Looking For A Place To Happen

The Innocence of Banking.

2011-03-26T01:15:00.000-07:00

There's a billboard ad for the Royal Bank of Scotland that I pass every day, and every day it makes me more and more annoyed. You've probably seen them, they're the ones that portray RBS as being there 'for you'. They've come up with all these new measures, measures that they hope will somehow stem the tide of ill feeling the general public has towards a bank that they now own. Measures that seemed bleeding obvious in the first place but weren't implemented because they were too busy pissing away all of your money.

So they're going to be a friendly bank. Oh yes, everyone in your local branch is now going to smile, welcome you in, pour you a cup of tea, and if you're lucky, give your shoulders a little rub.

To be honest, it all makes me a bit uneasy. Why? Because they're a bank. I don't want my bank to be my friend, I want my bank to be my bank. I don't choose a bank based on how white their teeth are, or how fancy their signatures are, I choose a bank that is really good at being a bank. They could fling shit at me when I walk in the branch if they give me more money than the other banks. I do most of my banking online anyway.

It's not just RBS who do this. I think it all started with Innocent smoothies, this idea that companies are going to be all warm and fuzzy in their marketing, cosy up to us like a colleague with no concept of personal space. Companies trying to be my friend when I just want them to do what they do best. You know what? Innocent make really good smoothies. But I hate when I end up being patronised by a bloody juice carton.

"Don't turn me upside down" it warns me, "unless the cap's on!" Well, thanks for that sagely advice there. While you're at it, why not warn me not to consume the smoothie intravenously? Or remind me not to murder anyone today perhaps? Innocent smoothies are the annoying friend that everyone has, the shouty, loud, and oh-so un-funny mate who loves being the center of attention and tells everyone he "doesn't watch TV" before going on to talk about how he downloaded and watched all of 'Boardwalk Empire' in one day.

So please, stop trying to be my friend, just... be my bank. Quench my thirst. Shut the fuck up about Boardwalk Empire. I'll get round to watching it eventually.

Indulge me if you will

2010-08-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

I'm seeing Eels in Glasgow tomorrow, they're my favourite band, and it'll be the first time I've seen them live since 2006 so I'm quite excited, and thought I'd share a memory or two from each time I've seen them.

21st July 2000, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

My first EELS show, a few days before my 17th birthday. Mike and I had quite poor seats but during the support band (the wonderful Webb Brothers) we noticed two empty seats, front row center. Needless to say we moved there during the changeover and ended up with probably the best seats in the house. A few of the songs from this show later surfaced on Oh What A Beautiful Morning, which was a nice souvenir of my first Eels live experience. I met (band member and solo artist in her own right) Lisa Germano outside afterwards, she was lovely, and signed a flyer, which I have since lost.

25th August 2001, Leeds Festival

Festival sets by your favourite bands can always be a bit hit or miss, and as Souljacker hadn't been released yet alot of the new material went over my head. I remember little about this apart from a cover of Get Ur Freak On by Missy Elliot, which left most of the crowd completely bemused.

22nd May 2005, Glasgow Academy

The 'With Strings' tour was incredible and I was lucky enough to see it three times. I went to this one with my friend Siobhan, and during the soundcheck I realised I was sitting a few seats away from (guitarist) The Chet, who was presumably listening to the sound from the audiences point of view. By the time I realised he was away though. Rangers won the Scottish League that day too, in rather dramatic fashion, so I was on quite a high, and had a sleepless night in Glasgow before heading to the airport the next morning to catch a flight to London...

23rd May 2005, Royal Festival Hall, London

This gig was notable for me because I met my future (and now ex) girlfriend Jen there and it begun an adventure that saw me move to London permanently, before travelling the world with her. The only thing I really recall about this gig though is getting annoyed that the people behind me were singing along, rather loudly, and completely out of key! My future girlfriend met E afterwards and had her ticket signed, while I was tucked up in my hotel room watching Star Trek. I kinda missed the boat on that one.

12th October 2005, Royal Albert Hall, London

This was an incredible gig, and I love the fact that E talks about it so extensively in his autobiography (Things The Grandchildren Should Know). Probably the best of the three 'With Strings' performances that I saw.

27th June 2006, Astoria, London

I was living in London by this point, and I don't remember a great deal about the gig, but luckily E was so kind as to have it filmed and recorded (Live And In Person, a live CD/DVD set) for my own personal benefit! These shows weren't highly rated by most people I've spoken to about them, but I'm a fan of noisy, atonal guitar music, so I was perfectly happy. Support act Smoosh were really good, and I saw the two girls (and their Mum!) outside afterwards, exploring Oxford Street, even though it must have been past their bedtime.

So Tomorrow Afternoon I'll head to Glasgow again from my home in Dundee, with Mike who I was with at the first two gigs, and I'm pretty excited about making some new memories.

Why we should be beating our film stars about the head

2010-07-06T07:58:00.000-07:00

I saw about 30 minutes of Braveheart the other night. I've seen it before, once or twice, but I wasn't particularly fond of it. Great story, decent cinematography, fantastic battle scenes I admit, but oh god, THAT accent. Mel Gibson's accent is the sole reason I find it near impossible to watch Braveheart. The racist, misogynistic American-Australian-American could only have sounded less Scottish if he'd wandered into a bar and said "Tennents? Och, that's awfy cheap. Nothing around the five pound mark?"

Even more amazing than the fact that nobody at any point said "Hang on Mel, I didn't know that Braveheart was an Irish-American or maybe some kind of South African?" is the fact that the good people at Oscar HQ awarded the film with Best Picture and Best Director. I'd have thought that the leading man in a film, especially when he's also directing it, was required to inject a hint of believability into his character?

But he's not the only one. Sean Connery was also given a shiny statue for his lacklustre Irish accent in The Untouchables, and Dick Van Dyke's ridiculous attempt at cockney in Mary Poppins is now legendary.

Actors are paid fortunes for what they do, and they can't even do it right. Of course, all the Hollywood paymasters care about is profit for their investment, so they wouldn't be concerned if Braveheart spoke in a thick Russian accent or was a Jackie Gleason impersonator - "One of these days Longshanks, one of these days!" - as long as he put bums on seats.

But regardless of making money for the studios, they're not doing their job. If they can't do the voice, they shouldn't play the role. I can't fix a car engine (or even drive) so you wouldn't hire me as a mechanic, would you?

But thankfully there may be a solution. There is something called Foreign Accent Syndrome, believe it or not. Despite the boring name (syndromes are usually named after the person who diagnosed it, I can only assume this was discovered by a Dr. Julian Fuckshit) it is a very real, albeit rare, affliction. People have reported that upon recovering from serious brain injury of some sort that they have, unbeknownst to them, spoken with a different accent, due to damage to the brains linguistic centers.

So there we go, lets round up our film stars and beat them about the head. Heather Graham in From Hell, Kevin Costner in Prince of Thieves, and John Travolta in Battlefield Earth. I'm aware Travolta didn't have a bad accent in that film, but if anyone deserves to be beaten about the head...

The 'freedom' speech:

Although admittedly not quite as bad as this:

Abbreviate This!

2010-04-15T04:13:00.000-07:00

The other day at work someone came up to me and said in a distinctive English accent “Excuse me, where do you keep the KFS?” I looked at him blankly for a second.
“The KFS?” I stuttered.
“Yeah, you know” he said. “Knives, Forks and Spoons”.
At first I thought he was joking, for I had never heard anyone refer to cutlery as ‘KFS’. I had an English girlfriend for over two years and never once had I heard this particular abbreviation so I was certain it couldn’t be a regional thing.

“Yeah, the CUTLERY is over there”, I said, beckoning towards the cookshop section of the store. I discussed it later with some colleagues and it turns out I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t heard of ‘KFS’. But it got me thinking.

Several years ago our company brought out an initiative called Jargonbusters’, aimed at eradicating jargon from the workplace and making life easier for everyone, especially new recruits. For example, ‘PI’ could stand for either ‘Price Integrity’ or ‘Productivity Index’, two things often referred to at work which might be confusing for some. SRP stands for Stock Reduction Programme and also Shelf Ready Packaging, leading to perfectly sensible sentences such as ‘The use of SRP will help us achieve our SRP’.

There are also things which have several names though, an OFD is pretty much the same as an FSU, for example (Off fixture display/free standing unit), and different stores can even have different names for things. I’d never heard of a wonzel bin until I started working in Dundee, to me they’d always been dump bins (display units that stock is ‘dumped’ in), and besides, a wonzel sounds like something that collects litter on Wimbledon Common.

Needless to say the Jargonbusters initiative was a complete waste of time, because nobody is going to say ‘hand held computer’ when ‘PDA’ will suffice. Point of sale will always be POS, and a shelf-edge label is usually better known as an SEL. Jargon is everywhere and always will be.

About a year ago the Local Government Association (LGA) published a list of 200 words that were considered to be jargon, and encouraged people to use their plain English equivalents. Lowlights, for example, were to be known as ‘worst bits’, ‘quick-hit’ and ‘quick-win’ were both to be referred to as ‘success’, and so on.

While this is all well and good to a point, one of the most majestic things about the English language is the sheer number of different ways of saying things. What some people see as jargon, others (poets and writers for example) see as simply having more than one way of saying something. Which for me, is all part of the fun. If we all spoke and wrote the same think of all the great literature we’d have missed out on, simply because 90% of it would probably be really dull.

There has to be a sensible limit on things though. While most people out there know what the NHS is, I doubt many of you would have immediately known who the LGA were if I hadn’t furnished you with their full title - I certainly wouldn’t have.

So use whatever words you want, just remember to know your audience. There’s no need for Jargonbusters or endless lists of words you shouldn’t use. Common sense will suffice.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a big day ahead of me. I have to make sure SRP goes well tomorrow so I can help the PI department with their POS and SEL’s, because there’s never any PDA’s when you need one.

Tea Time

2010-04-12T04:13:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, when I was working in London, I had a member of staff known as Baah. I liked Baah alot, he was a tall, gangly Ghanaian chap and worked on the freezer department. Extremely laid back, I would occasionally ask him to do something to which he would shrug his shoulders, look me in the eye and state: “Cup of tea”, meaning he’d do it after his break.

To this day, whenever I go to make a cup of tea, I hear Baah’s voice, in that distinctive accent of his, say “cup of tea” in my head.

Funny how some people never really leave you, isn’t it?

Predictive text made me a racist.

2009-08-20T02:19:00.000-07:00

My flatmate Cal reminded me of a little story the other day. A few years ago, predictive text turned me from a mild-mannered man who doesn't like nightclubs into a screaming racist. In Cupar, where I grew up, there's a nightclub called Jordans. It's not the nicest of places, and pretty much a last resort when the pubs close as it's the only club in town.

One day at work my friend Siobhan texted me to ask if I fancied going to Jordans that night. I replied, and her subsequent response was one of shock and confusion. I'd meant to say 'I fucking hate Jordans', but thanks to predictive text, what I'd actually sent to her was 'I fucking hate Koreans'.

Anyway, Cal had reminded me of this because the same thing happened to him. After getting mildly sunburnt one day he'd texted a friend to say he looked like a 'fucking crab'. At least that's what he meant to say. Imagine his friends' surprise when she got a text from him saying 'I look like a fucking arab'.

Inappropriate?

2009-07-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

Today while I sat with my flatmates drinking Pepsi in the city square, we saw a kids pushchair with the name 'iCandy' on the side of it. There must be an endless list of names the company could have called it that didn't subtely imply paedophilia, but the marketing execs must have said "Yeah, let's go with the slightly pervy name". iCandy? iCan't believe it.

An update.

2009-05-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a while so I thought it best to give you a brief update on what I've been up to. Firstly, I finally finished my book. It's called Escape Is At Hand For The Travellin' Man (thanks to The Tragically Hip for the title) and you can buy it by clicking the link on the right. It's a decent read, if I do say so myself.

Secondly, I've recorded a new album. It's called 'Car Boat Sail' (thanks to my love of puns for the title) and it was inspired by my jaunt around the world in 2007, and you can hear the first track from it over on Myspace, again the link is on the right.

Also, after a year working in Perth I managed to snag myself a job here in Dundee, where I've been since the end of January. It's been a reasonably eventful year, all told. My girlfriend Eva and I spent a weekend in London, I've been fairly creative, and my flatmates and I have also been robbed.

Back in January I caught a guy robbing our flat, and to cut a long story short we all ended up in court as he plead not guilty. His defence was that I had solicited him for sex and refused to pay, so I 'gave' him the £800 worth of stuff he left the flat with in lieu of payment. I had to stand in the dock at Dundee Sheriff Court and listen while these accusations were thrown at me like a blind man playing darts. It would have been hilarious had we not been scared he'd actually get away with it. But common sense prevailed and the jury found him guilty of theft, assault (he threatened us with one of our own kitchen knives) and possession of a knife in public, and subsequently sentenced to three years in custody.

Other than that though, it's been fairly quiet.

Zoey 101

2008-01-16T07:21:00.000-08:00

Loving the advert for the 'Zoey 101' collection. Zoey 101 of course being the TV series starring Jamie-Lynn Spears who managed to get pregnant at sixteen. Starting off, the advert says "get into the Zoey zone!". Well, at least one young man took that advice although I'm not sure that's what they meant. It ends by cheerily suggesting that young girls "get the Zoey look!" Which presumably is a slightly sweaty, morning sickness sort of look.

Genius.

I also had the pleasure of being in a taxi the other day when towards the end of the journey the driver happily informed me that he was only "three points away from losing my license". Fills you with confidence, eh?

Review of 2007!

2008-01-06T13:09:00.000-08:00

Well I haven't updated much of late so I thought I'd kick things off with a belated look back at my favourite things of 2007. Starting off with the ubiquitous Top Ten Films list...

TOP TEN FILMS OF 2007
Again, didn't get to the cinema as much as I'd have liked, especially in the latter half of the year, and there were plenty of films that would likely grace alot of Top Ten lists that I didn't get to see. Even still, here's my pick of the ones I did see.

10. Live Free or Die Hard
The fourth film in the relatively consistent Die Hard franchise raised a few eyebrows when it was announce - Brucey was getting on a bit and he'd chosen Len Wiseman as his director, the man responsible for the atrocious Underworld films. Would the film (known in the UK simply as 'Die Hard 4.0) be an appropriate send off for John McClane, or was it just a cheap way to push through sales of white vests? It was actually neither, and ended up being nothing more (or less) than an entertaining action flick.

9. Sicko
Another intriguing documentary from Michael Moore, goes a long way to show that America isn't necessarily the 'land of the free', and certainly far from being the land of the free healthcare. Over-exaggerates the successes of our dear old NHS but makes its point well.

8. Zodiac
Based on the true story of the Zodiac killer who stalked San Francisco in the '70s. Worth viewing solely for Robert Downey Jr's performance.

7. Hot Fuzz
Everything to say about Hot Fuzz has been said by millions of other people. An instant classic of British Comedy but over-eggs the pudding towards the end.

6. Knocked Up
First classic of the year from Judd Apatow's production company, a cross between a 'gross-out' film and a Rom-com sounds disastrous but this is no ordinary gross-out rom-com. It's a clever, sharp and witty film...

5. Superbad
...but not as clever and sharp as this. Never before have I laughed so loud in a movie theater. Comedy of the year without a doubt.

4. Breach
Amazing performances from Chris Cooper and Ryan Philippe who portray the traitorous FBI agent and the rookie out to expose him. Based, very closely I'm led to believe, on the true story of Robert Hanssen who was convicted of espionage in 2001. A cracking thriller.

3. Half Nelson
Officially a 2006 film but it came out in '07 in Australia where I saw it. Ryan Gosling portrays the young, enthusiastic but drug-addicted teacher who befriends one of his female pupils in a non-pervy way. Dramatic and touching.

2. Amazing Grace
The story of British MP William Wilberforce, a leading abolitionist of slave labour in the British Empire. Brilliant script, and worth watching to see just how little the House of Commons has changed in 200 years.

1. The Bourne Ultimatum
It's the third part of an action blockbuster trilogy and thus has no right at the top of any 'best film' list but this bucks (almost) all the trends. Expensive photography is eschewed in favour of Paul Greengrass' 'documentary' style of directing. Film of the year, action franchise of the decade.

TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2007
As I spent most of the year travelling I didn't get much chance to get hold of new music, and when I got back in September I was playing catch-up, nevertheless, here's my top ten.

10. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer?
With more personal lyrics than its predecessors, it's a brave and gutsy change of pace from frontman Kevin Barnes. Maybe a touch too serious but a splendid record.

9. Phoebe Kreutz - Big Lousy Moon
New York folkie Phoebe Kreutz specializes in cute and clever lyrics with stupidly catchy melodies, and this album is a joy from start to finish.

8. Rachael Dadd - The World Outside Is In A Cupboard
Haunting effort from Bristolian Rachael Dadd, with several shades of my favourite female songwriter Lisa Germano. Rachael Dadd is fast becoming my second favourite.

7. Scout Niblett - This Fool Can Die Now
Fantastic voice and fantastic song structure, doesn't deviate in style from previous efforts but somehow manages to continue getting better. Only placed higher than Rachael Dadd because I've listened to Scout more.

6. Die! Die! Die! - Die! Die! Die!
First heard of these guys when I was in their native New Zealand last year, and coincidentally they'd just signed with Dundee's own Pet Piranha records. Noisy and dischordant and sounds fantastic.

5. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Would win a 'best album title of the year' poll if it was up to me, felt Spoon's latest album didn't quite hit the heights of 2005's 'Gimme Fiction' but still a damn fine record from a band who seem to be revelling in the creative freedom their label is allowing them. The songs are finely tuned to the verge of perfection.

4. Emma Pollock - Watch The Fireworks
Great voice and great tunes from former Delgados vocalist. Being Scottish has earned her bonus points too. Combines pop sensibilities with ethereal moments. Splendid!

3. Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends
First album in six years or something and it's clear they've been saving up. Solid, raw, but ultimately catchy.

2. McGazz - McGazzprom
Very hard to choose between this and my number one, McGazz has upped the ante with his latest (and still free to download) offering of poppy electronica. The songs are incredibly well written and has enough clever little word plays to keep you smiling every second line. The samples never detract from the overall song and are used to great effect. Catchy as fuck.

1. The National - Boxer
What can I say? Hardly the most upbeat album of the year but it is moody and anthemic in a way that Snow Patrol can only dream of. Very 'indie' but in all the right ways - an absolute joy from start to finish. Album of the year.

(Incidentally, here is my top ten of 2006, admittedly I was a bit more detailed with my reasoning last year. I can't find last years top ten albums list, probably because I forgot to write one.)

Arresting behaviour

2007-09-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

So, London was a blast, but then it always is. I didn't actually do a great deal, I was trying to watch my money and hanging out with Callum is free anyway (despite his protests!). But now I'm back it's time to get down to the serious business of finding somewhere to live and somewhere to work. The work part should be easy - I just ring up Tesco and tell them I want to come back and they find me a position. It may take a wee while but my cash situation is okay at the moment. Finding somewhere to live might be a bit harder though - there seems to be a dearth of places that meet our requirements in Dundee. But we've got a viewing arranged for Friday so I'm optimistic about that, even if it would have been nice to have maybe two or three places to choose from.

Well, I have nothing else of interest to say, so here's a story my Mum told me this evening.

Last week sometime my Grandma was arriving home from the shops or something and was parking her car in her garage when she was aware of four young guys walking down the hill from the school that she lives near. She felt a little apprehensive - as any older person would - but tried to think nothing of it when she noticed two of the guys had disappeared. Before she had time to think about it, she realised they've just reappeared from the garage just down from hers, and one of them is riding a bike. She knows whose garage it is and decides to go up and tell her neighbour that someone has just stolen a bike from them. Her neighbour, Felicity, is outraged and wants to chase after them but doesn't have her car - her husband has it for work. "Don't worry though" says my Grandma, "I'll drive you - they can't have gone far..."

Now, my Grandma is pretty healthy and fit for someone in her mid-seventies, but the thought of her and her next door neighbour playing Starsky and Hutch is still ridiculously funny. Apparently they caught up with the boys at the end of the road whereby Felicity jumps out of the car (with my Grandma close behind "for backup") remonstrates with the youths, retrieves the bike and returns home happy.
"You should have seen them though" my Grandma complained. "They weren't the least bit shame faced about being caught..."
No, but I bet they were a bit shocked to see my Grandma steaming down the road after them in her car. Just goes to show that you can lose alot of things as you get older but pluck isn't necessarily one of them.

Weekend in London

2007-09-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm off to London for the weekend tomorrow, and I'm very excited about it, for several reasons. Mainly it's because that's where my girlfriend is and we haven't seen each other in six weeks or so. But I'm also excited because I love London. In the time I spent there I was amazed by how many Londoners hadn't been to or done any of the excellent things London has to offer.

My old colleague Glenn had never been to the museums at South Kensington, never been to a West End show or caught a gig at the Comedy Store. People that have lived in London their whole life would ask me things like "So what's Greenwich like?" and "Isn't the theater expensive?". Well, Greenwich is lovely, and yes the theater is expensive but it's not like you go every week. Once a year will do fine.

It's underappreciated by the people that live there, partly because it's so full of tourists and tacky gift shops that people are maybe scared to venture out, but also because it has the worst public transport system in the world. And I'm including warzones in this. The tube is underfunded and overcrowded and buses are so random that at times you'd be forgiven for thinking they were part of a Monty Python sketch. There's also far too many cars, and it's about time they pedestrianised Regent and Oxford Streets - shopping for new shoes or a computer game should not be a risky activity, but it is in London.

But I'd implore Londoners to look beyond this - because there's always something going on. Whether it's a gig or a club or a bar or a museum you can't fail to find somewhere that you like in London, and if you're still having trouble, well, you should probably just move.

Weekend at Jimmy's

2007-09-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

I never fail to have a good time when I visit my brother, mainly to do with the fact that I enjoy my brothers company a great deal, but also because Aberdeen has a wonderful concentration of different pubs and clubs all relatively close together in the city center. It makes pub crawls varied but easy at the same time. And as we staggered back to his flat at 3.30am on Friday night I was grateful that the alcohol coursing through my blood stream was protecting me from Aberdeen's trademark breeze.

Now, to change the subject completely, I always thought I would die knowing that the worst piece of music I'd ever heard in my life was when Avril Lavigne decided to start rapping on her last single. I almost felt embarrassed for her but the money she's made from being every thirteen year old emo kids wet dream will probably distract her from the bile that she lays down on record. But never being the sort of guys that care about things like originality or creativity, boyband McFly have stolen her crown. Oh dear god. I was watching ITV by mistake on Saturday night when they appeared (straight from a GAP advert, presumably) and filled my ears with the worst nonsense I ever hope to hear. They've taken the turgid Snow-Patrol anthem style of songwriting, digested it and vomited up an omelette of mediocrity. They couldn't look more awkward wearing those guitars if they were covered in honey and standing in a bear pit. No wonder kids aren't buying singles any more when this is the kind of guff they have to choose from.

Anyway, I feel alot better now that that's off my chest. My brother and I went to see Run Fatboy Run at the weekend, it was okay, and you can read my full review here. Click this.

Beam me up, Scotsman!

2007-09-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

As a Star Trek fan who is also Scottish, for me the most interesting casting choice for the upcoming movie will be that of Scotty. Encouraging then, that Paramount have actually been casting in the UK, they seem to be keen to get an actual Scot to play the role as opposed to an American with a dodgy accent. The biggest name being mentioned is James McAvoy, he's the right age and his stock is fairly high at the moment. Martin Compston (of Monarch of the Glen) has auditioned, as has Chewin' the Fat's Greg Hemphill, who, at 38 is probably too old. Although he has had practise - remember the 'Taysiders In Space' sketch? "In amongst yis!"

New site!

2007-09-10T05:43:00.001-07:00

Well, kind of. Everything is now supported and powered by Blogger as opposed to the feed I was using from LiveJournal. This is still a work in progress so bear with me but there's some photos from my recent Australia trip, click photos on the right there to have a peek.

"That night in Toronto..."

2007-09-05T21:22:00.000-07:00

Ah, Toronto. I first fell in love with Canada's largest city about ten years ago on a family holiday, and I was worried that it wouldn't charm me as much this time around, but charm me it did. I won't pretend it's the most attractive city in the world (or even Canada) but it has to be one of the cleanest and friendliest. It has all the trappings of any large multi-cultural city, while retaining that typically Canadian of traits - politeness. From the skyline landmarks of the CN Tower and the Skydome (officially known as the Rogers Center) to the off-beat scruffy haven of Kensington Market, in a surprisingly compact area Toronto effortlessly glides you from one extreme to another on the rails of its streetcars.

I spent most of my first few days in Toronto doing nothing, I was tired from moving around alot and it was nice to be grounded in one place for more than a day or two. On Tuesday I fancied watching the Rangers vs. Red Star Belgrade match and sought out a bar showing the game. After a brief Google I came up with the Madison Pub, home of the Toronto Midtown Rangers Supporters Club. I sauntered on down and was delighted to find a beautiful bar and even better, made several friends amongs my fellow Rangers supporters. I ended up drinking far too much before staggering home and getting lost on the subway. I had sobered up by the time I got back to the hostel - it had taken me all of two hours to get back when it should have taken 20 minutes.

My brother, Nick and Dale arrived the next day rather deflated being as their holiday was ending. They left on Friday and that night I met up with another person I knew from the internet, Genevieve, for a few drinks.

On Saturday, I took the short ferry ride across to the Toronto Islands, which used to be a large sandbar but were broken up in a hurricane in the fifties. The islands are where Torontonians go to escape the buzz of city life and it's easy to see why. What is essentially a large floating park is the perfect place to get away from it all. I took some photos from the island but instantly regretted not having a tripod as my hand isn't as steady as it should be! The photo above is one of the better examples - it wasn't too dark at that point either.

I was sad to leave on Sunday, Toronto is one of the few places I could see myself settling in one day. As it turned out, Toronto was my last proper destination of the whole trip. I flew to San Francisco and jumped straight on a flight out to London. San Francisco is a gorgeous city but Toronto was the perfect place to end my adventure.

And again

2007-08-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

Following on from my last entry, I got caught up in a conversation with two American guys at the bus station in Boston last week. They were reasonably intelligent guys, but the subject soon drifted on to the fact that I was getting a bus to Canada. The younger guy was quite enthusiastic about this, as he'd never been to Canada before.

"Never left the States!" he beamed, proudly. I was almost willing to forgive this lack of ambition to travel when he looked at me and asked "So does Canada have like, an army?"
"Excuse me?"
"An army, do they have an army, or a navy or anything like that?"
I was almost at a loss for words.
"No", I said, matter-of-factly. "They just keep their fingers crossed".
It's maybe just aswell he's never left the States.

So I was quite relieved to wake up the next morning in Montreal, partly because it meant I'd made it to Canada but mainly because Montreal is a very attractive city. I was there for three nights in a very comfortable hostel, and explored as much as I could with blisters on my feet. I made it to Ottawa, Canada's capital on Saturday and met up with a friend, Linda, whom I've known on Myspace for a while. The next morning I nearly slept in and made it to the bus station in the nick of time to catch the bus to Toronto, not before I realised the Ottawan taxi driver from the day before had ripped me off.

The trip to Toronto was fine, there were only about eight of us on a coach built for fifty, so it was quiet and comfortable. Arrived in Toronto yesterday afternoon and I don't really have a great deal planned until my brother gets here on Wednesday, but I'm sure I'll find something to do.

Top three stupid things I've been asked in the States.

2007-08-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

1.
"Scotland? That's near Ireland, right?" - Philadelphia taxi driver
Although he was right, he really wasn't sure. He also happened to be pretty racist and insisted that 'ghetto niggers' (his words) were bleeding 'his' country dry.

2.
"You know Edinboro? Yeah we went there to see the Loch Ness Monster when I was a kid. It's a myth though, right?"
Yes, it is a myth Mr. Man-on-bus, but you were nowhere near Loch Ness anyway.

3. (My absolute favourite)
Youth on train: Where you from, bro?
Me: I'm from Scotland, in the UK.
Youth: Scotland? (thinks) Man, your English is pretty good.

So distraught was I that I hopped across the border to Canada, only to find that everyone speaks French so my communication woes will continue for now. Parlez-vous anglais, anyone?

My birthday

2007-07-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

Not only is tomorrow my 24th birthday, it's also the last day of having our campervan as the New Zealand part of the trip looms to a close. I'll miss the campervan alot, we've had it for exactly 50 days and have grown rather used to it, but I admit I'm looking forward to not having to make my bed every night, or putting it away every morning. I don't think I'll miss New Zealand either, at least not in the way I miss Australia. Don't get me wrong, this is an amazing country and I can't say a single bad thing about it, but I felt alot more at home in Australia, Sydney in particular. I also miss my family and friends, but I've decided to kill two birds with one stone and pop back to Sydney for a few days. In case you didn't know, my sister has recently moved there to study for a year. So it's the perfect opportunity to see her again, as it'll be the last chance I'll get for another ten months or so.

I don't have alot else to report, it seems like more interesting things are happening back home. Gordon Brown is pissing alot of people off which was to be expected I guess, but I expect the tabloids are even blaming him for all the flooding in Oxfordshire that has been happening. If you look very closely, especially at the editorials, I guarantee one paper has actually blamed him, at least indirectly.

I have of course been getting all my news mainly from the BBC website and although I've always trusted the BBC it's sad to see them ballsing up like they did with the phone votes thing. Hardly the right message to send to a new government when you're trying to secure more licence money. The only other source of media from back home I can get regularly is the 'International Express' newspaper, not a collaborative effort involving news agencies around the world in a hope of making international events have a higher appeal to unite the human race, Oh no! It's sadly just the edited highlights of that week's London Daily Express, which barely even qualifies as a newspaper. It's a bit disturbing to have foreign countries believe ours is a one in which the jailing of four would-be suicide bombers is less interesting than the Spice Girls reuniting. I especially loved the part where they said that although they all get on famously with each other they'll each have their own private jet to take them from gig to gig. Nice to know they haven't changed, eh?

But I suppose the one thing I don't miss from home is the tabloids shoving all that crap down my throat. It annoys me like hell, but the strange thing is I know when I touch down back home, I'll pick up a copy of the Sun at the airport.

Glacier mince

2007-07-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

There can't be too many places in the world where you can trek through temperate rainforest for an hour and a half and end up halfway up one of the only advancing glaciers in the world, but the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island is one of them.

The Fox and Franz Josef glaciers are majestic rivers of frozen snow, flowing slowly but (at the moment) steadily from the slopes of the Southern Alps stopping roughly 250 meters above sea level. The Fox Glacier township is where we found ourselves last weekend and we booked ourselves a half day hike on the glacier itself. After climbing the steep valley walls for an hour or so we came to the access point for the glacier itself, and spent about an hour walking across this most unique of environments. Unfortunately we weren't blessed with brilliant weather but the scale and majesty of the glacier wasn't lost on us. From its neve to its terminal face the Fox Glacier is about seven kilometers long, and it is advancing after years of retreat. You wouldn't expect a drought in a country two thousand miles away to cause a glacier to advance, but as the warm air from Australia crosses the Tasman Sea it evaporates sea water, storing it as rain until it hits New Zealand's southern alps. The vapour falls as snow which is essentially fuel for the glaciers and the warmer Australia gets the more the glaciers will advance.

As we climbed down and looked at the glacier before departing, our guide advised us to take a good look as the chances are it will never look this way again. It's such a fascinating landscape, hopefully one day I'll get to see just how much it changes every year.

The next day I celebrated the glorious weather we awoke to by getting into a tiny plane, climbing to 12,000 feet and jumping out with a large man called James strapped to my back. I had entered the exhilirating and rather bizarre world of tandem skydiving. It's very difficult to describe because there is really no feeling like it (certainly none that I've ever had) but seeing Mts Cook and Tasman (NZ's highest peaks), the glaciers and a few rivers and lakes from that high up was incredible. It's alot more gentle and far less scary than I'd expected - mainly because the views are so breathtaking there's no time to be scared. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Snow in June

2007-06-21T14:31:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally started snowing. After three or four days of gorgeous blue skies here in Queenstown, we woke to find the town looking as if it was encapsulated in a snow-globe and shaken vigourously. Ironically, this sudden flurry has prompted them to 'close the mountain', meaning we might not get to go skiing tomorrow. I love the expression 'close the mountain', as if you could close off anything that big. You'd need a pretty big sheet. Although having said that, the snow is so thick that you can't actually see it, so I guess it is closed.

Anyway, Jen and I are having heaps of fun in our cosy campervan, we got a portable DVD player with it so we stocked up on cheap films to keep us occupied in the evening, and we also bought a small selection of travel games. We wanted the classics - Connect 4, Battleships and Scrabble, but went to a low budget discount store to get them so we came away with 'Line Up Four', 'Sea Battle', and 'Form-A-Word'. But hey, they still do the job.

We arrived in Queenstown on Tuesday after a whistle stop tour of the south of New Zealand, right in the nick of time for Queenstowns annual Winter Festival which starts tomorrow with a large firework dispay. As part of the festival on Saturday night there is a Masquerade Ball at one of the big hotels here which Jen and I got tickets for yesterday, and there's a couple of gigs and some stand up comedy going on next week too, so it's all very exciting. And hopefully, we'll get to go skiing tomorrow, weather permitting. I've already fallen on my ass twice today, so it should be interesting. Better double check that travel insurance policy...

Kiwi fruits

2007-06-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

I knew I was going to New Zealand when I went up to the bar in a pizza restaurant on our first night here. Different country means different beer and I didn't know what was what so I asked the barman for a pint of whatever he recommended. As he was pulling the pint he asked where I was from. "Scotland", I replied. He seemed unmoved by this but as he plonked the pint on the bar he said "Tell you what, Scotsman, this one's on me". I come from a country where beer is practically a currency, so I was pretty chuffed.

And that's not the only good thing about Christchurch, here on New Zealand's south island, far from it. It's a beautifully kept city, which has a very obvious English feel to it. The river that lazily meanders through the city center is called the Avon, and you can even go punting on it. Many of the older buildings wouldn't be out of place in Cambridge or York, and among the English place names paid tribute to in street names are Gloucester, Worcester, Manchester, Hereford, Durham and Oxford, amongst others. It's incredibly laid back, as I am assured most places in New Zealand are, and above all it's very easy to feel at home here.

Jen and I have hired a campervan to live in for this next adventure, Claire is going off to see if she can find some work on a farm somewhere, and we've got roughly seven weeks to explore both islands of New Zealand, which should be ample time. So on Friday we're heading out of Christchurch a few miles to the east to something called the Banks Peninsula, which was created by two volcanic eruptions some time in the past and is now home to the Francophile village of Akaroa. In the meantime, there's a glow in the dark mini golf course here that I have to check out, and I might pop back into that pizza restaurant...

Six days in a car park

2007-05-31T14:33:00.000-07:00

We've just successfully sold our car in Sydney's Kings Cross car market, but the week did not pass without incident, which is just as well because the car market is one of the most depressing places to be in Sydney, especially when you know what a beautiful city is lying on your doorstep. The car market is essentially just a level of the Kings Cross multi storey car park, it's dark it's damp and the smell of exhaust fumes is inescapable. Despite this, us and many other sellers will sit there from 9am to 5pm in the hope of flogging their car to someone else.

On Monday, not helped by having eaten very little that day, Jen fainted as we were walking back to the car. I was a few feet ahead of her and heard a clunking sound, then turned to see her sprawled out on the floor infront of a manouvering Toyota van. It's not a particularly nice image, seeing your girlfriend sprawled out like that, and as Jen started to come round we rang for an ambulance. The paramedics came and decided to take her to the hospital. She'd hit her head pretty hard on the concrete, so they were concerned and thought she should get checked out. In the end she was fine, and escaped with only a black eye, a cut lip and a bruised ego, and I had the added bonus of getting to ride through the center of Sydney in the front of an ambulance. She's fine now, and the next day was back at the car park, albeit bashfully.

As we were sitting in front of our car on Tuesday, I noticed some of the sellers at the other end of the car park were waving frantically at a car that was out of view. I figured that the car was in danger of running over or hitting something, but as it swung round the corner the glow of flames started licking up from under the bonnet. I sat rather agog for a few seconds, not really knowing whether to run over to help or to run away - whenever cars catch fire in films they blow up and I didn't really want to take the chance that Hollywood was actually telling the truth about something - but by the time I'd decided to get up from my chair someone had appeared with a fire extinguisher and put out the fire. The whole of the car market was filled with a pungent black smoke, but luckily no-one was hurt. I did feel sorry for the owner of the car, an amiable if slightly lackadaisical Irish bloke, who was returning from a test drive with a potential buyer at the wheel. It's not a particularly strong selling point for a car if it catches fire when you're test driving it, but when I spoke to the Irish guy he just shrugged as if this sort of thing happened all the time.

Yesterday passed without incident, and without customers, but one couple took our car for a test drive and seemed rather pleased. This morning they came back and offered is $1,700 for a car we'd paid $3,100 for. I said we wouldn't take less than $2,000 and they seemed happy with this and we shook hands, pleased that we'd finally sold our car, which particularly pleased me as it means I can now afford to buy new shoes. We made a loss of $1,100 which isn't ideal, but that's only 400 pounds in real money so it could have been alot worse. To be honest, I'd have been happy with the $1,700.

So we've sold and it means we can enjoy our last day and a half in Sydney, for we are flying to New Zealand first thing on Saturday morning, and if you'll excuse me until then, I've got some shoes to buy.

Australian psycho

2007-05-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

My new friend Ed and I clinked our beers together and settled down to watch the FA Cup final. We'd only met that afternoon as he was staying at the same backpackers as us in Torquay, just south of Melbourne. Due to the time difference the game didn't kick off until midnight so we were pretty knackered but agreed to stay up to watch the game. After about 30 minutes one of the other guests came home, visibly drunk, and started violently cooking in the kitchen. From the corner of my eye I could see him pouring far too much oil into the pan causing flames to lick up to the hood over the oven. 'Hey' he shouted over at us.
'Yeah?' Ed replied. Our masterchef was brandishing a kitchen knife and waving it at the television.
'It's all paper you know, doesn't matter what's on TV, it's all paper'. He paused for a second before adding 'Fuck!' and slamming the kitchen knife into the counter. Ed and I had a quick private conversation and decided that this guy, in all probability, was a bit mental. His amateur pyrotechnics in the kitchen continued for some time, eventually setting off the fire alarm, which he artfully disabled by disappearing round a corner and making alot of banging noises. We were trying to ignore him, hoping that he would eventually tire and go to bed, but he just stayed, rattling around the kitchen occasionally swearing at various cutlery. ('Spoon! Fuck!').
Shortly after Man United made one of the more interesting plays in the first half, a kitchen knife came flying across the room like a dart, clattering off the blinds about eight feet from where we sat. To say we were mildly perturbed would be to indulge in gross understatement. Ed leaned over, as if about to impart a life-long secret, and whispered 'That's not right you know'. I nodded solemly and whispered back.
'Yeah. Rooney was never offside'.
'No' whispered Ed. 'The knife thing'.
'Oh, yeah, I agree'.
By this point our friend had disappeared out the front door, and Ed and I were able to converse at a normal speaking volume.
'Do you reckon we should call the cops?' Ed asked, nervously casting a glance over his shoulder at the open front door.
'I don't know, we probably should. Got a phone?'
Ed handed me his phone, an older style Nokia, and I punched in three zeroes, the number for emergency services. The phone rang a few times before an operator picked up. 'Hello, do you require police, fire or ambulance?'
'Police' I whispered, for Masterchef had made his way back into the kitchen and was casting appreciative glances towards the knife block. I didn't want him to know I was on the phone to anyone, let alone the cops. After being connected to the Victoria state police, it took what felt like an hour and a half telling the man on the end (whom I pictured as being an obese middle aged man in a uniform too tight with his stomach squeezed under the desk) where exactly it was we were.
'It's 51-53 Surf Coast Highway, Torquay' I said, as calmly as I could. I knew the exact address because I'd read it in the Lonely Planet a few hours before.
'That's Bells Coast Highway?' The man on the end said.
'No, SURF Coast Highway' I whispered.
'Okay'. I heard him type something. 'Is that in Bells Beach?'
'No, it's in Torquay. Surf Coast Highway, Torquay'. This went back and forward a few times including a few seconds when the phone went silent (at this point I pictured the man dipping his doughnut in his coffee) but eventually he arrived at the right address. I explained the problem and I heard more typing, then a few more seconds of silence before I was asked to repeat everything I'd just said. I could have exploded. Eventually he got all the details right, and the cops turned up a few minutes after our crazy friend had ran across to the petrol station over the road. By this point, almost every other guest had arrived downstairs, and we surveyed the carnage. The glass panel of the door had been shattered with a chair leg, and when we went to inspect his dorm room, we found that had been trashed too. The police eventually came back around 2am to tell us that they'd picked him up and incarcerated him for the night, and we all went back to what we'd been doing. Ed and I watched the end of what was an incredibly dreary football match, and I spared a thought for our friend sobering up in his cell. I don't know what's worse, waking up knowing you've tried to trash a backpackers hostel, or knowing you've ended all hope you may have previously harboured of appearing on Jamie's Kitchen.

Sleepless nights

2007-05-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

I was quite proud the other day when I realised that not once since we got to Australia have we booked our accommodation in advance. Our tactic, which for the most part has served us well, is just to turn up somewhere and hope that they've got somewhere for us to sleep. If they don't, we move on to the next place until we find somewhere. Like I said, it's served us well for the most part, but it hasn't always...

For most of our jaunt up the east coast, we camped. It's cheap, it's cheerful, the weather was almost always agreeable and we got a load of camping stuff free with the car. So it was the best way to do things. There's alot of free camping areas in Australia, but when we were staying on the Gold Coast and visiting the theme parks, there were no free or even remotely cheap camping sites nearby as it's a big tourist area. So we went for the 'side of the road' option, which is pretty self explanatory. One night we found a particularly lovely spot overlooking a valley near a place called Mt. Tambourine, and I was beginning to warm to the idea of doing what the police don't like you doing. The next night, however, we couldn't find a particularly nice place and so ended up camping next to a reasonably busy artery running into the south of Brisbane, which was made worse by the fact that I'd managed to misplace the stopper for our air bed that morning, back at Mt. Tambourine. This was followed by a frown on Jen's face and an uncomfortable nights sleep.

The next evening just before sunset we drove all the way back up to Mt. Tambourine (it wasn't actually that far) so we could scrabble around in the dirt by the road looking for the stopper. By some small miracle I found it, and was calmly but sincerely instructed not to touch the mattress again.

Two or three nights later we as Jen and I lay giggling in the tent after polishing off several bottles of beer, I began to get ready for bed. As I undid my belt, I leant backwards all of an inch, when I heard a sound that sounded remarkably like how an air mattress would sound if it was pierced by something metal and sturdy. I looked down to see the poky bit of my belt completely embedded in the mattress. Luckily I had plied Jen with enough alcohol, so she merely repeated 'Oh my god!' before rolling about laughing.

I'm not sure how we managed it exactly, but somehow we found the puncture repair kit and successfully patched the mattress up. It was another small miracle, and I was calmly but sincerely instructed to undress at least three feet from the tent from then on.

Last week sometime, after leaving Adelaide en route to the Barossa, we stopped overnight at a place called Cudlee Creek, as there was a small wildlife park Claire wanted to visit. After over a week of sleeping in beds, the reaction to camping again wasn't what you'd call enthusiastic, but hey, it's not that bad. This 'get on with it' spirit soon waned after I discovered that I'd misplaced our sleeping bag - the bedding Jen had loving and expertly created in the Blue Mountains by stitching together a K-Mart duvet and a sheet borrowed from a hostel. I unpacked almost the entire car before I admitted that I had in all probability forgotton to pack it that morning. We ended up spending the night in the car shivering under layers of clothing and a thin blanket, and thought things couldn't get any worse until we realised we'd ran the car battery flat by leaving the lights on for too long. How I haven't been dropped from the expedition completely by now I'll never know.

Bearing all this in mind, the night before last I had the most uncomfortable nights sleep I've possibly ever had, in the wonderful (ie. it's a wonder the place hasn't been condemned) confines of Melbourne's 'All Nations' backpackers. We opened the door of our dorm to be greeted with a stench all too familiar to anyone who has lived with Jeff Davies and his atomic socks. The rooms are small and cramped, the paint is peeling off, a solitary, unshaded bulb hangs from a high ceiling like a snot ready to drop, and the mattress felt like it was filled with electrical cables and forks (all pointing upwards), and nothing else. Every time I manouvered my body into a position that was marginally comfortable, another fork decided that my ribcage was a fine resting place, or that my buttocks could use some night time prodding.

Needless to say we complained the next morning and to the credit of the All Nations, we were instantly moved into a room that wouldn't look out of place in a horror movie. It's not like us to complain but it was pretty bad - even for someone who has lived with Jeff's atomic socks.

Into the outback

2007-05-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

We left Townsville in high spirits (as you would be too if you were leaving Townsville) and hit the road to begin our adventure last Thursday. It doesn't take long for everything to thin out, and although the first town on the road west, Charters Towers, was only 100 miles or so inland, it was becoming very apparent that you were in the middle of nowhere. We stopped for breakfast at a place aptly called Jen's Cafe, where I was denied a mouthwatering plate of beans on toast because they had run out of beans. I was half ready to dig a tin out of the boot of the car, but had toast and jam instead. I mean, what sort of cafe runs out of beans?! It's like running out of salt or something. We drove solidly for several hours, stopping only to refuel, for the outback is hot. There's two things you can say about the outback, it's hot and it is big. We arrived at a dusty looking village called Julia Creek at sunset and set up camp. It's not very wise to drive late in the afternoon in the outback, dusk is when kangaroos often come leaping on to the road making a mess of most cars unlucky enough to collide with them. Couple that with the sun's determination to block your view of the road by plonking itself annoyingly infront of you means that it's wise to get off the road before the sun sets.

On our second day we stopped at Mt. Isa, a mining town that claims you're not a real Australian until you get there. If being a real Australian means you swear at young British backpackers in a car park, or stare at them intently while they try to do some shopping, then they've definately achieved it. But I don't think that's what they're aiming for. It's an inert town in the middle of nowhere, and despite a visit to an old underground hospital which was bizarre and interesting, I won't be too quick to recommend Mt. Isa as anything other than a place for filling up the car and using the bathrooms.

So we continued on, and endless void surrounding the car in every directions. I've never seen so much of nothing. The stretch of road after Camooweal and just after crossing the Queensland-Northern Territory border is the emptiest stretch of road I have ever seen in my life. A giant sun beats down on an unforgiving blank of a desert - it's no wonder so many of the early explorers came a cropper here.

We spent the night in Tennant Creek, having driven 900 kilometers that day, and in the morning set off for Alice Springs. Perhaps we didn't see 'the Alice' in its best light, but I was not particularly impressed. It's a compact city, and appears almost as an oasis in the desert, but it looks just like everywhere else. You can eat in McDonalds or KFC, shop at K-Mart, and considering it's in a unique location, they could have made it look a bit nicer. Aboriginal people shuffle about the streets like zombies, shouting into the night giving the city center a threatening feel, and there's not much to occupy your time on a Saturday evening or Sunday morning. Still, we were happy to have made it that far. We'd driven 2000 kilometers in two and a half days, and we were proud of our achievement. Even better, we were going to see Ayers Rock the next day.

I'm not going to tell you all about Ayers Rock (or Uluru, to give it its traditional, more respectful title) because I'm running out of time, but I can tell you it was fabulous. It's one of those things you can't stop staring at, even after spending two days there. We hit the road again yesterday and pointed the car towards our final outback destination, the opal mining town of Coober Pedy.

And it is here in Coober Pedy that I write this, the big attraction here is the fact that most of the buildings are actually underground, the heat is so punishing in summer (over 50 degrees C) and the cold so unforgiving in winter (below freezing at night) that living underground gives the only respite. I'm underground right now. It's very weird.

Take zac!

2007-04-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

Today is ANZAC Day here in Australia, it's a bit like Rememberance Sunday back home except that here it's a proper holiday, everywhere is closed and the streets are dead. Luckily though we're back in Townsville, so there's pretty much no difference.

Boring name, boring town

2007-04-19T10:45:00.000-07:00

So, Townsville. What a strange little place. Our Lonely Planet said the city has a population of 150,000, but I'll be damned if I knew where they were. The place was deserted. We parked on the edge of town and walked in, the only person we passed was a tramp throwing up in a doorway of an abandoned shopfront, proceeding to walk past us with bits of vomit dangling from his beard. He looked a little like Santa Claus would if the toy business dried up, and he was wearing a t-shirt that said 'Welcome To Townsville'. He wasn't really, I made that bit up, but he might as well have been. We reached the river that runs through the city and I parted from the girls because I wanted to check out the maritime museum. I strode in the baking sun for about 600 meters past lovely little restaurants with tables outside. Palm trees lined the street and there wasn't a soul to be seen. It reminded me a little of Barcelona and the nocturnal inhabitants there, but it was about 10am and I expected it to be busier. The museum itself was nice enough. It also incorporates a model building club so many of the displays were built by amateurs, and they looked it. Still, I applauded the effort and spent a happy hour there before heading into town to meet up with the girls. When I found them they told me the only people they'd seen had been vagrants. Every bench on the main street had one, apparently. The only one I'd seen had been Santa, so I shrugged and we pressed on. We went to the Museum of Tropical Queensland which was pretty good, I have to say. Large, air-conditioned, informative, clean, and above all devoid of other people. The gift shop staff outnumbered the patrons two to one. We had lunch on a little terrace overlooking the main road and the marina, and all we could here was the sound of silence. There wasn't a car on the roads. It was very eerie, to say the least.

After the museum we headed back up town and did a little shopping. I was looking for a new t-shirt but the only ones I could find had those inane slogans on them, things like a picture of a cockerel and the words 'My Cock'll Do'. You see them in souvenir shops everywhere and they always have big stacks of them, presumably because only an idiot would wear them. Hot, tired and bored, we headed for the cinema. We saw Disturbia which is dumb but fun. Go and see it and count the number of times you can see the boom mic. It's really quite astonishing, particularly at the beginning of the film. It's based on Hitchcock's Rear Window, which I hadn't seen, so to me it was just based on the episode of The Simpsons where Bart breaks his leg. Still, it was a pretty enjoyable film. Afterwards the girls went to see the new Mr. Bean movie, which I couldn't face without a few beers first, so I passed. I found an internet place that was still open and got chatting to a guy there about Townsville in general. I asked him about the vagrants and he shrugged and said that it was just one of those things. I shouldn't have bothered asking him though, he was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a cockerel and the words 'My Cock'll Do'.

My need for beer was becoming stronger so I went to the Great Northern Hotel where I noticed that my bottles of beer commemorated Australia Day 2007, something I hadn't seen on beer bottles since arriving here. That's because Australia Day was in January. Clearly, this wasn't the busiest of places. After about twenty minutes the bar staff outnumbered the customers two to one - there were two of them and one of me - and this was at 8pm! I asked the barman why it was so quiet and he shrugged and said "Just a Wednesday thing I guess. Should be good on Friday if you're going to be around, we've got a guy coming down who does some songs. Gets pretty packed. You should check it out if you're in town".
I feigned disappointment. "Och, we're heading north tomorrow" I said, and he looked pretty disappointed.

We spent the night back at the truck stop and headed back into town this morning to do some little jobs, and it's alot busier today. Must be a Wednesday thing after all. It's a nice place, vomiting vagrants aside, there's plenty to do and see but after a day it could get kind of boring. Oh, and better t-shirt shops wouldn't go amiss.

Rockhampton rocks

2007-04-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

We cruised out of Bundaberg in high spirits - we had clean clothes and plenty more space in the car - things no longer fell out of the boot when you opened it. We knew we weren't going to make it all the way to Airlie Beach (it was about 500 miles away - like driving from London to Fife) but there were a couple of free camp areas about half way that looked a safe bet.

When we got back out on to the Bruce Highway, we drove through several hundred kilometers of more or less nothing. The scenery was nice but I have rarely seen such a long stretch of road with no diversions. No towns, no service stations, no giant billboards - nothing. And we were still on the coast! Goodness knows what the outback will be like. By the time we reached Rockhampton, a large town that straddles the Tropic of Capricorn, we were pretty hungry. Rockhampton is famous for its cows and its beef, so I suggested to the girls we get some steaks. Their eyes lit up. We filled up the car at a BP garage and I asked the attendant for directions to the Criterion Hotel, which our Lonely Planet had described as being a good place to eat. He was friendly and helpful, but made it sound like not following his directions precisely would end in disaster.
"You go down to the river and turn right, then drive to the first bridge". At this point he leaned in as if to emphasize his next instruction. "But don't you go under that bridge, you hear? Don't you go under it or you'll pass the hotel". I began to wonder if there was another, more sinister reason he didn't want me to go under the bridge, after all I didn't think my dinner plans meant that much to him. But I thanked him, paid for the petrol and we set off to find the hotel. (Incidentally, petrol here works out at about 49 pence a litre.)

The guidebook was right - the hotel was excellent. Rockhampton itself looked very nice, lots of wide streets and old fashioned buildings, the town center was unspoilt - faded buildings with chipped paint - but it was very nice. The hotel itself was grand and welcoming and the steaks were juicy and very filling. I had also intended to see just what lay on the other side of the bridge, but I forgot. We got back into the car and drove for another hour until we came across our campsite, a large patch of grass at the back of a hotel in a tiny village called Marlborough, about a mile off the highway.

The sun woke us early the next day and we emerged from our ovens to begin another day on the road. The stretch of road from Marlborough to the next large town, Mackay, was largely desolate, but did provide a few diversions - my favourite being a freight train pulling 87 trucks (I counted). It would be inaccurate to say that the wildlife here was more abundant, because wildlife is everywhere in Australia. Even when standing in your own bathroom it's very easy to imagine David Attenborough finding plenty of exciting things to whisper about. The wildlife in this part of Australia is just a bit more obvious, especially from a moving vehicle. We had to dodge kangaroos, tortoises and frogs, all of which seemed to prefer the baking tarmac to the long grasses from which they had emerged to meet their flattened fate. While negotiating our way through a large creep of tortoises - and I bet you didn't know 'creep' was the collective noun for tortoises - Jen was very close to pulling the car over and attempting to rescue them.

We rolled into Mackay for lunch and made our way to the nearest shopping center. It's not that we particularly wanted to spend an afternoon in a large shopping center on the last Saturday of the Easter holidays - I'd sooner have gone to an opera - but that shopping center foodcourts are among the cheapest places for budget conscious travellers such as ourselves to eat. After this refuelling stop we hit the road again before arriving in Airlie Beach in the middle of the afternoon.

Airlie Beach is a bit like a miniature version of Byron Bay, only minus the beaches and the hippies. It's small, and the high street is jam packed with backpackers hostels and tour operators - the popular Whitsunday Islands are just off the coast. There also seems to be a larger portion of 'trendier' holiday-makers here. English people in their early twenties who look like they usually spend their summers in Ibiza or Tenerife. Unfortunately, when we arrived, there wasn't a single bed to be found in the hostels, and the campsites were way out of town. Eventually we had a mini-meeting and decided to treat ourselves to three nights in a motel - and a very well appointed one at that. After a month of camping it's wonderful having a fridge, a television, air conditioning and a shower that isn't coin operated. We've spent the last two days relaxing in our room watching movies and trash TV and eating junk food. It's been great. It'll be difficult camping again after this but I'm sure we'll survive. Tomorrow we'll begin our trek towards Cairns which is more or less as far north as you can go on the east coast, before coming back down to Townsville and heading into the outback. Cairns looks interesting, but I'll let you know about it when I get there.

Sun, sand, sea, and a pain in the ass

2007-04-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

Our three day 'holiday within a holiday' to Fraser Island finished yesterday, and I don't want to overstate it, but it is one of the most singularly beautiful places I've ever seen. It's the world's largest sand island, measuring about 120 kilometers from end to end, and about 1600 square kilometers by area. To put it in perspective, this is an island larger than Fife (1300 sq km) and it's made entirely of sand.

Our tour was booked through our hostel on the mainland, and it was a self drive tour where essentially we were camping and exploring the island with six strangers. There was no tour guide but we were given an outline of an itinerary that would enable us to see the best bits of the island. Fraser Island has no tarmac roads, so access is only accessible by four-wheel drive. The jeep that we hired (a Toyota Rustbucket, or similar) looked and sounded as if it was held together by rust and sand, but it held out for all three days, much to our surprise.

Usually in these 'forced group' situations there is a worry that you won't gel with your new travelling companions, but luckily everyone was friendly, aside from an English doctor called Carla. She was with her friend, also a doctor, called Amelia who was chatty and friendly but Carla was a thouroughly joyless character. She seemed to be more concerned with how long we spent at each place than actually enjoying herself, and didn't seem overly enamoured by camping on an island with a group of strangers.

Our first stop was at the campsite to pitch our tents and grab a spot of lunch before heading to Lake Birrabeen, one of the islands 200 plus lakes. The lakes are special because they are freshwater lakes, created by rainwater gathering on an impermeable layer of sand and leaves. When we emerged from the woods to the lakeside we were greeted by a picture postcard landscape. A clear blue lake surrounded by trees and pure white sand - it was gorgeous. We spent ages floundering around in the water until it was time to visit Lake McKenzie, which was no less beautiful but it started to rain so we didn't hang around there for too long. That night there was no cessation of the downpour so we were forced to eat our tea in the van in close to pitch darkness. Jen, Claire and I, and a few of the others were fine with this but I think it was too much for some and there were several grumpy faces in the morning. Luckily on our second day we were treated to a blazing sun and a cloudless sky as we jumped in the jeep and headed along the Eastern beach of the island. We stopped off first at Indian Head, a large volcanic rock formation a few hundred feet high which is normally a perfect vantage point for seeing whales and sharks, but we were informed that it was too windy for the creatures to venture towards the shore. On our way back down we stopped at the wreck of the S.S. Maheno, a former passenger ship that was beached there in 1935, as a storm stopped it from becoming scrap metal in Japan. Three stories of it are completely buried under sand, but it's still an amazing site, huge hunks of rotting metal poking out from the sand make for some interesting photographs if nothing else. I was also pleasantly surprised that the Maheno and I shared a country of birth - she was built in Glasgow in 1905. That night the rain stayed away and Jen treated us all to spaghetti bolognese, and the dampened spirits of the previous night were completely lifted.

On our last day we only had time to visit Lake Wabby, a smaller, grubbier looking lake notable for the fact that it is surrounded on three sides by rainforest, and on one side by a massive sand dune, which is encroaching on the lake at a rate of about three meters a year. We spent an hour or so in this unique location before heading back down the beach and to the mainland, our Fraser Island adventure over. Last night we drove a few hundred kilometers north to the town of Bundaberg, and I was amazed to learn that after two and a bit hours in the car, we were still only parallel with Fraser Islands' northern tip. Like I said, it's pretty big.

Anyway, I must go - I'm almost out of time and we've got a long drive ahead of us today. Our next stop is a place called Airlie Beach, which ironically is one of the few places that doesn't have a beach. I just know that Fraser Island will take a long time to leave me. I don't mean that in a metaphorical way - I mean it in a literal sense. There's sand everywhere, in my hair, in my bed and in my clothes. Hopefully the confusingly-named Airlie Beach will provide some respite!

Coffs Harbour

2007-04-09T14:42:00.000-07:00

After we left Port Macquarie on the 23rd, we pulled into a little town called Coffs Harbour which was only notable for two things. Firstly, it is home to the Big Banana, one of Australia's many 'big things', and secondly, our campsite not only contained a miniature Dutch village, but also a fully operative clog makers workshop. I tried to find out exactly why this little corner of the Netherlands was here, but nobody that worked at the caravan park seemed to know why.

Two days later we ended up in Byron Bay, which essentially looks like every other coastal town in New South Wales but it is a mecca for the 'alternative' traveller. Hippies on every bench and VW campers round every corner, it has a fabulous laid-back feel with everything you need. We liked it so much we were actually there for eight days. We stayed at a backpackers lodge called the Arts Factory, and pitched our tents in their jungle hideaway. It was a bit like being at a festival with the tents crammed together, and just incase we'd forgotton what a festival was really like it poured with rain for the first half of our stay. So Byron Bay was where Jen celebrated her 22nd birthday and where we took to the skies and spent a day hang-gliding. It was a fantastic week and there's plenty more stories to share, but they can wait for another day.

We rolled out of Byron and ended up across the border in Queensland - Australia only has six states so crossing into a new one is quite an event - and headed for Brisbane. None of us had anything we wanted to do in Brisbane so we headed for North Stradbroke Island, the Island my friend Cat Emberton lived on during her first stint out here. We only stayed one night, it was quite pricy to take the car across on the ferry, and besides we had three days of Gold Coast theme parks to look forward to. I was however quite surprised when I tried to find the cafe Cat worked at, I asked a girl in a backpackers where it was.
"Why, do you know someone there?" She asked.
"My friend used to work there, I just wanted to have a look" I replied.
"Was she Scottish?"
"Yeah..."
"Cat?" Small island, I thought.

The first theme park we went to was 'White Water World' and although it was small, the rides were excellent. Its parent park, Dreamworld was our next stop and was slightly disappointing, but by the time we made it to Warner Bros. Movie World, we'd all but forgotton Dreamworld and it's rather unimaginatively named rides. ("The Big Drop", "The Log Ride", "The Rapids" etc.) Movie World was fantastic. It's got one of the best roller coasters I've ever been on (Superman Escape) and had very convincing actors walking around dressed as all my favourite superheroes. It was a great day out and fun pretending I was twelve years old again.

The next day we drove a bit further north and visited Australia Zoo, famous for being the one owned and operated by the late, great Crocodile Hunter himself, Steve Irwin. We were slightly underwhelmed by it, we'd probably hyped it up too much in our heads but having said that it's still the best zoo I've ever been to, you can practically feel Stevo's presence everywhere you go.

Tired and hungry, we pulled into a truck stop and snuck into the truckie's showers - after four nights of sleeping by the roadside we were starting to smell a bit - and then rolled into Rainbow Beach, a small and rather unimpressive if friendly community, and it is here that I'm writing all this. We are only here because tomorrow we're going on a tour of Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. It's about 123 kilometers long, or about 75 miles, which is quite hard to imagine. I only hope the weather clears up, we've been here for two days and seen nothing but torrential rain.

Supersuckers

2007-03-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago we pulled into a nondescript little hamlet called Ellenborough, for the simple reason that there was a free camping ground there, and after staying in a nice holiday park for a few days in a relative lap of luxury we'd decided to save a few bucks and camp for free. By the time we found our campground it was around 8.30pm, long after the sun had gone down (it might be hot, but it's still autumn) and we pitched our tents in the glare of the car headlights so as to see what we were doing. When we woke up, we were surrounded by trees, beautiful hills and a gorgeous, clear river a few hundred yards away. We headed to the river almost immediately to have a bathe and a paddle, and generally clean ourselves up. The part where we swam was deep and calm, but it led straight to a shallow stretch where the river flowed much faster over some harmless looking rocks. Before too long, we were skidding down these rapids on our bottoms, which wasn't as painful as it sounds. Jen and Claire, weighing less than I, sped down to the bottom of the rapids, about 300 meters away. I meanwhile had become snagged on a large rock and was scared to move further incase I ruptured something I didn't want to be rupturing. I was busy holding on to my flip-flops with one hand and trying to free myself with the other, when I looked down stream and saw the girls shrieking, and with panicked expressions on their faces, running out of the water onto a little gravelly bank.

Now, put yourself in my position. Here you are, stuck to a rock in a river which seemed to be flowing faster by the second, trying desperately not to lose the flip-flops you'd bought only the day before, and you see your two companions screaming and flapping about, trying to get out of the water. Never mind that you are in a country where bites from simple creatures like spiders can kill you instantly, or where rivers and lakes are known to house no end of dangerous creatures. Never mind that your panicking companions have trekked through the Amazon, spent several months in Africa and would know danger if they saw it. Never mind that you can't go down stream because that is where the danger is, and never mind that going upstream, against the flow of the rapids could possibly take the best part of an afternoon. I turned myself round and hauled myself up the rapids, emerging only a few feet away on the bank covered in lichens, moss and a few scrapes but otherwise unharmed.
"What was all that screaming about?" I asked Jen when she came back upstream, trying not to let on that I had just spent twenty minutes trying not to soil myself.
"Leeches" she replied. "Hundreds of them, all over us!". And they were right. Upon inspection, I had a few dozen small black worms clinging to my legs and arms. But they were tiny and probably harmless, although if left undetected they will continue to suck on you until they are about the size of your finger. We headed back to the tents to dry off and calm down, and I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying something like "Leeches? That sucks..."

So we spent three happy, leech-free days in Port Macquarie, a pleasant sun-bleached town on the coast. It's rich in history, being the third penal colony in Australia after Sydney and Newcastle, and I happily explored the historic sites, including a quaint but informative little museum. We had a lovely sunset cruise up the river last night, and packed our bags today for another short jaunt up the coast. We also had the pleasure of sharing the camp ground with an amazing couple called John and Sandy, who travel around the country in a big old converted school bus, living off John's army pension. These guys are worthy of an entry all to themselves, but I'll just say that on our first evening we arrived back to find they'd cooked us dinner, and we stayed up for hours eating, drinking and sharing stories until the rain came on and we all went to bed.

So right now I'm sitting in Port Macquarie's library typing all this up, while Jen and Claire visit a Koala hospital nearby. They're coming back to pick me up for the drive up to Coffs Harbour, a few hours north of here. And hopefully, that's the last we've seen of the leeches.

Surfs up

2007-03-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

There are two reasons I haven't spent much time on beaches in my life. Firstly, I grew up in Scotland, and secondly, I look like I grew up in Scotland. So when we ended up on Sydney's famous Bondi Beach last week and Jen suggested we spend the day there, I was naturally concerned. It's not that I care about my appearance, I was more concerned that the glare from my lily-white back and chest might blind the pilots coming into land at the nearby airport. But I relented and decided to dig out the swimshorts. More problems arose when I discovered, much to my horror, that I couldn't squeeze myself into them anymore. It's only been a year since I wore them, but my stomach was putting up a hell of a fight and wouldn't let me get them on. So a quick trip to a beachwear shop was necessary, and once I was fully kitted out we hit the beach.

I don't know what it is about sand that is appealing to millions of people, I'd much rather the Pacific Ocean lapped up along a bank of nicely cut grass, but that's just me I guess. I knew that just by setting foot on the sand I was guarenteeing that for the next five or six weeks I'd be finding it everywhere. How does it do that? It was in my hair, my wallet, my camera, and most remarkably my shoes. Remarkable because I'd left them in the hotel across the road.

But we spent a good hour floundering around on Bondi Beach, not, it has to be said, one of Sydney's better beaches - it's quite crowded and very touristy, but I did start to enjoy myself after a while. When we bought our car it came with a free bodyboard - the main selling point for Jen - so we had fun trying to stay on that for longer than forty seconds.

We'd ended up back in Sydney after three days in the Blue Mountains - not, as I mentioned before, particularly blue or even technically mountains - but they were well worth the visit. The weather did a typically British thing when we got there - it changed without warning. But the skies cleared on our last day and we had a good few hours sightseeing before heading back to Sydney.

When we left last Friday, we intended on popping into Port Stephens on our way up the coast, as was recommended to us by a guest at the wedding we'd been invited to (it was in the most stunning of settings, right by the Opera House, but more about that another time) but we've enjoyed it here so much that we're still here. We've been in Australia for twenty days now and only made it a few hours north of Sydney. Still, I'm having fun despite the sunburnt legs I gained after a day of kayaking, and am currently quite content. Although that could be to do with the fact that I'm sitting in a lovely air-conditioned library, and the beach is miles away...

Some hot air

2007-03-03T15:10:00.000-08:00

"We'd like to welcome you to Sydney where the local time is 7.45am and the temperature is a comfortable 23 degrees celsius"

Clearly the Captain of Virgin Atlantic flight VS200 didn't grow up in Scotland. Twenty-three degrees?! Comfortable?! At 7.45am?! Comfortable where I come from is seven degrees and a nice sweater. I'm exhausted, my fingers have swollen up due to the heat, and I'm sweating from pores I didn't even know I had.

By now you might have gathered that I arrived safely in Sydney, and that due to the heat and jet-lag, I am slightly irratable. Like I said, I arrived around 8am and made my way from the airport to my hostel, which was relatively simple. I knew I was going to like Australia when the tube train pulled into the station - it was a double decker. Air-conditioned, loads of room, and above all, a smooth and definately not cramped journey. Having suffered the London Underground for the last nine months, it was a welcome break.

I huffed and puffed my way to my hostel, my poor shoulders groaning under the weight of my rucksack. It's only about a fifteen minute walk from the station, but the heat made it feel alot longer. My first port of call upon arrival was the showers - after a twenty hour flight I was not smelling particularly rosy - but I soon realised I didn't actually pack a towel. I improvised however and used my yellow jumper. I've used it as a towel before so I was confident in its ability to perform the task I needed it to.

Once I was showered and adequately dried, I decided it was time to begin exploring Sydney. I left the hostel and headed in the general direction of the harbour and in particular, the Opera House. The walk took about half an hour and I passed through the Botanical Gardens on my way which are lovely, although I did get a slight hay-fevery twinge after I'd looked at one flowerbed too many. The path meandered through the gardens for a while until I was suddenly face-to-face with Sydney Opera House. My immediate thought was that it's a different colour than you think it is, but I quickly realised I still had my sunglasses on. Still, it's pretty impressive. My enjoyment was enhanced further as I heard a familiar sound in the distance - a marching pipe band had started up about two hundred yards away and launched into a rendition of 'Scotland The Brave'. It was as if they knew I was there.

After about half an hour ogling the Opera House I headed towards the Harbour Bridge, via the city quay along 'Writers Walk'. Writers Walk is basically an Australian version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the differences being that only writers are featured (the clue was in the name) and instead of stars, they get manhole covers. Each contains a quote from the writer relating to Australia and a mini biography. It's a really good idea that more cities should maybe copy.

As I got closer to the bridge, I walked through what I thought was just a randomly well dressed crowd of people, but very quickly realised I had in fact walked right into a wedding, just across the quay from the Opera House. It was a fantastic backdrop, and if I ever thought that getting married and doing so in a romantic location were important, then that is the location I would probably choose. Luckily the nupitals were over by the time I swaggered into the ceremony, but it must have made for an amusing sight.

Happy that I'd been to a wedding for only the second time in my life, albeit accidentally, I walked under the bridge and followed the coastline around by all the docks. After about an hour and a half of walking I ended up right back where I started, on the doorstep of my hostel. I kept going however, and headed towards Kings Cross, which is basically the Soho of Sydney. Full of travellers, gay people and sex shops. By this stage I was dying for a pint so I popped into a sports bar for a quick Castlemaine. Feeling refreshed, I continued walking through Kings Cross when I walked past a girl who was clearly staring at me. It was such a lingering look that I thought for a second it might have been someone that I knew, but it soon became apparent that she was trying to lure me into a 'strip club'. I've spent enough time in the center of London to know that the so-called strip clubs are never as they appear. They entice you with a cheap entry fee but once you're inside the drinks can cost anything up to a hundred pounds, and you are forced, usually by a large bouncer or two, to pay up. Luckily I do not have first hand experience of these 'clip joints' as they're known, but I definately know what they're all about.

By the time all this excitement was over I was thouroughly exhausted, so I decided to head back to the hostel and type all this up and check my emails. I'm not really sure what to do tonight but it's the Mardi Gras parade through Sydney so I might go and check that out. It's a massive carnival and half a million people are expected to turn up, so that might be quite interesting.

Incidentally, to promote the Mardi Gras and the fact that it's National Gay Week or something, people have been going around with pink versions of the Aussie flag, which I have to say, actually makes it look better.

It's 33 degrees now. Scary stuff.

Keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times

2007-03-01T02:55:00.000-08:00

I was speaking to my brother James earlier and he suggested I post a blog entry detailing how I'm feeling the night before I leave for my round the world trip. I poured scorn on the suggestion at the time but decided it might be a good idea, so this is what I'm attempting to do.

I've been on many rollercoasters in my life and I feel very similar to how I do as the train reaches the top of the track and curves round before teetering on the brink of the sudden drop. The clack-clack-clack of the chain pulling me up is still ringing in my ears and I'm completely unprepared for what lies ahead. I'm trying to glance at my neighbours but my head is restrained so I can't get any indication of how anyone else feels in this situation. Every second feels like a decade but I know that the whole thing will be over in a flash, so I have to put all the negative thoughts out of my head and not take a single second for granted. I knew what I was in for when I started queuing for the ride but I'm still nervous about the sensation I'm going to get when I finally plunge down that first drop.

But I guess that's natural. I was actually reading the journal entries from my first few weeks in London earlier and I still can't quite believe that I did that. Move to London, I mean. It doesn't really seem like something I would do.

Actually, that leads me on to another thing I've been thinking about lately. A few years back my ex-girlfriend and flatmate, Cat, buggered off to Australia for a while. We kept in touch via the marvel of MSN Messenger and she would frequently have a go at me for not being more spontaneous and always doing the easy thing. Going to the same places, with the same people, with boring regularity. I was quite comfortable with who and where I was back then so I brushed her comments off and decided that that was who I was and that I wasn't going to change.

Fast forward a few years and I'm sitting with Elvis in the managers office at Enfield. He asked what I'd been up to on my day off and I can't remember what it was exactly but I'd gone out somewhere on my own for the day. He laughed and said
"So you're just a 'have wheels, will travel' kind of guy?"

I think living in London certainly changed me ever so slightly in the way that I do tend to enjoy going out and exploring my surroundings more. There was just so much to do there that it was impossible to stay indoors all the time watching DVDs. I'm not saying that I turned into a crazy hyperactive go-getter who can't sit still, I'm just saying that I think there's been a subtle change in my personality. That's all.

Anyway, I suppose I should stop rambling on, I've done what I set out to do I think, which is capture how I'm feeling on the eve of my excellent adventure. I feel okay. A bit wobbly, but okay.

There, will that do?

Au revoir, London

2007-02-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

So that's that. I've just moved out of London, and I'm about to make my way to Kings Cross to catch the train to Scotland. I'm really going to miss this place. Sure, it's overcrowded and sure, the public transport is horrendous and overpriced, but I've loved living here. But there's still plenty of places to see and plenty of things to do, so I doubt London and myself have seen the last of each other. Until then, the next stage of the plan is about to begin...

And that's that.

Days of our lives

2007-02-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

I sat on my knees in my bed wearing nothing but boxer shorts and an unflattering brown vest. The bed was surrounded by a sea of dirty clothes and dirty dishes. I looked at Jen who was sitting opposite me doodling moustaches on pictures in the Daily Record. I took a deep breath and asked a question neither of us really wanted to answer.

"Do you think we should do something tomorrow?"

We were approaching the end of our second day of 'slobbing'. In which we basically sit around in a state of semi-nakedness, watching endless episodes of Family Guy and Friends, watching movies ranging in tone from gripping thrillers such as A History of Violence to alien-related-comedy-sequels-starring-Will-Smith such as Men In Black 2. Featuring empty pizza boxes, and dilemmas such as which alcohol to drink for breakfast. Guest starring bottles of champagne polished off before tea-time, luxurious Belgian chocolate desserts, all celebrating the fact that earlier in the day we had successfully negotiated a tricky expedition to the shop. By 2.30 this afternoon I had already addressed two burning topics worthy of further analysis in text messages to my brother: Why was ex-Celtic footballer and Daily Record columnist Murdo Macleod such a twat, and when did they change the theme tune to Ed?

It was supposed to just be a lazy day, celebrating the fact that I had, albeit temporarily, left my job. A day to be lazy and enjoy each others company. A day to relax and save money by staying in, something we haven't had the chance to do in months. A day to essentially forget the pressures of modern city life, a day to unwind and recharge and enjoy the simple pleasures. But it evolved into something more than that. It evolved in to two whole days of nothing. Two whole days of utter laziness. Two whole days where the only positive impact we've had on the world is ensuring there is less alcohol out there in shops for under-age kids to buy.

"Do you think we should do something tomorrow?"

I repeated the question. You may not know, but Jen is someone who gets restless easily. She is always looking for new adventures and challenges, and can achieve pretty much anything she sets her mind to. She's not held back easily, and has such a zest for life, untamed and flowing freely since her three-month travels through southern Africa. She continued to doodle on the page, perhaps mulling over the many things we both needed to do before setting off on a six-month adventure around the world. Maybe she was prioritising the jobs in her mind, concerned about the fact that with only a week left in London I still haven't got my visa for Australia. Perhaps she was feeling genuinly sad about the fact that she only had six more days left to live in one of the most diverse and vibrant cities in the world. Perhaps she was trying to remember which museums or galleries or parks she hadn't visited yet. She looked up from her newspaper after finishing off a rather convincing double chin on an attractive model to answer my question. Words that surely would inspire me to head for the shower, put on some nice clothes and head out into town for a memorable night out, or start planning properly for our trip. She opened her mouth and replied.

"Would I have to get dressed?"

Just can't wait to be king

2007-02-09T17:13:00.000-08:00

I knew I was going to enjoy The Lion King musical the second I told my boss, Elvis about it. We were chatting the other day when I casually dropped my theatrical intentions into a conversation. The second I mentioned it, Elvis stuck out a giant hand to shake mine repeating the words "Awesome! Awesome!". In that instant, I knew it would be a good show.

And it was, it really was. The story and most of the songs are as the film version, but seeing the performers' characterisation of the animals was incredible. The set was equally as brilliant - definately the most versatile stage I've seen. The colour and lighting was fabulous and the singing was top notch. I highly recommend it.

Out on the town

2007-01-21T14:20:00.000-08:00

On Thursday night Callum, his mate Westie and myself went to a pub quiz in East London. I had to check several times that I was actually in East London as the pub was showing Hibernian vs. Aberdeen on the television, had a quizmaster from Dumfries, and posters advertising Burns' night. I knew I was definately in London however when a slew of derisory comments about the quality of Scottish football started coming from the adjacent table. I was offended and a little bit upset but avoided a confrontation because deep down I knew that they were probably right, and I didn't have a leg to stand on. Despite this distraction, we started the pub quiz well, scoring six out of ten on the 'science' round. (I can't believe I couldn't remember the chemical symbol for Mercury though. How foolish!). All our good work was undone by the TV & Film round, as the TV questions were all related to soaps and reality TV - which none of us watch. We didn't know who is going to be featuring in 'Dancing On Ice' this weekend but our answer of Terry Nutkins, Pat Sharp, Jimmy Saville and Samantha Mumba certainly looked like an appealing line-up. Anyway, as a result of the comedy answers we lost all focus and finished last, but only because the team below us dropped out. I like to think of it as a 'moral victory'.

Last night it was Callums' birthday so the three of us, a guy called Kevin who I knew back home, and three other friends of Callums' went to Jongleurs nightclub in Camden. The comics were all pretty good, but I refused to feel sorry for the guy in the front row who was made fun of, but couldn't take a joke. For example, it transpired he was a painter and decorator and when asked what his company was called he replied "Shite comedian!".
"You won't get much business with that name!" came the reply, followed by "Funnily enough, my business card says 'Wanky painter and decorator!'". It was a good night out, and after a pint in The Worlds End pub and a drawn-out debate on where to go next, I opted for the safety of the last tube home, and got in around 1.30am.

I'm off work today and tomorrow, but as it's the last week before pay day I'm down to my last few quid and can't do alot, but rest assured I'm saving my pennies for the next pub quiz on Thursday - as it's Burns' night there's two rounds on a Scottish theme. I think Callum and I can safely say we have an upper hand there.

War and other distractions

2007-01-15T20:57:00.000-08:00

Last week while I was at London Bridge waiting for Callum, I took a stroll along Tooley Street and happened upon the 'Britain At War' museum. It is housed just underneath London Bridge Station and I've always had a mild fascination with Second World War memorabilia, and I had read alot about the use of Tube stations as air raid shelters in the war so it was with eagerness that I headed there yesterday. I needent have bothered. The whole museum takes about 45 minutes to go through, and apart from some posters, coins, clothes and army equipment from the era it is decidedly lacking. My Lonely Planet 'Best of London' book doesn't even give it a mention, which I should have taken as a sign. The only two things to note from the museum were a story about a man from Kentish Town who travelled to Bond Street every night to sleep in the shelter there because he 'wanted to die at a good address', and a poster urging citizens to save fuel by car sharing which bore the slogan "If you ride alone you are riding with Hitler!" which amused me no end.

Yearning for a decent way to spend my Sunday morning, or early afternoon as it now was, I headed for HMS Belfast, the Second World War battlecruiser which is now permanently moored on the Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge and is open to the public as a floating museum. It is advertised as a 'family day out' and is constantly cited in guide books as being a great place to take children, but it definately appealed to me. (What that says about my own maturity is neither here nor there.)

You are given a very informative audio guide, and while the exterior of the ship is all tarpaulin and scaffolding, it is almost pristine inside with faithful recreations of rooms as they were in the 40's and 50's, when she was in active service. I meandered down the narrow corridors and popped into one of the gun turrets, but the highlight was the second I went below decks, to the boiler and engine rooms. I climbed down a steep ladder and stepped through a few doorways until I was standing on a green walkway no wider than 10 inches surrounded by an incredible latticework of piping. As I dodged the many protrusions from the walls I was faced with the giant fans which were used to suck in air from outside to keep the pressure regulated and, as my voiceover explained, if it was warm air that was being sucked in, it was warm air that filled the already sauna-like boiler room, making conditions close to unbearable. After all, it was a cool January day, the ship is not even in use, and it was pretty warm in there - I can't even begin to imagine what it was like for the sailors who worked there. The complexity of the pipework was the most fascinating aspect of it, pipes of all sizes ran in every conceivable direction, making you wonder if they couldn't have laid it out alot neater. How the maintenance crews knew which pipe did what is beyond me, but they really were everywhere. I was utterly captivated.

As I climbed out of the bowels of the ship I made my way through the crews' washrooms and shower cubicles, and all of a sudden was struck with a longing to have been there, as a sailor during war time. I could see myself standing infront of the mirror brushing my teeth as a sudden jolt signalled that we were being called to action stations. Without a seconds thought, my crewmates and I were headed towards our posts, I was a gunner who had to hightail it all the way to the 'Y' turret at the stern of the ship, charging past fellow sailors up the steep ladders and narrow gangways with my heart pumping as fast as it could. With a raging storm outside visibility on the deck was minimal, and as the sea tried to climb on board all that kept me going was pure instinct. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins as I wondered not if anyone would die today, but how many.

I had gotten so lost in this fantasy that I didn't even realise my phone was ringing. At first the intrusion was incredibly surreal, I don't think the sailors during the war could even have contemplated such technology, but I soon remembered that it was actually 2007, and I was in a museum and my mate Callum was ringing me to see if I fancied some lunch. I had roughly another hour on board during which I took in an informative exhibition about some of the ships greatest moments, and spent ages marvelling at some of the detail, including a poster urging sailors to speak to their commanding officer if they had any worries at all about a range of subjects including mortgages, insurance, coping with grief, stress, and problems with other crewmen. At the bottom it also said (with tongue firmly in cheek), "Your commanding officer cannot help you with the following: How to find her, and family planning." It was an unforgettable day out.

As I was quickly running out of superlatives to describe the experience, I left the ship and went to find Callum. We took a trip to South Kensington to pop into the Science Museum for an hour or so, and Callum wanted to see the MI6 building at Vauxhall, so I took him there. From Vauxhall we walked east along the river and ended up at the Tattershall Castle, a paddle steamer which is now a floating pub, moored on the Victoria Embankment opposite the London Eye. Jen and I have spent several evenings there but I hadn't been in a while and luckily the weather was mild enough for us to enjoy a pint on the deck before we headed below for three or four more. As we were both working today we didn't stay out particularly late, but I was rather tipsy when we left and longed for my own bed after a long day at sea. What shall we do with a drunken sailor, eh?

Boobs and more boobs

2007-01-12T17:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday as I was shaving and brushing my teeth, I noticed something rather startling. Either someone had placed two very small mounds of jelly on my chest, or I was developing breasts. Unfortunately, it was the latter. I now have two wobbly bits of flab where my chest used to be. All my life I have been blessed with the fact that I have a very speedy metabolism, and have never really needed to watch my weight or my diet. But now it seems to be catching up with me. I have been drinking more beer than I ever have before, and my diet of late has been shambolic. (This is - I believe - a result of my girlfriend being far away and not telling me off when I have another dinner that not only comes in a box, but is delivered by a heavily padded man on a moped). I decided there and then to do something about it, but I'll touch upon that later on.

I had one of those mornings yesterday where I didn't really know what to do with myself. Rain was lashing against my window and I didn't really feel like going out, so I curled up in bed and waited for the storm to pass. When it did, I headed out and ended up at Waterloo station. Feeling nostalgic (Jen used to live round the corner) I decided to have a stroll around the area. The wind was still pretty strong at this point so my walk was not a long one, but just as I was heading back towards the tube, a rather excitable young woman jumped out in front of me brandishing a clipboard. Now, normally when I see charity workers in the street I bodyswerve them like a car avoiding roadkill, but I had no way out - she was right in front of me. Luckily she was a really nice girl with the sort of boundless enthusiasm a job like hers definately requires, and she went through her spiel of telling me what her charity does and how it helps people. The charity in question was the British Red Cross, and we built up a bit of a rapport as I took a genuine interest in what she had to say. Her name was Lily and after we chatted for a bit about travelling, I agreed to donate some money on a monthly basis, forgetting that in four weeks time I will no longer have an income. Still, she cheered up what was an otherwise depressing afternoon, and as much as I would have liked to chat to her some more about her job and her own forthcoming travels, I didn't want to hold her up and made my merry way back into the center of town.

Still feeling buoyant and not wanting to go home I rang Callum, who later joined me in town and we ended up at the Comedy Store, one of my favourite places for a night out in London. Before that however, we were chatting away and he amused me with news of his latest online purchase:
"I bought a Star Wars 'Phantom Menace' sticker album the other day, fully completed, for seven pounds off Ebay. And I don't even like Star Wars!"
It was funny because it was completely random, but then I remembered the days of my childhood when my entire weekend was taken up by swapping stickers for my Scottish Premier League sticker album. My friends and I went through hell to complete those, spending every penny of spare change on a packet of stickers from John Menzies trying to find the ever elusive arial picture of Kilmarnock's Rugby Park stadium, or a shiny sticker featuring an action shot of Aberdeen's Duncan Shearer. Every lunch time at school we would be comparing our 'doubles', endlessly repeating the mantra of 'got, got, got, need, got, need, got, got...' until we had filled every space in the album, but not before one of us had cheated and phoned the hotline to order stickers they simply couldn't find. Whether they asked the bill payers permission, incidentally, is anyones guess. But thinking of all the blood, sweat and tears that went into those albums, I found it incredibly hard to believe that anyone could let the fruits of all that labour end up on Ebay for a mere seven pounds. It just seems like a very tragic end to what was most likely a rollercoaster of an adventure.

Later on, after a few pints and plenty of laughs courtesy of some very funny people, I found myself on the 149 bus heading home. Two girls were eating pizza and in that instant I knew that the diet I had been planning would have to wait until the morning. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I have Domino's Pizza on speed-dial, and within twenty minutes of getting in, I was tucking in to a delicious feast. But today I have eaten plenty of fruit and veg, and drunk plenty of water to wash it all down with, and if I continue this and combine it with a few trips to the swimming pool, I should be back in shape in no time, ready to strut my stuff on the beaches of Australia. Actually now that I think about it, it's a diet - not a miracle.

Happy new year

2007-01-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

As I woke yesterday morning and surveyed the wreckage that was my bedroom, the one thing that I couldn't understand was why the clothes I'd been wearing the night before were lying in a soaking heap in the corner. My shoes, also soaked through were perched on top of a radiator that wasn't switched on, and the floor was damp in several places. I didn't remember it raining on my way home, and I'm pretty certain it wasn't raining indoors either. After a quick jaunt to the corner shop for a pick-me-up of Red Bull and a few slightly longer jaunts to the toilet, the haze that was Saturday slowly came back to me. Of course, the biggest worry in these situations is that you've embarassed yourself, or lost something valuable on the way. Luckily, neither of these applied.

The day started rather normally, I took a trip into a rain-soaked London to meet up with Callum, and the plan was to find a pub and watch Tamworth vs. Norwich City in the FA Cup. Callum is a die-hard Norwich fan so he was relishing the prospect of seeing his team thump the non-league opposition. With Callums mate - whose name escapes me now - we happened upon The Sports Cafe near Leicester Square and pulled up our stools. Our first pint was drunk at roughly 12.15pm. After spending a small fortune on the pool tables and watching Norwich coast to a 4-1 victory, Callums mate left us and Callum and I headed to Ben Crouches pub near Oxford Street for some lunch. It was only about 3pm but I was rather tipsy at this stage. Fortunately I was sober enough to do a spot of shopping and head home to get ready for stage two of the day. It was a staff night out, the one back in December was just for the management team but this one was for the whole store, so we made our way to a Country Club in what I believe was Cheshunt, but all these places look familiar when they're damp, dark and alcohol-blurred. It was a good night, but I contiuned the trend started earlier in the day and kept knocking back the pints until about 1am when I decided I'd better go home. After a regrettable phone call to my girlfriend - regrettable in the sense that I'd forgotton it was actually 3am where she was - I made my way to a busy dual carriageway that separated me from my destination: the bus stop. I wasn't entirely sure which direction London was in so I just followed the brightest lights. Unfortunately the only way to get to the bus stop was to go under the road through a subway that to my horror was completely flooded. I was in good spirits at this stage though having just phoned a friend who luckily wasn't sound asleep, and after staring at this watery obstacle for a few moments I decided the best way to negotiate it was to just run through it. It must only be a few inches of water, I thought, and if I was sprightly enough I could get away two damp socks and nothing more. I had to traverse about 20 or 30 feet, and was quietly confident of success. Stepping back a few paces, I inhaled deeply and started my run-up. The first ten or fifteen feet were fine, I skipped through the outsized puddle with the minimum of fuss until I was about two thirds of the way across when I very abruptly sank up to my knees. It was one of those situations where the only thing you can do is laugh to yourself, and swear very loudly. Four-letter words rebounded off the walls and celiling while I dragged myself out of the mire. I found the bus stop and sat soaking wet on an empty night bus until my bedraggled body found its way home. Evidently I got out of my clothes as quickly as possible, dried myself off, and passed out. Still, at least I'd made it in one piece. I was very wet, but I was intact.

My New Year celebrations were less eventful, but just as memorable. I waved goodbye to 2006 and welcomed 2007 with open arms whilst standing on London bridge with two Germans drinking champagne out of a polystyrene cup. I'd met up with my friend Jin in Camden earlier in the evening and she'd brought her mate Olly along and the three of us had a good laugh getting drunk and talking rubbish. It was all very random but it worked out lovely in the end.

So 2007 is now upon us - I hope the trend of alcohol-fuelled adventure continues well into the year, I now only have five weeks of work left and while I can't wait to jet off to Australia and be with Jen again I will be leaving with a heavy heart. I could have done with a few more months in London but it's really difficult without Jen being around so this is the best compromise. Hopefully I'll return one day for another spell as a Londoner but if I don't, at least I'll have plenty of drunken memories about this city and the wonderful people I've met in the last nine months.

Happy New Year folks, have a good one won't you?

The top ten films what I saw in 2006

2006-12-29T19:14:00.000-08:00

10. Good Night And Good Luck.
George Clooney is a man with a long career ahead of him. Beautifully shot in black and white, this tells the story of what life was like for the media in McCarthy-era America. Clooney's biggest achievement was creating a look and feel that is one of the most authentic seen on cinema in a long time, and he also gets top marks for casting himself as the supporting actor, but blending seamlessly into the background so as to balance his actor/director duties. Good Night and Good Luck makes it painfully clear that although we think we are force-fed news and opinions half the time, it could have been a lot worse.

9. Brick
Brick was a surprise hit for me because it made a unique premise work on screen, and showed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt has come a long way from his days as Tommy Solomon in Third Rock From The Sun. It's always nice to see young actors move in to grown up cinema (even if he does play a high school kid in this one). Brick is a 1930's crime movie, deftly transplanted to a modern day high school. Although portions of the plot feel stretched to their limit, the humour is subtle yet hilarious, and the entire cast performs brilliantly.

8. Hard Candy
Any movie that makes grown men in the audience audibly squirm must be doing a pretty good job. Hard Candy is meant to challenge our compassion as human beings - we feel sorry for the man who has his testicles removed but he's a paedophile so should we feel sorry for him? And we hate the teenage girl for being so calculated and cruel and heartless for the torture she is inflicting on the guy but should we because at the beginning she was the victim of this man's depraved urges? Either way, it's a bit of a headfuck, and considering there's only two characters in pretty much the whole film, the script holds your attention and explores both characters without dragging on. Class.

7. London To Brighton
I like watching British films, and I like watching crime films. What I don't like is poorly produced ITV-style dramas, and Guy Ritchie films. Happily, London To Brighton is neither. It is a British crime movie that isn't full of cockney cliches and stereotypical dialogue. Or Vinny Jones. Each flashback in this film unravels a little more of the mystery - there's a prostitute with a black eye and an 11-year old girl on the run, but from whom, and why? - and the finale does not disappoint. Excellently paced, you are itching to find out more as the film goes on and director Paul Andrew Williams could be one to watch in the future.

6. Superman Returns
After watching Christopher Nolan capture lightning in a bottle with Batman Begins, could Bryan Singer do the same with Superman - re-invent a classic superhero after watching his good name destroyed by lacklustre sequels? The answer was a resounding yes. Never mind the special effects, which were extrordinary, and never mind that theme tune, the stars of this film were Brandon Routh who at times you felt was playing Christopher Reeve himself, and director Singer who at the same time managed to compare his hero to Jesus Christ, and poke mild fun at the franchise too. Can the forthcoming Man Of Steel do what other Superman sequels failed to do, and keep the franchise going?

5. Little Miss Sunshine
A frustrated father who constantly spouts so-called "motivational" speeches yet can't get published, a son with an obsession with Nietzche who has taken a vow of silence, a daughter who wants nothing more than to enter a beauty pageant despite the fact that she is something of an ugly duckling, a homosexual uncle with an affinity for Proust, a drug-taking grandfather and a mother trying to hold the entire unit together. Roll up for the weirdest road movie ever. Fabulous performances, especially from Steve Carell who delightfully underplays his role, but ultimately from little Abigail Breslin - one of the best child actors seen on screen in a long time. Top notch film, funny and engaging, and manages to throw in a touch of social commentary too.

4. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
Without a shadow of a doubt, the funniest film of the year, and very possibly one of the funniest ever made. Up there with The Naked Gun in terms of quick-fire gags, Borat never lets up, and never fails to delight and shock either. This is a masterclass in comedy, and the perpetrator, Sacha Baron Cohen, has created a cultural icon with his moustachioed Kazakh. While Naked Gun spoofed American cinema, Borat spoofs America itself only showing real people in real situations, and how they react when their perception of what is normal is invaded by a lewd, racist dinosaur of a man. Consider the following exchange between Borat and a gun shop owner: Borat: "What gun is best for killing a jew?". Shopkeeper: "Well, that'd be a .45". As it deftly carves open an underbelly of below-average intelligence, homophobia and general narrow-mindedness in the US, consider this: Is this the film Michael Moore wishes he made?

3. Casino Royale
James Bond is so well-known, and has had so much exposure this year that there's not alot I can say that hasn't been said, but Casino Royale isn't just a brilliant Bond film, it's a brilliant film. Based on such a simple premise - British spy must beat terrorist at poker - Casino Royale shows a darker, grittier side to a universal icon, and manages to flesh out what was the shortest of the original Bond book, without deviating from the tone of the book. The film is a touch too long perhaps, and I may be old fashioned but the product placement does become slightly irritating after a while, but there's enough thrills and spills here to dismiss those complaints as nitpicking. This is a great action movie, owing much to Jack Bauer and John McClane, but ultimately to Ian Fleming.

2. United 93
Using the actual people who were involved in the event that is the subject of your dramatization might seem like a pretty risky thing to do. These people are not actors, they have had no formal training. You can make a film as realistically as you want, but it will involve some degree of acting skills. Fortunately, Paul Greengrass is such a talented director that he can make it work without professionals in front of the camera. Yet this was not United 93's greatest achievement. To make a film about such an atrocity, a mere five years after the event, when the subject is incredibly touchy anyway, is also a pretty risky thing to do. How would the potential audiences react - many could be too uncomfortable watching such a realistic account of an event they were personally caught up in - as many Americans were. Luckily for Greengrass, everyone involved thought it was an acceptable risk to take, and we were blessed with a classic of modern cinema. Of all the films released this year, United 93 is the one most likely to still be talked about in 2026. An outstanding achievement, and so delicately handled.

1. Children of Men
I think that Children of Men is my favourite film of the year because it is a realistic portrayal of a possible future, it is set in a city that I now know quite well, it is a British film that wasn't made by Guy Ritchie or Richard Curtis, and it is incredibly engaging and enthralling in equal measures. The premise is this: The human race can no longer reproduce, and the governments have all gone a bit crazy as they do what they can to survive. Civil unrest is out of control, and the military are using any means necessary to keep order. All immigrants are being deported, and the seaside town of Bexhill has been turned into a massive concentration camp where the prisoners are hardly given rooms with en-suite bathrooms. Then a pregnant woman is discovered, and she needs to be protected from the authorities by a group of outlaws. Children of Men is original, inspiring, and features some incredible scenes, such as Clive Owen emerging from a bullet strewn building with a new born baby as everyone ceases fire, only for the fighting to start again the second the child is out of harms way. A poignant dystopia, and I can't wait until it comes out on DVD.

My year in words

2006-12-26T23:10:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow my mini-break to Scotland comes to an abrupt end as I head back to the real world. In what will probably be the longest commute ever, I need to travel the 459 miles from Cupar to Enfield as I'm due to be on shift at 1pm. I reckon dedication to ones profession to that extent is rarely seen outside of hospitals, and to traverse such a distance in time involves leaving the house at 7am tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it. I was happily chatting away earlier to friends of my parents, Sue and Ceri, an immensely likeable couple with whom we've been friends with since I was about three years old, and telling them about my longing to quit retail and do something different for a while.

Sue and Ceri are the sort of people that are no longer at the stage where everything is taken seriously - the same as my parents in that respect. The sort of age where you've gotten pretty much all you can from your career, waiting until you can retire into a life of whisky tastings and endless tinkering. The sort of age where if you haven't already got one, it becomes mandatory to own a shed. The sort of age I'm looking forward to being, because it's the closest you'll ever get to being as care-free as a young adult, but with all the wisdom and knowledge of an older one. Ceri is a solicitor as is my Dad, and sold my flat for me last year. They lost their 20 year old daughter only a few months ago, so the end of the year has been difficult for them, but this evening they were on top form, which is more than commendable. You will rarely meet a more genial couple.

It became clear during the conversation that not only is my time as a resident of London (and, albeit temporarily, the UK) coming to an end, but so is an era of my life. I'm not sure the era can be succinctly summarised, but it does definately feel like it, which is the most important thing I suppose. I also came to the conclusion (with Sue and Ceri's help) that the break I am about to embark on, after six and a half years of working in retail, is well deserved.

So that's it then, 2006 was a year where I got a bit of a change of scenery, proved to myself that I can be a manager in a supermarket in a slightly more challenging location than Cupar, and was parted from the love of my life by the lure of travelling. I also made one or two new friends, proving that I'm not a miserly old sod yet, and probably drank more alcohol in six months than I had done in the previous six years combined. Hardly the most notable of achievements I know, but they mean something to me, and it's a year I will always recall fondly.

I read a few journal entries from the summer earlier, and I didn't realise it at the time, but my summer actually had a theme. Alot of people can talk about a year, and say things like "Ahh, that was the year when the gang and I went to Glastonbury" or "that was the summer we spent on beaches in Cornwall learning to surf". When I recall 2006, the summer seems to have been filled with drinking in pubs with Jen and her friends in various Surrey towns and villages. Guildford, Richmond and Kingston, to name but few. So despite the feeling that I didn't do anything this summer, I enjoyed it immensely, and my only regret is that I didn't document it in more detail. Kingston is a lovely place, somewhere I could quite happily settle. I said it at the time, but it really does remind me of Dundee.

So the long, hot summer was punctuated by several bursts of adventure, and when not in pubs Jen and I were in theme parks, so I suppose I should recall that aspect of the summer too. We had a lovely weekend up at Alton Towers, and spent many a day baking in the sun at Thorpe Park.

It is regrettable that my fabulous summer, which lasted from May to September, was bookended by two periods of what was (and is) essentially waiting, the beginning of the year when I was waiting for a job to come up in London, and the end of the year, when I am waiting for February to come so I can pack my bags and be with Jen again. But I can't let that detract from what was really a lovely year overall. All I want now is for things to pick up again. That can't be too much to ask for, can it?

Thoughts about hookers

2006-12-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

I am as concerned (and morbidly curious, I might add) about the spate of serial killings that have taken place in Ipswich, but I can't help but think some of the working girls aren't quite grasping the gravity of the situation. There are alot of girls still working the red light area despite the fact that five bodies have been found in ten days, two of which had been submerged in water. One girl interviewed said "We are sticking in pairs, and I'm carrying a brick in my handbag."

Now, I'm no expert, but if you're faced with the threat of a serial killer who submerges his victims in water, it's probably best not to weigh yourself down.

Good hospitality

2006-12-11T17:30:00.000-08:00

I went to see my Mum in hospital tonight, she's okay, been through alot though so she is completely exhausted, but all things considered she's in good shape. She's in a nice quiet room, there's only four rooms on the ward so it's not busy which is good, and she says the nurses are all fantastic.

It's very weird visiting the hospital, when you walk in the main entrance you arrive in a concourse with shops up either side, it's like a 1980's shopping center, and the only clues that you're in a hospital is that the guy flicking through the latest issue of Model Railway Monthly in WH Smith is in his slippers and dressing gown, dragging a saline drip behind him. Also in this little concourse are a hairdressers, cafe, shoe shop and a travel agent. Yeah, a travel agent. I thought that was weird too. I might be missing the point but isn't that slightly cruel? Surely that's the equivalent of the "Here's what you could have won" moments at the end of game shows. You know the bit where the screen pulls back to reveal a top of the range BMW convertible, and the poor contestant is left standing there with a twenty pound BHS voucher and some cookware. Needless to say, it was closed.

Of course hospitals nowadays wouldn't be hospitals without the huddled group of smokers at the entrance. It always amazes me that you're allowed to do that anywhere near a hospital, but I suppose it would be a "human rights" violation if they banned it. Considering what a killer it is these days though, it's surprising.
"Nurse, where's the smoking section?"
"Oh, it's right outside next to the hit-and-run section, just past the drug dealers and the firing range..."

A joke

2006-12-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

My favourite joke just now is... "I went into PC World the other day... you gotta watch what you say in there!"

Jolly coppers on parade

2006-12-03T17:29:00.000-08:00

Here's a quote I overheard when I was watching fire engines the other day. Three youths had approached one of the policemen on duty at the scene of the fire:

POLICEMAN: Shouldn't you lot be in school?
YOUTH: Nah, I go to college, innit?
POLICEMAN: No, it's 'I go to college, don't I?', not 'innit'. We know you go 'in it'.

Now that's the kind of sentences I'd like to see the law handing out. Instead of jail time and community service, you could be ordered to use gramatically correct speech for a period of time. I think I'll pop down Scotland Yard later on and present my ideas.

A joke

2006-11-01T17:32:00.000-08:00

Elderly gent visits a strip club for the first time. A hooker comes up to him touching herself and says "Super pussy", to which the old gent replies "I'll have the soup please..."

This just in

2006-10-30T14:46:00.000-08:00

If you're looking for older posts, they're all over at http://quadropheniac.livejournal.com/archive. They go way back to 2003. Enjoy!