My One-Day Career as a Sports Journo

Well, if you'd spoken to me in the month before or after the game, no doubt I would have mentioned this. If not, I'll happily mention it again: I got to watch London's 2009 NFL match at Wembley. From the press box, on assignment for londonist (Yep, that's me grinning like a moron in an empty Wembley after the game).

With the usual sports writer Duncan in Australia, and me the only person who had a clue about American football, I foolishly put my hand up to cover the match, expecting nothing to come of it. Little did I realise Duncan could actually arrange a press pass, and once it was all sorted I started to properly panic. Thankfully Duncan was able to coach me via email in the arcane ways of the sports journo (basic rule: don't look like you're enjoying yourself).

London definitely gets in to their now annual NFL match, and the NFL happily fuel the fervour, with cheerleader visits (I particularly like this shot, with the girl second from right frowning like she just saw a puppy put down; witnessing a non-smiling cheerleader is rarer than detecting a Higgs Boson). There are even pre-game events for the fans of the visiting teams (yep, more gratuitous cheerleader shots!) All of which seemed a bit of a waste for this match, with the Patriots heavily favoured to out-gun the struggling Buccaneers... which they duly did. I watched on from the box, amazed by the media machine that is the NFL (play-by-play printouts were delivered to each of us promptly after each quarter), and mildly disgusted by the English chap from some regional paper in the seat next to me who spent the entire match ignoring the game and staring through his binoculars at, you guessed it, the cheerleaders. Hmmm, perhaps the NFL should save themselves the expense and the fixtures headache and just send the cheerleaders across the pond each year...

After the match I managed to show my novice status by getting lost in the bowels of Wembley, but eventually got to the Patriots post-match conference (my impressions: Belichik is a mumbler; Brady exudes so much charm you just want to punch him in the face), then filed my match report from the media centre. Apparently it went to the top spot in google news results for NE Patriots the following day. Which was bizarre. All in all, a fantastically fun experience which had me buzzing for days afterwards... but as others pointed out to me, as much as I loved doing it, if I actually had to do it every day for a living the magic would probably wear off quickly. Pity really, I thought I might have found a new career...

Journalistic Integrity

Press. Tickets.

Can there be two sweeter words in the English language? Apart from default, of course. Despite the moronic door man (is there any other kind?) I got to see Ash Grunwald playing a pretty damn fine gig at a pretty damn fine venue, and all I had to do was write it up.

Now on this particular occasion, that wasn't a problem: good music being played by performers clearly having a fun time, in a great bar... it was pretty easy to be positive about it. And I was more than happy to put more money across the bar since I got in free (to my regret on Sunday). But what if the next thing I get tickets for is... well, rubbish? Being completely conflict-averse, I'm terrible at criticising others. I mean, they might not like it. And what right would I have? I can't play that instrument/cook that meal/do that on stage... who am I to judge them?

Quite a dilemma.

I think, on balance, I'll take the tickets. I can always just hide behind the anonymity of the internet if I hate it.

Dunwich Dynamo

Regular readers will know I don't mind a long bike ride... or trying things that might make you question my sanity, so when I heard about an overnight 200km ride from London to Dunwich Beach, of course I was keen. As a guardian writer puts it: "What I love most is its sheer random pointlessness."

The guardian piece does a good job of capturing the experience. For me, the wee hours of the morning were eerily magical (maybe it was the delirium brought on by exhaustion?)... Riding through the countryside in the pre-dawn darkness, following the red lights ahead of you as they seem to flutter up the next hill... you couldn't imagine a better way to spend the weekend. And then the rain started. And the muscles started to hurt. And you run out of food. And you can barely lower yourself onto the saddle anymore...

Finally you make it to the beach, and it looks like some sort of cycling Normandy - bodies and equipment strewn across the beach. Nevertheless, swimming in that cold grey water was better than a dip at Bondi on a scorching January day back home. My companion and I reheated ourselves in the nearby cafe/fish shop. Raising our cups of tea, I toasted "Well, we did it." "Yep. And never again." came the reply. Within a few days we were already talking about doing it next year.

There's a picture gallery of the ride on londonist, which completely fails to convey the feelings of exhaustion and misery that came in the early dawn light, nor the elation of finally finishing. If anyone is considering it, there's a bit more info in this post, and now that I've done it, I'd also suggest: forget the organised food stop at half-way, the queues are ridiculous. Take your own, or stop early and have a pub dinner; arrange your own transport back, whether it's a friend with a car or cycling back to the train station (a lot of people were nearly stranded in Dunwich after the coaches and vans failed to pack the bikes properly).

Finally, maps of the ride:

Blur: Hyde Parklife

Apologies. This was meant to be a proper gig review, but my rambling got in the way. And other people do it better anyway.

I must admit I felt a bit of an impostor at Blur's big Hyde Park comeback gig. I had ticket number 11, but only thanks to Mad Mark who is actually a member of the fan club. Sure, I like Blur's music - correct that, I love it - but not in the same generation defining way that the rest of the crowd did. My 'discovery' of Albarn et al, like all the decent stuff in my catalogue, was a sisterly hand-me-down. It was Jules who got me into Pulp, The Pixies, Lou Reed, and the same for Blur. I used to get in trouble for constantly 'borrowing' her copy of Parklife.

Her musical nous was so refined that she was a fan of the Whitlams when they were struggling nobodies gigging around Sydney, and she tired of them long before the suicides and success, obviously foreseeing their popular acclaim and accompanying fall from musical grace. Without Jules' influence, my musical tastes run to cheese and pop (I didn't see Rick Rolling as a sudden flash-in-the-pan meme, but as long-deserved global acclaim - I never gave you up Rick)... and when I become a tragic fan of a band you've never heard of, it tends to stay that way (The Fantastic Leslie? Lazy Susan? The Real Tuesday Weld? ... maybe I just like bands with names in them). Anyway, the point is, Blur didn't happen to me like it did for everyone else. The battle of BritPop meant nothing to me. It didn't define my teenage years/twenties the way it did for the rest of the crowd. And I'm not qualified to comment on the musical mastery or otherwise displayed by Coxon etc... like the pair of Aussies in front of us who could air guitar/drum along with every song. I like the tunes, and they remind me of a bygone age, but not the same age that everyone else was remembering

Nevertheless, the gig was amazing. The lads have still got it, the crowd still loves 'em, and most importantly, they seemed to be really enjoying it up on stage. There was a whole lotta love in the park, (apart from typical gig-jerkery: shouted conversations during performance, needless shoving, bottle throwing...) If rumours of a proper reformation are true, I'll be sure not to come late to the party again.

TfL lost property enquiry form

Date property was lost: 19 Apr 2009

What was lost: Other

Please specify: my mind

Colour of main item: Dark. Slightly dirty.

Journey details:

I was travelling Eastbound on the Piccadilly line at approximately 10pm, and when I got home and found myself delirious with pain arguing with God in the bath (I was in the tub. Not God) I realised I had lost it. I think it must still be on the tube. I was in the last carriage if that helps. Please get it back to me. Although I don't mind if you have another one lying around, it's about time I changed it. It makes sense that it would go missing on the Piccadilly line: it's one-track and ends up at Cockfosters, so it probably feels right at home.

Are you in Powderfinger?

What should have been a quiet pint with Mad Mark so I could lend him some ski gear turned out to be a night so random that it makes the Cauchy distribution look normal (there's a gag for all you stats nerds out there).

Things started normally enough at the mutually convenient Faltering Fullback: "What are you drinking? 2 pints of Pride please. How was your week? yada yada yada." So far so normal for a quick Friday pint.

"Been following the cricket?" In retrospect, that's where it all started. While discussing the Aussie's surprising dominance in South Africa, the chap at the next table came over, and with a "You discussing cricket?" joined in our conversation. Again, so far, so normal for drinks in a London pub. A pint and a chat about sport are unifying forces for the London pub-going male population. People who might otherwise stab you on the tube are suddenly bosom buddies. We humoured him for a while, did some mutual colonial/pom-bashing, then his phone rang and he disappeared. All fine. Mad Mark and I returned to other topics of conversation...

Not long after, Barney (for that is his name) returned. Smoking. And said, "If you see a short kiwi girl coming up the stairs, I'm not here." Given that we were sitting directly at the top of the stairs, I figured this to be some sort of joke game of hide-and-seek and he wasn't particularly keen on winning. Mark and I returned to normal conversation, and Barney sucked down his cancer stick. 

Within the time it takes to smoke half a fag, the short kiwi girl came up the stairs. She saw Barney, cigarette in hand, and immediately joined our table and started laying into him. Mark and I couldn't believe it - for the price of a pint, we were getting our drinks and domestic dispute dinner theatre thrown in. Awesome. To summarise: Saskia (the diminutive kiwi) has issues with smokers - it's not the smoking per se, but an ex was a smoker, and there are obviously some latent issues remaining, and she can't stand the thought of being with another smoker. Barney, for his part, has a stubborn streak and some sense of pride, and if he wants to smoke, goddamit woman, he's going to smoke! Mark and I couldn't believe our luck and sat back to enjoy the show.

But this was a full 3 act play, and we were yet to meet the clown. Some English guy who had played pool with Saskia, and clearly fancied his chances, came to join us after Barney had left in a fit of nicotine-induced pride. Saskia was dismissive, the Englishman was oblivious, and Mark turned offensive. I was pissing myself. It was about this stage that Saskia asked me:"Are you in Powderfinger?" ... 

So much for my alcohol-free month. When there's entertainment like this to be had at your local boozer, why would you stay sober?

Only in London Part 3: London Word Festival

Often people back home ask me "Why would you live in London? The weather and dentistry are terrible, it's full of poms... sure you can travel, but that's about getting OUT of London. Why would you live IN it?" To those people I reply with this series of 'Only in London' posts, dedicated to fantabulous - it's what the F stands for, remember - events so London-y you couldn't imagine them happening anywhere else. So read the posts, shut up, and go back to dodging sharks.

From 2009-03-00-London

Spoken. Word. Two such harmless pieces of verbiage, but put them together and people suddenly have other things to do. Although the idea of it appeals, I'd never actually gotten around to seeing (should that be hearing?) a spoken word gig. Thanks (again) to Londonist, I scored an invite to the opening night of the London Word Festival (check out the website if only for the daily random neologism in the bottom of the right frame). Sure, I felt like an impostor intruding on a sub-culture of which I knew almost nothing, but the local wordy-types were welcoming and friendly. Perhaps it was my man-bag. It seemed to be a compulsory part of the uniform for all males in the room.

Within half a pint of arriving, I was chatting to some of the 'natives' - one of whom is one of the very few born-and-bred Londoners I've actually come across in London. Despite the fact our origins are almost literally polar opposites, our views on life in the city ran along the same lines. Interestingly though, he professed that most of his Londoner-since-birth friends have absolutely no desire to explore beyond its limits, not even venturing to other parts of England. The concept floored me. Most of the world is on your doorstep, and (until recently) you've had the currency that makes travelling affordable, and you stay in grey, drizzly London all year round? Perhaps the wanderlust typical of the Australian psyche comes from something in our upbringing, or perhaps it's in the water supply. Who knows, it could be the fluoride. Maybe it does more than teeth.

As for the event itself, my performance poetry cherry was popped by one Tim Key and I regret it not a jot. Having no other performance poets to compare it to, it's easiest to describe it as like seeing a stand-up comic doing a particularly bizarre set, with notebooks. The 'golden fib' finalists ranged from touching to hilarious, and I may have embarrassed myself when I was the only person in the room to laugh at the joke about Schroedinger's cat. Tough crowd.

All in all it was a great way to spend a night out, even without the open bar, leaving me with an invite from the organisers of another spoken word event, and the lingering, haunting image of a girl, wine in hand, sitting alone in the corner of the bar playing solitaire scrabble... I've definitely never seen that in Sydney.

Only in London Part 2: Fitzrovia Radio Hour

Often people back home ask me "Why would you live in London? The weather and dentistry are terrible, it's full of poms... sure you can travel, but that's about getting OUT of London. Why would you live IN it?" To those people I reply with this series of 'Only in London' posts, dedicated to fantabulous - it's what the F stands for, remember - events so London-y you couldn't imagine them happening anywhere else. So read the posts, shut up, and go back to dodging sharks. 

From 2009-03-00-London

Remember life before TV? No? Neither do I. But apparently there was one, and if renditions of these throwback radio plays are anything to go by, it was probably a lot better than 'non-ratings period' back in Australia. I'll admit it: this sounds like a weird night out. And it is. Weird and wonderful.

On a I-have-nothing-planned-for-Saturday-night whim, I decided to do something unusual, and as usual, London(ist) delivered. Getting mildly lost on the South bank of the Thames, I eventually found the Swan at the Globe Bar... heading towards the big white Globe Theatre should have been a clue. Approaching the stairs up to the bar, I had fear in my heart. Venues co-located with tourist attractions tend to be mediocre at best. Crossing the threshold I couldn't have been more relieved. The clinking of cocktail and wine glasses, the hubbub of conversation flowing in the rather trendy looking crowd, and strangely, the tiny angel wings attached to the light bulbs, all gave the place a satisfying buzz. The view across the river didn't hurt either.

The above average dress sense of the crowd became apparent when the Fitzrovia Radio Hour kicked off. Although the performance is ultimately for podcasting, the chaps and damsels of the cast had set the tone in vintage outfits, and the regulars knew to, literally, follow suit. I've tried and failed to describe the show to people since, so I think I'll leave it to their own words:

We are the olive in the Martini.

Classic mystery, science fiction and drama radio plays of the 40's and 50's performed and recorded with style in front of a live studio audience, with live sound effects, then broadcast via The World Wide Web. Enjoy the simpler pleasures in life with cut-glass received pronunciation in a speakeasy bar.


We refute the notion that the well-crafted written word is dead, it's alive and well, living in Fitzrovia and wearing a tuxedo.

In theory the concept could be done anywhere, but only in London do you have the heritage of the British radio play (they still do them on Radio 4), and the kingdom of British accents to call upon. Add to that the ingenious use of props for sound effects, and although we the audience practiced our gasps and hisses before the show, the only sound we added during the broadcast was laughter. Even at the frighteningly aurally disturbing sound of Frank Maskill going 'the lathers way'...

Thankfully, there's another one coming up soon.

Only in London Part 1: Drinking with Dinosaurs

Often people back home ask me "Why would you live in London? The weather and dentistry are terrible, it's full of poms... sure you can travel, but that's about getting OUT of London. Why would you live IN it?" To those people I reply with this series of 'Only in London' posts, dedicated to fantabulous - it's what the F stands for, remember - events so London-y you couldn't imagine them happening anywhere else. So read the posts, shut up, and go back to dodging sharks.

Last Friday of the month at the Natural History Museum

You'll know already that I'm quite partial to the occasional museum. The reverence for objects that no longer serve a useful purpose, other than simply having once existed, to be admired, studied, beheld; the collected historical quanta of human life, thought and experience, housed together to shelter from the bustling, Blackberry-wielding world outside; someone occasionally popping in to admire the relics, gaze upon them in awe and wonder, and leave again reminded, in a good way, of your own personal insignificance in the grand scheme of things, without having to resort to inventing a god. Or maybe it's just the mustiness.

But I ramble. Musea are great in their own right, but are usually a little... uptight. Lots of "No participle" signs. So it's great when a museum lets its hair down, takes off the specs, and much like a scene in any cheesy teen movie, with a shake of the head, is suddenly transformed, and you can't help but gasp "Wow, you were awesome all along, and I just didn't realise..."

The big musea in London are free. It might take you a while to get your head around that. And I won't go into the argument about whether that cheapens the museum and its collection, or is an accurate reflection of their pricelessness. Once you've assimilated that fact, assimilate this: once a month, they open their doors late and let you go in and wander around the collections with a glass of red in your hand. I shit you not. (Aside: I didn't realise how quintessentially Sydney that phrase was until I came here... and when I hear someone utter it, it makes me unbearably homesick for no reason I can fathom... I shit you not.) And so I eventually get to the point. Leaving work on a Friday, and heading to the Natural History Museum for a few drinks with friends, seeing the Darwin exhibition in this, the year of Chucky D (200 years since he was born, dontcherknow... which opens up your eyes to both the progress and regress that has occured since then), and also casting an eye over the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition (which opens up your eyes to the plight of some marvellous animals, and also to the fact that there are spoilt 10 year olds out there being given DSLRs and taken on safari trips to Africa)... well, a night like that, it's as close as I get to being a pig in muck.

It was so good I even signed up on the night and became a member. I shit you not.

Getting old: another birthday

So, 90% of the way to 30. This time last year, I was enjoying my mid-twenties watching world cup rugby in Paris. This year I was meant to be sunning myself on a weekend trip to the Italian coast, but due to an unplanned change in personal circumstances, I ended up sunning myself in London. Yes people, the sun actually came out on a day that begins with S. Twice.

The celebrations kicked off with a fashionably disastrous bowling night. Only in North London (or perhaps South London) would you be frisked upon entering a bowling alley. Still, the unexpected grope was well worth it for the cheese factor of Rowans bowling emporium and leisure centre, complete with DJ and a dance floor that really fired up after midnight. Congrats must go to Mel - winner of the bowling comp, proving that wii is no substitute for the real thing, Mark - air hockey champion, proving that even a child's game can be turned violent and foul-mouthed, and Nick - for the fruit tingle drink, proving that 3 wrongs can make a right.

The big day itself was spent making the most of the sun: american football in the park with some mates in the morning, followed by riding around the one-day-only cycle friendly streets of London, and capped off by sneaking in to (sort of) one of the corporate schmooze tents and enjoying their free booze and cheese cake. Oh, and I saw Boris Johnson (he looks even more ridiculous in person). Thanks also to my flatmate for cooking up a healthy dinner to make up for all the junk eaten while bowling.

After such a pleasant weekend, it's been a bit of a come-down. I'm now waking up to my 'late-twenties' status, and figure I should start making and checking off some sort of 'before I'm 30' list. I imagine these lists tend to have things like:

• get a degree: check. Twice. and a bit. Don't mention a PhD though.
• learn a second language: check. Although I'm finding that courses on French linguistics aren't that useful in everyday conversation. I should have taken "FRNC4601: How to console someone after a break-up."
• represent Australia at sport: check. It counts!
• move to a different city: check. Although after a year in Canberra I came scurrying back.
• move to a different country: check. Although the jury's out on whether it was a good idea - scurrying is still an option.
• find love and settle down: yeah, well, see the point above.
• find a job that you love: Baaahahahahahaha!
• buy a house: stop it, I'm laughing too hard!
• save the world: not likely, although my mother keeps telling me I should. I'm not sure it's worth saving.
• kill a man: check. sort of.

Anyone out there got suggestions for the list?

The future of music is... silence?

... and if it is I don't like it.


Thanks to Londonist (my favourite source for all things London) I scored a pair of tickets to see the Fun Lovin' Criminals playing at Koko. But this was no ordinary gig - it was a gimmicky 'silent disco' sponsored by Smirnoff. Basically, instead of plugging the instruments and mics into amps, they're all fed directly to the mix desk and then broadcast to the headphones you're wearing. And the drummer is locked away in a soundproof box... so now you get the idea.


Given only a few hours notice that I had in fact received tickets, I called on Mad Mark - music punter and critic extraordinaire - to join me on for this surreal concept in live music. It didn't take long for us to make up our minds that the old ways are still the best. The headphones weren't exactly top notch and gave a tinny sound experience, the mixing was either poor or couldn't cope with the fact that the instruments and vocals weren't being sung properly (not that Huey was messing it up, but amping up someone singing under their breath doesn't produce the same sound as someone singing properly). So, the 'silent' part of the gig definitely hampered the sound. The one saving grace of the headphones was that we could take them off to ignore the utterly atrocious Dutch DJ (perhaps I missed the joke, as others thought he was great). What would have been a great gig was sadly ruined by the gimmick.

Sound quality aside, the headphone gig also destroys one of the quintessentially valuable aspects of seeing music live - the sense of community and collective experience. Instead of feeling like you've shared a musical moment and thereby connected with the masses around you, everyone is at the same place, listening to the same band, but isolated in their own little 'ipod bubble'. Instead of stumbling out the doors overjoyed after a collective aural orgy, you hand back the headphones and leave feeling slightly dirty after a session of mass musical masturbation.

These people have well-paid jobs

Working for a faceless multinational with it's seat in the US, I've been privy to a number of company-wide announcements from top brass so riddled with jargon and buzz-speak that they become meaningless. This one is so special I thought it should be shared:

We are working with an external consultant to conduct a review of the working environment at the London office. The aim is to develop ideas on how we can optimise the way we work and utilise our office space. The review will focus on the following key areas:
* Flexibility – using modern working practices and leveraging technology to improve fluidity in the workplace
* Mobility and space usage – usage of desks, meeting rooms, break out areas, and how the space can best serve our working patterns

The mind boggles. I've cut off the rest of the mail to preserve your sanity. The second bullet point has a smattering of the bleeding obvious to it (desks? people sit at them; meeting rooms? people meet in them...), but the first point has led to the following possible interpretations of "leveraging technology to improve fluidity..."

• using your laptop as a crowbar to burst the emergency water pipes
• knocking over a full cup of coffee with your keyboard
• throwing your PC tower through the window on a rainy day (which is any day in London)

Any other suggestions out there?

I like the old stuff better than the new stuff

One thing I have to admit is good about London is the quality and range of live acts that come through town, and perhaps because there's so much going on, getting your hands on tickets is generally pretty easy. As an example, the past week saw me take in two very different gigs, and I think I'm showing my age when I admit that I loved one, and would have gladly missed the other.

Jack Johnson and friends (namely G-Love, Special Sauce, and Ben Harper) came to London to do their bit for (or should that be against?) global warming and injustice in the world by putting on a one day 'festival' in Hyde Park. I dunno about you, but in my mind, 2 support acts and a headline on one stage does not a festival make... normally that's called a gig. Outdoor gig, I'll grant you, but gig nonetheless. Despite the fact that the sun made an appearance, and the fact that I normally enjoy a bit of harmless surfer/slacker guitar based music, the gigteval left me cold. In fact, the longer it went, the less I enjoyed it: G-Love was pretty damn good as an opener, Harper started to drag on a bit, and by the time John Jackson got on stage I was ready to go. I have to admit I arrived in a foul mood, but normally the first blast from the speakers is enough to make me forget my cares... I guess paying to watch a bunch of guys who travel the world surfing and playing music to legions of adoring female fans just wasn't going to cheer me up that day.

A few days later, still feeling mighty pissed off at the world, I dragged myself out to see another band: The Hoodoo Gurus. (Other Aussie bands of yesteryear to tour through London recently include Weddings, Parties, Anything, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, although they never really went away). No self-aggrandising, save-the-world, outdoor festival for the gurus, just a simple ol' fashioned rocking out gig at The Forum. Faulkner and co still had the moves, if not the hair, and definitely still had the energy to blast out the crowd faves (which was, well, all of them) and blow away the cobwebs of a horror week stuck in the office.

Sure, I'm showing my age, but I think rock improves with the passing of the years. Or at least you can appreciate it more as you get older: you can afford to go to the gig for a start, you can enjoy it with fellow fans, not just band-wagon hopping chart followers, and you get to see the band in a much more intimate venue than you could have in their hey-day. Sure, I can hear a few of you saying: "I'm glad I spent a fortune to go see a stadium gig when I was a kid - it's an experience that can never be repeated because the band doesn't exist any more," but that just shows you had bad taste in music if your favourite band couldn't last a few measly decades.

Fun for the whole family

June saw my mother finally give up on her decades-long, one-woman embargo on the UK when she came to visit me in London for a week. Amazingly, I think London was trying to make up for the treatment she received on her last visit (being described as 'bristling with prejudice' if you must know - I don't know what she's complaining about)... the sun shone all week, there were no major tube disasters to speak of, and most impressively their accommodation turned out to be a top floor apartment complete with balcony so close to the dome of St Paul's you could almost touch it.


Being forced to play tour guide in my new 'home town' made me realise how little I'd actually done or seen in London. Thankfully I could fall back on the tourist classics: a cruise along the Thames to Greenwich, a 'flight' on the London eye, a trip to the theatre, and packing them off to Oxford when I'd run out of things to do. The highlight for everyone was definitely the musical "Dickens: Unplugged" - a Shakespeare abridged take on the works of London's greatest novelist, fistula and all. Unfortunately it closed a few nights after we saw it so I wasn't able to force anyone else to enjoy it.



Being my family, a lot of time was spent in the Bacchanalian pursuits of eating and drinking. Unfortunately taking them out to my favourite restaurant-cum-foreign-correspondents' club The Frontline Club for my Dad's birthday proved a disappointing evening since the menu and atmosphere had changed since my last visit. Thankfully various Indian restaurants made up for it. Of course, not everything went entirely smoothly, but I managed to get to the end of the week without being berated for wasting my life, so perhaps it's true - absence does make the heart grow fonder...

The 6th 'D' of dodgeball...

is apparently 'Drinking'.

As is my wont, I heard about a stupid quasi-sport taking place, and immediately signed up. Unlike the swamp soccer (ASS is going to have to give the comp a miss this year) finding players keen to join in was no trouble at all. So it was that the 'Rambo Academy of Dodgeball' was born (you had to play in fancy dress, and a set of camouflage t-shirts was the easiest costume we could come up with).

For those who don't know how Dodgeball works, watch the movie. It's basically the same, apart from the fact that you can't get eliminated by a head-shot. The madness was held in an indoor sports centre in Canary Wharf, and featured teams of cheerleaders, smurfs, crab people, movie heroes, and even a team dressed as members of the scooby gang. From game number one, everyone's sides were splitting with laughter. Dodgeball truly is the greatest sport on earth...

After a few hours and several pints, Team Rambo found themselves in the final, but had the popularity of the GloboGym Purple Cobras. In a best of 5 show-down, we beat the movie heroes (although John Travolta put up a decent fight) to universal booing. I don't care if they hate us, as long as they fear us.

This was honestly one of the funniest days I'd spent in a long long time. The simple joy of throwing things at people, and watching people get hit by things, is one that cannot be denied (I'm sure Freud would have had a field day with Dodgeball if he'd been around). If you ever get the chance to play, do it. And if you're a natural, who knows? Perhaps you could turn pro?

Enjoying the rat race

ratrace_stpauls
Originally uploaded by patfoz.

Yet again, I found myself doing something that seemed like a good idea at the time... the London Rat Race. Based on a few posters and a slick looking website, I signed up for this 'urban adventure race' without even having a team. The concept is that the race brings 'adventure racing' (those eco-challenge things you see on tv where teams of people run, climb, swim, kayak etc around some pacific islands) to the city, so that average schmoes like me can be tempted into trying something they shouldn't...

I obviously wasn't the only one suckered in, managing to find some other Aussie novices to form a team (many thanks to Andrew and Gabbrielle). The running/orienteering session on Saturday evening started off well: we got the map, planned our route (not too ambitious) and set off... we got to the first challenge and I immediately wished we'd run in the opposite direction. The challenge was for the team to eat jellied eel. 3 team members, ergo 3 chunks of eel to be eaten. As soon as we got there, my newfound teammates told me they were vegetarian. So I was left to wolf down a bowl of jellied eel. And then run for another 2 hours. Go on, try it. I dare you. I had to stop every 10 minutes to retch and try to vomit.

The Sunday session started early, and with Andrew on the maps we raced through London on the bikes. After the pain of Saturday's running we'd decided to skip all the orienteering/running sessions. A small taste of the activities of the day included: riding in Richmond Park, barrel rolling at Fuller's Brewery, abseiling off Twickenham stadium, kayaking around Putney, and finally playing hide and seek on the HMS Belfast. A full day in the saddle covering nearly 80kms left me sore and tired and unable to ride my bike for weeks.

Needless to say, we didn't win, but had a great time facing up to the challenge. If you get a chance to do something similar, I recommend it (just do some training first!) - I'm already booked in to the 2008 races in Edinburgh and London...

What's wrong with the UK (part 3)

It's started.

People back home have begun asking me when I'm coming home... the routine and cost of London have started to bite... and, frankly, I've been tempted.

If I were back home, no doubt the funk would be dealt with by a drunken night out in Newtown with friends and some bad karaoke (is there such a thing as good karaoke?), but here that's just not an option. Instead, I've been fumbling from day to day, barely managing to keep it together, feeling hollow and... grey. There's even been a mini panic attack one afternoon at work. I'd say it was textbook depression, but I think it may be down to hormones in the drinking water here... it hasn't just been the mood swings, I've also had to start shaving more regularly. And I hate shaving. Perhaps it’s all due to the extra razor nicks.

For a while I thought there might be something behind the hormones in the water idea... perhaps an evil conspiracy run by the British government, or even Richard Branson (I’ve never trusted him. No one is that smug). But recent events have shown me that the Brits couldn't organise a piss up in brewery. They are incompetent at everything they attempt... even when they're trying to collect money from you.

First up, council tax. For those not familiar with this concept, council tax is the money you're forced to pay for simply living in London. In theory, it pays for rubbish collection, recycling services, and traffic wardens in your local area. Considering that rubbish collection consists of having to take my own trash to a large dumpster on the street, recycling services are practically non-existent, I can only assume that all the money goes on traffic wardens. Since most of the people you walk past on the streets of Westminster are in fact traffic wardens, I think I may be on to something.
Last Saturday (4th August), I received a reminder notice (dated 27th July) informing me that I had failed to pay my council tax, and that unless I did so within 7 days of the date of this notice, there would be unspeakable repercussions - spotted the problem yet? I was quite surprised, given that I never received the first notice.

When I call them and point out the flaw in their little scheme, that they never sent me the first notice, and the second arrived a week late, their response is: "Well yes, there HAS been a postal strike..." as though I should have known that there was mail coming to me, and gone down to the closed, picketed post office, and found it myself.

That would have been a bad enough start to Monday, but then I also had to deal with British Gas. In the same post, I also received a power bill for 79p. Yes, I know that's a fair bit back in Australia, but over here it won't even buy you a bottle of hormone-free water. I figured that I could actually afford to pay this, and dutifully went to their online bill payment system, verified my identity with a gruelling set of personal questions (does it really matter if someone else pays my bill?), handed over my card details and hit 'PAY'. The system responds with 'I'm sorry we cannot accept payments below £2.'


Ha bloody ha, I think to myself, how very amusing. I then call the British Gas bill payment phone number, and after about half an hour I finally get to speak to someone and the problem. He laughs. Once he collects himself, he tells me that I can’t pay anything less than £5 over the phone. The best he could suggest was simply not paying the 79p, and letting it roll over to the next bill. Sounded reasonable. Knowing that nothing is ever that easy, I ask him if my non- payment will result in threatening notices, late fees, or even disconnection. I know it’s only 79p, but I also know the British relationship to bureaucracy. The guy on the other end of the line, still laughing, says “The reminder notices and threatening letters are all sent automatically, but they won’t actually act on them for such a small amount." - I breathe a sigh of relief - "Probably” he adds before I hang up.

So if Branson’s evil scheme goes according to plan, it won’t be long before I’m left sitting at home in the dark, developing man breasts, and crying myself to sleep.

Pun Pals

On a recent flight out of Stansted, while the security man was patting me down for cutlery of mass destruction in a slightly over-friendly manner, he was kind enough to give me the following set up:

Security (while copping a good feel of my ankles):
Do you have anything sharp on your person?

Me (grimacing in pain as I try to keep my mouth shout):
Nothing except my wit.

With sincerest apologies to Oscar Wilde.

Although the security man didn't bat an eyelid, let alone smile, he must have appreciated the joke, otherwise I would have been taken aside, strip searched and possible anal probed to find the 'wit' I had admitted to carrying... but that's enough toilet humour for today.

Or is it? In all matters punning, I must bow to Joe who recently sent me the following email exchange (I'm sure the guys working at CERN had this in mind when they first developed the idea of an internet)...

From: Leon Franklin

Subject: Re: training

All I can say is that last time I looked at the BOM site it said, and I quote, "Make yourself an ark of cypress wood! Make rooms in the ark and coat it inside and out with pitch. And this is how you will build: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, her width fifty cubits, her height thirty cubits." Needless to say that I was just a little alarmed. I'm just happy that things are looking up and all us heathens are not going to be destroyed in an upcoming flood.

From: Pietro Di Ciaccio

Subject: RE: training

How big is a cubit, anyway? We should go back to using them...

From: Joseph Greensmith

Subject: Re: training

less than a culot...

From: Leon Franklin

Subject: Re: training

shocking, just shocking. How long have you been waiting to use that one
Joe?

From: Joseph Greensmith

Subject: RE: training

Suffice to say.... I was fore-armed Ouch.

The sweet taste of free-dom

Whatever happenned to...
Originally uploaded by patfoz.

I've been a bit lax in writing of late (it's the fault of RTW - if you have to ask, you wouldn't understand). So no doubt, you're just gagging to find out the latest miraculous and fantabulous things that have been happening. Yes, I realise I am writing assuming that there's a reader, which I very much doubt, but Simo responded to something I posted a while back, so I live in hope...

Due to the universal and unconquerable force of poverty, my adventures have been reduced to things that come for free. So I've been missing lunch a lot. Surprisingly, London's not too bad when it comes to free stuff, provided you scour the street press for the tiny notices that point you to it. More surprisingly, the free stuff turns out to be pretty good! My taste of free-dom came in the form of a free gig to celebrate a trendy music magazine that managed to stay in print for a year...

It's been so long that Corey Haim should have released a single entitled "Whatever happened to the Thrills?"... in fact, he should sack his agent for not jumping on that opportunity as soon as it appeared. But it's too late for Corey now (no, he's not dead. I checked.), because the Thrills are back. Courtesy of the one year old magazine, and the trendiest indie-music venue that you could shake a skinny white man in even skinnier jeans at, I got to see them play a short but sweet set in Camden. Despite all the fashionable poseurs in the afore-mentioned skinny jeans, strange hats, or bracers, everyone was there to enjoy the music, and enjoy it we did. To the point of dancing on the chairs and bar (see the blurry photo above - that's pretty much what my vision was like). The Thrills belted out the faves that everyone wanted to hear, as well as a few others and promptly called it a night. The crowd loved it, sang along and danced and generally had a great time.

OK GO apparently did a DJ spot in the upstairs bar, but when I checked it out there weren't any treadmills set up, so I didn't bother sticking around for it.

It's a shame about rain... I mean, Ray

Koko disco ball
Originally uploaded by patfoz.

Months into my London sojourn, and I still hadn't really enjoyed any of the things it's famous for, such as Monopoly pub crawls (forced absence due to poverty), art galleries and other la-di-da cultural things (I ran through a few during the timeout scavenger hunt), and live music.

Well actually, I had been dragged along to see DJ Yoda at Koko a while back. I had high hopes that he would be mixing songs so as to put the verbs at the end each sentence in the lyrics, but was sadly disappointed. He wasn't even green. The only high point among the evening of deafeningly loud cheese-mixes was one involving the theme music to super mario bros. You know the tune I'm talking about. That had me excited for a while, but again I was let down. He missed the 1 up on the third screen and didn't even make it to level 2...

But I digress. The night out did leave me impressed with the venue - it's an old theatre now converted for gigs, with the biggest damn disco ball that was ever conceived in a Boy George nightmare (the pic above doesn't do it justice) . Ever since that night I kept noticing review of all the other fantastic evenings at Koko that I would have rather been at... Travis had their new tour/comeback gig there that was a sing-along love-in for all involved... Prince played a last minute quasi-secret gig there not long ago... now finally I've been to one.


You'll all remember Evan Dando as the long-haired slacker at the front of the Lemonheads, the band that had a hit with a cover of 'Mrs Robinson' - came out during our childhoods about the same time as Blind Melon had their hit with 'No Rain' with the fat girl in the bumblebee tutu and another long haired slacker as a front man - you know the one I'm talking about. For some reason I always had the two confused. I think it was the hair. Anyway, Blind Melon went nowhere, Kurt Cobain blew his brains out (possibly the greatest publicity stunt ever), and Evan Dando descended into a world of drugs and meaningless sex (I assume), only to come back stronger than ever. With slightly shorter hair. It's still long enough to cover his face so you can't see his features on stage, but it shows he's cleaned up his act. Just a little anyway.

The crowd in attendance was an odd mix: 30 and 40 year olds who must have been fans of the original Lemonheads incarnation, muttering things about knowing them 'before they were big' while queueing at the bar, as well as pathetic bandwagon fans like myself who only got into them 15 years ago. Since then, Dando went solo, went a little acoustic and a little bit country, but when the band came out and ripped through 'confetti', it was clear the band version was back to being a little bit rock and roll. They stormed through the hits from their back catalogue, and I sang along like a complete tosser (my heartfelt apologies to those people who were in earshot). Dando kicked the band off to have his little acoustic/country moment, and I kept singing along like a complete tosser (apologies again). He left the stage, clearly too early for the show to be over, and although we all knew there would be an encore, everyone clapped and chanted for more like they meant it. The full band came back out, played some more great songs and eventually left. But, and this bit is important, without having played 'Mrs. Robinson'!!!

I was sure that there must be another encore planned, despite the fact the house lights were up and the 'get out of the venue now' music was playing on the PA. I was determined to stick it out to the bitter end, with absolute faith that eventually they'd come back out and play for the hardcore few that stayed. Sadly, it wasn't to be. My gig companions wanted to go home, so I left Koko, stumbled out into a rainy London night and onto a crowded tube home.

Ever since, I've been avoiding all street press, for fear that there'll be a review mentioning the amazing second encore played to only a dozen or so spectators, and although I loved every minute of the show I saw, if there was a minute that I didn't get to see, I'll be ever so pissed. The problem with having a great time is knowing that sooner or later, usually sooner, it all has to end.

But it's all ok now. I looked up the line-up for Glastonbury, and the Proclaimers are going to be there. I'm going to start apologising for my singing now (anyone who's seen me at karaoke will know why)... I'm sorry. Truly.

Pat