have denied ourselves even coffees out until one of us was employed. This was so that I could still afford to fill up on Magnum ice creams.

I'm very tired. I don't think I'm cut out for work.

Culture, a film and The Bottie Gardens
On Friday morning we went to The Museum of Sydney for some learning. I'm reading The Fatal Shore, a book on the founding of Australia. It's very interesting, especially reading it here in Sydney where a lot of it happened. Many of the street names are from the era I'm reading about, and I wanted to go to the museum to see some of it first hand. The museum turned out to be very small, and didn't have many artifacts from the 18th and 19th century, but proved to be interesting in other ways. We watched a good documentary from the 1940s on the building of the harbour bridge and there was a fair bit to read. Also good was we got a $4 discount with our YHA (Youth Hostel Association) membership, and so paid only $3 each. Result!

We relaxed in the afternoon. That's a nice thing about living here for three months - we're in no hurry to do everything NOW and can afford to take it easy a bit. Being unemployed has some real advantages, though I imagine we'll tire of it quite soon. We watched The Siege on TV in the evening, a film starring Denzel Washington and Annette Bening, with Bruce Willis in a strange little role. It was pretty interesting, especially following September 11th (2001). I'd give it more than three stars, but probably fewer than four. I guess that means three and a half stars. Hmm, perhaps I should have started off with a ten star system, since having half a star seem pointless. A five star ratings systems seems to be overly-limiting. Now I've started though I will have to stick with it, and just bite the half-star-bullet begrudgingly.

We were up with the larks on Saturday, and the sky was overcast following a night of rain. I took my pedometer, which Anne foolishly gave me for Christmas, and we went for a jog at the park again. The park is 2.6km away, and it took us 31 minutes to walk there (I also used the stop watch on the watch my sister got me for my birthday!) We did a complete circuit (2.9km) in 20 minutes 40 seconds. Last time we jogged (Thursday) we stopped after 18 minutes without completing the circuit. We thought we'd only managed a quarter to a half of the circuit, and walked back the way we came. This morning we realised that we were just a couple of hundred meters from the end, and should have continued walking in the direction we were jogging. We are Bennies.

I later had my third Magnum ice cream of the trip. I figured I'd earned this, having been jogging. This one was a "Chocwork Orange" Magnum (instead of Clockwork Orange). It was truly amazing. Probably my favoutite of the three I've had. I'm now a third of the way through the nine.

Perfectly, it got really sunny and hot later so we spent the afternoon reading the (very heavy) weekend Sydney Morning Herald in the lovely Botanical Gardens ("Please walk on the grass"). I now call these The Bottie Gardens, in a witty satire on the Aussie habit of contracting words and then appending them with "ie". For example, a salt-water crocodile is a "saltie" and a fresh water one is a "freshie", a poker slot-machine is a "pokie" and a school child is a "schoolie".

In fact the "Bottie Gardens" gag is Anne's, but I'll say it's mine and no one will be any the wiser.