'Rog' - What a legend!

Watched a bit of the tennis at the Australian Open over the course of the last few weeks. Roger Federer (or 'Rog' as Jim Courier seems to refer to him from the commentary box) has looked his usual awesome self. Now at 10 grand slam wins & nearing Jimmy Connor's record for the most consecutive weeks at No. 1 in the rankings, Roger will surely go down as one of the game's greats. He powered past Roddick (who had been looking good in the previous rounds) with ease, and only really looked troubled once in the whole tournament - when Gonzalez had 3 set points to take the 1st set (would have been the first that 'Rog' had dropped in the whole tournament). Federer defended the 3 set points and then took the 1st set in a tie-break before easily winning the next 2 (in fact he was hardly perspiring at the end of the game). And his dad (sporting a superb 'tasche) seemed to be pretty bored by the whole affair. In this form he will surely pass Pete Sampras' record of 18 Grand Slam wins...injury permitting of course.

More surprising was Serena Williams' win in the ladies singles. From 81st in world to no.14 in two weeks is impressive, more so when she has to be the heaviest player in women's tennis - she just looked so unfit & was lucky to come through her 1st round game. Mind you she is strong and her 'guns' are probably bigger than mine! Will be interesting to see if she bothers to get into shape for the rest of the season.

This tournament also say the introduction of 'hawkeye' technology and there was certainly a few teething problems with the system....however I think it is worth persevering with and the 'challenge system' is something worth looking at in other sports such as cricket.

Finally - started to wonder where the weird scoring system comes from in tennis.
Turns out love is a corruption of the French for egg - l'oeuf - as an egg is shaped like a zero....obvious right?
Deuce comes from a corruption of the French - Deux - meaning that two points are needed to win.
And the 15, 30 , 40 has two suggestions - one that originally clocks were used to keep score (15, 30 & 45) whilst the alternative is that it originates in the scoring system of Royal Tennis (both agree that 40 is merely a shortening of 45 to 2 syllables). Interesting eh?

The Hunter Valley

At the weekend we decided to get out of Sydney and head north to the Hunter Valley - some fresh air, fine wine & good food together with the great scenery were something to look forward to.

We arrived around 2pm on the Saturday (having need some extra sleep following the Australia Day celebrations) and stopped at the first of many vineyards on Broke Road. Over the course of the next 3 hours we visited a selection of wineries, everyone was helpful & friendly and Lucy & I struggled to go to have a tasting and not like at least 2 or 3 wines. Verdelho - which I had not really sampled before seemed to be particularly pleasurable in the intense heat.

Then off to our guest house - which was in Maitland. A quaint little place with only 6 rooms, each decorated in 'English Style' which basically meant chintz! The owners were very friendly & the breakfast they provided the next day was superb - the scrambled eggs with smoked salmon was delicious. For dinner we popped into the next town, 'historic' Morpeth which used to be a bustling, regional port. Well, the bustle seemed to have left long ago and most of the bars, cafes and restaurants were closed. We did however find a lovely little place with nice views over the river, Greek style to the menu & serving 'Ginger Beer Spiders' and excellent Lemon Meringue. We were planning on stopping around for a beer or two but thought better of it & headed back to the guest house for an early night (also watched movie called 'Regarding Henry' on DVD...makes you think that money isn't everything - in fact it can be a very bad thing).

The next day we started off at the Bluetongue brewery - we had discovered their alcoholic ginger beer (very good) a few weeks ago - and had hoped to go on a tour but got the timing wrong. Still, we had a sample of all of their fare (even Nobby's Light Beer was tasty) before purchasing a case of ginger beer and heading off to lunch.

We had lunch at Terroir restaurant - part of the Hungerford Hill Winery which we had visited the day before. A nice table by the window with exquisite views, a lovely bottle of chardonnay (we bought another couple on the way out!) and some great food (an interesting mix of australian & cantonese - I particularly enjoyed the quail in pastry on a chili jam, and the pork belly which Lucy ordered) made for a wonderful lunch.

With just a couple of hours left we crammed in another couple of tastings - including one at Piggs Peake which has the selling point of involving pigs in the title of it's wines - before finishing off at the Hunter Valley Cheese company (famous for it's washed rind cheeses).

On the drive back to Sydney, one could really feel the extra weight in the car (and that was just my full belly!) as I braked and accelerated. We hadn't really intended on buying so much wine but just couldn't resist!

Stopped off at an interesting place called The Entrance on the way home, Australia's 'Pelican Capital' as the sign stated... there was certainly a lot of pelicans, but also a LOT of caravans on the other side of the bay. Guess 'Caravan Capital' doesn't have the same cache!

We also noticed that a number of the place names around the Hunter Valley / Central Coast had a connection with the north east of England - Newcastle, Cumberland, Jesmond, Hexham & Morpeth to name a few - and this got me wondering why. It turns out that in it's industrial hey-day Newcastle (Coal River was it's 1st name after white settlement) was a coal port and a lot of it's first inhabitants were actually from the north-east of England themselves - so decided to name the place for home!

Australia Day

January 26th marks the anniversary of the 1st landing by Captain Arthur Phillip at Pork Jackson (Sydney) in 1788. Today it celebrates 'diversity & tolerance' within Australian society and is known as Australia Day.

Friday was the the first chance that Lucy & I had had to see Australia Day up close, and what an event it was. The evening before had got the celebration off to a flier with drinks & fireworks at the Newport Arms - overlooking Pittwater. Another 'small world' example on the bus home - bumped into a girl from Marske who went to school with the sister of the couple we have staying with us at the moment! And on the Friday we awoke slightly later than hoped and wandered along Manly Beach looking for the traditional breakfasts we had been promised. Unfortunately, we were a little too late (10.30am) and ended up having breakfast (still lovely) in the Four Olives Deli then jumped onto the ferry to take us to the CBD.

As it happens we had good timing as during the journey we caught the tail-end of the 'Ferrython' (basically 4 ferries are decked out in corporate colours & race around the harbour) and one of Lucy's friends was on the NAB ferry - which we managed to catch just as it got drenched by the fireboat!

It was once we got to the CBD though that the day really began. As we got off the ferry there was a fly-past by a F-18 fighter (we couldn't see it but we could hear it! - one of my colleagues was watching from the 26th floor and said the windows shook), then we wandered around The Rocks as there was a variety of live music - beatbox (Lucy bought a CD), aborigine dance (Lucy bought a CD), country (I almost bought a CD) and jazz.

After that we headed for Hyde Park, passing an impressive fleet of vintage cars & caravans, and stopping off at the Crime & Punishment Museum, Government House & the RBA museum on the way (all of the museums were free for the day - which makes a refreshing change). The most interesting bit of information was in the RBA museum which had a section on decimalization - it's amazing how close the Aussies came to naming their currency the 'Royal'. I'm not sure how that would have sat with the Republicans amongst them....needless to say that idea was eventually dropped (although the museum does still have some mock-ups) and the dollar adopted.

We spent a while in Hyde Park, eating (thai), drinking (coopers) & listening to some of the free music - couple of different djs & live music around the different stages. Wasn't such a big fan of the live music on offer here, but the sun & the beer helped! Once this event finished we headed over to Darling Harbour for the fireworks... the build-up seemed to last forever with a selection of new Australian citizens telling us all how proud they were to be Australian & the governor and premier of New South Wales telling us all how lucky we were to be Australian (which I'm not)... and then they teased us with the National Anthem finishing off with a few fireworks... then some random bloke sang a song (no idea who he was or what the song was) before the big show started. And what a display it was...even better than New Years Eve for my money... and probably the best fireworks I've EVER seen.

Then we had tickets for a night at the Hyde Park Barracks - sponsored by a very good radio station FBI - and featuring a wide variety of acts & djs. An excellent location & very well organized. The djs were all pretty good & we particularly enjoyed the Japanese beat-box group but left when a very average group called Blox arrived....every word seemed to start with F.

Finally, we headed to the Spiegeltent (see pic) which I had read about in the Sydney Festival Guide & it's basically a large, ornate tent with wood / glass sides built in Belgium during the 1920s - Lucy tells me there was a similar tent called the 'Pussy Parlour' at Glastonbury festival. An excellent venue & the New Orleans jazz performed by Juke Baritone & the Swamp Dogs provided a superb way to end the evening. Actually, the whole set-up evoked thoughts of spending time in a dingy New Orleans jazz club.

The whole day made me think about how very proud the Australians are about their country & culture. And also why don't we have such a day in England? St. Patrick's day is celebrated more in England than anything else and the American's have Independence Day, the Scots have Burns' night and even the Canadians have Canada Day so why don't the English have anything? I think it would help us to reflect on what it means to be English - apart from being poor at cricket.

Musings on Muse......

Went to see Muse tonight at the Hordern Pavilion, which is part of the Fox Studios complex in Sydney, adjoining the SCG.

The exterior of the Pavilion very much resembled that of a Victorian school, I was half expecting to find doors marked "Boys" & "Girls" & I suppose if it had been in England it would now be a complex of luxury apartments now. The interior closely resembled a student's union.... only larger. Whilst, the set consisted of a large set of drums, 2 transparent TV screens & what looked like 12 large, ribbed, condoms hanging from the lighting rig.

The band played a good set, from what I could tell... either the sound system was terrible or Matt Bellany (lead singer) really does have trouble enunciating his words. Anyway, the driving guitar and pumping drums more than made up for that & the mosh-pit seemed to get pretty excited. I spent most of the time listening with my eyes closed as the lights came close to blinding me & the strobes would have been the worst nightmare for an epileptic! Probably the most enjoyable song was the last before the encore when, continuing the condom theme, what looked like 12 inflated condoms, filled with red petals where passed above the heads of the crowd...when the balloons were popped the 'petals' floated into the air.

Certainly one of the better concerts I have been to here, even if I was a little too tired to enjoy it. Some thoughts on the other gigs Lucy & I have attended since arriving in Oz:

Kanye West (should stick to indoor arenas, bad choice of support for U2)
U2 (good but past best, should tone down the preaching)
Kylie (superb!, so energetic & great duet with Bono)
Kings of Leon (good despite only playing as warm-up in half empty arena)
Pearl Jam (excellent, really got the crowd going)
Robbie Williams (awful, truly awful. Should learn that getting your random mate on stage to sing badly with you is not a way to entertain a fee paying crowd. Only good songs were in the encore & even that was spoiled by combining with Rudebox, the title track to his new album)

Best piece of concert going advice in Sydney: Never, ever, under any circumstances think of traveling to the Telstra / Olympic Stadium by ferry - no matter how 'special' the journey is promised to be. Takes 45 mins & you end up at a place which is 30 mins away from the stadium by 'fun bus' & struggle to get home - the train from the CBD takes 20 mins.

On a separate note, I spent part of this afternoon at work trying to explain to one of my colleagues who Jade Goody was. I really think that I have done my fellow Englishmen no good in admitting that we have such people living in our wondrous country - and make millions too. And yes, she did 'get her kebab out' on national TV. However, I have to admit to chuckling away for a while at some of her quotes from the house. Let me share a couple with you:

"The Union Jack is for all of us, but the St George is just for London, isn't it?"
"I am intelligent, but I let myself down because I can't speak properly or spell"
"You see those things on peacocks...don't think I'm daft...but them things that look like eyes, are they real eyes?"
"Rio de Janeiro, ain't that a person?"
"They were trying to use me as an escape goat."
"Do they speak Portuganese in Portugal? I thought Portugal was in Spain"

Legendary.....

Probably the most boring man alive?

Bill Bryson, writing in his book 'Down Under', suggested that John Howard was the most boring politician he'd ever seen (or heard), and after spending a while catching some of his public appearances I have to admit I can see why.

He's sort of an Australian John Major, only duller and without the affairs. I reckon the only way he can possibly have won the election is by boring the opposition parties into submission (or maybe it was a quirk of the convoluted electoral system here).

In fact, I'm not even sure what he (or the federal government itself) does. I know he's a cricket fan as he seems to appear on every cricket TV show, but I have no idea what his policies are (apart from holding hands with George Bush) and apart from the cricket his other activities seem to be appearing at conferences in Asia looking red & wearing extraordinary pyjamas!

It seems that much of the political news in Australia is dominated by the state governments - perhaps because they continue to have members who are accused of rape, buggery and corruption - but it leaves one wondering what it is that the Federal government actually does. If anyone knows then please drop me a line! Same if anyone can explain the electoral system in a coherent sentence or two.

To walk, or not to walk.....

Today's ODI between England & Australia, and specifically, Mike Hussey's decision not to walk when glancing Anderson to the keeper, has re-ignited debate on two important points in the cricketing world.

Firstly, walking - should batsman do it? Seems that we are split between two camps; Adam Gilchrist is the most notable person in the 'walker' camp & he generally does 'walk' when he's knicked something - upholding the honest side of the game. The other side are those who wait for the umpire. Partly this comes from a genuine belief that the Umpire should be the only person making the decisions, but I'm sure that there is also the hope that the Umpire can (and they do) miss something. This is what happened this evening.

In fact, there was one notable incident when W.G. Grace was, fairly, given out by the umpire. His response was "This crowd have come here to see me, and not you my fellow"... he didn't walk & the game continued!

I guess when it comes down to it 'walking' is a question of morals, and Hussey this evening showed which side he stood on (don't for one minute think I'm trying to say English batsmen don't do the same - they do).

At the time of the incident, Hussey was on 19 & Australia were in a bit of trouble on 108, still 48 short of victory. After the reprieve Hussey compiled 46 & led the Aussies to what was, in the end, a comfortable victory. However, the snickometer & super slo-mo both suggested he should have been given out (Hussey's face after the appeal told the same story) so why was he allowed to continue & change the game?

This brings me on to the 2nd debate, the use of technology in cricket. Now, I'm a big fan of Umpires & I believe that they do a fantastic job. However, if the technology is there then why not use it? To combat the constant appealing for technology, maybe introduce a 'challenge' system similar to that in trial in tennis...where each team can challenge 2 decisions per innings? With the amount of money involved in the game & a reliance on the men in the middle I think it wise to investigate the issue further..... imagine losing the World Cup as a result of a dubious decision (has happened in football, why not cricket!). Moving on.....

Well, England lost again but at least there where a few more positives to come from the game this time. Loye looked good on debut (although at 34 hardly one for the future) but couldn't stop yet another England batting collapse (from 52-0 to 155 all out) - a real reminder of the bad old days. On the plus side our bowlers performed admirably & came within a decision or two of stealing the game. In particular, Anderson looked good & got a bit of swing - he was unlucky not to take more wickets. Let's see how we go against the Kiwis in the next game....and one thing is certain, England still look a LONG way short of challenging for the World Cup (Australia for me are strong favourites).

One final point.... I think it's becoming evident that there is an advantage of sorts in bowling 2nd in the day/night ODI games. Whether it's the change in atmospheric pressure or what I'm not sure, but the extra swing in the ball definitely suggests an increased humidity lending a helping hand.

Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Yesterday, I went for a walk in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Thought it would be good to get some fresh-air after days stuck inside a hospital & the weather was fantastic.

I did hope to see some wildlife, but as it turned out for much of the walk I only saw plenty of insects, lots of spiders webs (although thankfully no spiders) which seemed to be doing a good job at keeping the flies away, and some pretty interesting vegetation.

Then, as I approached a picnic area I noticed my little friend in the photo....he was eating the food that people had left behind & seemed very friendly, not at all scared by the humans wandering around taking photos of him! The meeting of the lizard, together with some stunning views of Pittwater more than made up for the lack of mammals on show (turns out they only come out at night, when the park happens to be closed).

Amazingly enough, this National Park is only 15km from where I live, and 30km from the centre of Sydney. In fact, Sydney has many National Parks surrounding it (indeed the harbour itself is classed as a National Park) and has to be one of the best cities in the world for spotting wildlife.

Oh, whilst checking out some Aboriginal caves almost walked in on two people getting it on. She looked a bit like Kath (from Kath & Kim show) and they both spent the two minutes I was there fastening their pants. Unfortunately, didn't get my camera out in time to take a shot of them!

Little Penguin

On Saturday evening I went to meet Lucy from the Manly ferry (she'd been to a jazz festival in the Domain - with another 100,000 Sydney residents).

On the way I noticed a crowd of people gathered around a spot overlooking the beach in Manly Cove. Being a curious person, I wondered over to see what was going on... and I found to my surprise that there was two baby 'Little Penguins' pottering around, whilst the parents slept beneath the boardwalk. It really was a fascinating site & not something I ever thought I would see in such a built-up area. Most impressive was the nonchalance that one of the penguins had draping his arm over a metal barrier.

Of course, Lucy was enthralled by the penguins & I'm pretty sure that if I'd suggested it she would have taken one home with her! Needless to say, most of the telephone conversations Lucy had for the next 24hrs seemed to revolve around those penguins.

Amazing sight though....an a great demonstration of the diverse wildlife that Australia is so fortunate to possess.

Small World.....

Just spent the last 3 days in hospital... not the most fun I've ever had but I did get to use the cliche - "It's a small world" for the 1st time during my stay in Sydney.

The doctor who initially examined me was English - from Hexham - and so we started chatting, and eventually realized that we had a mutual friend in London! And if that wasn't coincidence enough, I was talking to an English nurse, from Leeds, (seems most of the staff were English or Irish) for a while whilst waiting for a bed. Transpired that for 4yrs her boyfriend was my cousin! (And it's not like I have a legion of cousins) How strange is that?

Thankfully, I was discharged from hospital without anything too serious been detected and have planned to go out for a beer or two with the doc sometime soon. Will be good to have another friend here, as despite the general friendliness of the Aussies there is just a little something lacking there and both Lucy & I have found it a little tough to make 'real' friends with people.

One thing I would say is that my stay in hospital was much better than any I have endured in the UK. Treatment was prompt & I was given a multitude of tests, scans, etc that would have taken an age in the UK. The nurses were all very friendly & efficient...and the doctor gave some very good advice & had a great bed-side manner. And this was in a public (rather than private) hospital...so really makes me question the efficiency of the NHS in the UK. Maybe it's time the government / public got over themselves and realize that significant changes are needed.

My only complaint was that the rooms on the other side of the corridor had a superb view of the harbour (surely the best view from a hospital room anywhere in the world) whilst from my room I could see ...... well not much really!

The Pursuit of HappYness

Yesterday, Lucy & I went to the cinema to watch the Pursuit of Happyness. Excellent performances from Will Smith & his real-life son, Jaden, saved the movie from descending into typical Hollywood mushiness. It's almost heartbreaking to see the two of them have to sleep in their 'cave' (a public toilet) and then fight for a spot in a hostel. The day-to-day fight which the two of them endured really brought home a few things for me, and made me realize that I am extremely lucky to be in my current situation, and should be thankful for what I have.

The movie got one thinking on how the value of money can change from person to person. At one point Will (or Chris as his character is called) is down to his last $10 in the world, and his boss (Dean Witter Chairman) asks to borrow $5 (not knowing the true situation). Just try to imagine what was going through the character's mind as he hands over the cash, realizing that he'll be on the street tonight as a result. Incredible & heartwarming. Needless to say, it's a movie I'd recommend - but take a tissue or two.

And the movie also highlighted what an interesting document the 'Declaration of Independence' is (& on further reading the US constitution). It's intriguing that such an important document sought to mention 'the pursuit of happiness' along with 'Life & Liberty'. The founding fathers - Washington, Jefferson & Franklin amongst them were fascinating people and perhaps I'll return to them at a later date.

On a lighter note, today I was at the ice-cream store with Lucy when I caught sight of this guy with tattoos covering his arm. As one does, I looked at a few of them & then had to stop myself laughing as I noticed the largest tattoo had quite a spelling mistake. It read: "Life is to short". Maybe too short to check grammar? I wonder if he realizes?

And when they were good, they were very, very good....

I guess last night's defeat in the ODI gives me the perfect opportunity to dwell a little more on the cricket this summer....remember that The Ashes series was between the teams ranked No. 1 & 2 in the world for Test cricket. Turns out the gap is still massive, as the 5-0 scoreline demonstrated, so what went wrong for England?

For my liking the series was over before that fateful first ball from Harmison flew to 2nd slip. In fact it was over the day or two after the last Ashes series when England were busy drinking themselves into oblivion, partying in Trafalgar Square and receiving MBEs. Whilst they were doing that, Australia were busy thinking about how to get the Ashes back.... and notice there has been no open-top bus trip through the streets after the historic 5-0 win.
England arrived in Australia too near the 1st Test having, with the result that they could not get in enough time on the very different Australian wickets.
This error was compounded by picking the wrong team for the 1st Test (a keeper-batsman who couldn't keep or score runs, a spinner who couldn't spin) & sticking with it for too long.
England managed to throw away the Adelaide Test on the last day after scoring 500+ runs in the 1st innings - and this brought to light another of England's failures - it's tail. Throughout the series Australia knew that once they got the top order of England out then the last 5 wickets would be easy prey - I'm not sure that once did the last 5 English wickets compile more than 50 runs which is shocking.
My fear of England being unable to bowl Australia out twice in 5 days was also realized - at times it just seemed that they were incapable of bowling the most simple deliveries - "line & length boys, line & length".

At times England outplayed Australia for a session or two and looked to have at least a draw sewn up in Adelaide, and a chance for a while in Perth, but Melbourne was an embarrassment & Sydney a cakewalk for the Aussies.

The many members of the Barmy Army who paid a fortune to get over here, and provided vocal support throughout, should be ashamed of the way this England team capitulated - especially as Watermelon Hats were banned.

Of course, England were also up against a great Australian team who were determined to win back the Ashes. Any team with Hayden, Ponting, Hussey & Gilchrist is going to score a few runs, whilst with bowlers of the calibre of Warne, McGrath & the emerging Clark they are going to take wickets. At times the bowling was so precise that it just strangled the life out of England. The Australian's were well & truly worthy of the 5-0 margin.

The question for Australia now is just how they replace the great players who are retiring now, and will continue to do so over the course of the next year or so.

Seems that a couple of batsmen are vying for the opening spot vacated by Langer, and Clark is a ready made replacement for McGrath...but how do you replace someone like Warne? Admittedly, he did start to look a little tired this series, but he's going to be a hard act to follow. As will Gilchrist when he goes.


Onto the ODI and this time you had the team ranked No.1 in the world against the No.8 (as only Bangladesh, Zimbabwe & Kenya are below England I guess they are at the bottom) and it showed.
In the 20/20 game Australia's batsmen just powered through the English bowling and set a total which England never looked like matching.

Gilchrist was playing so well that he was talking to the commentators on the camera mic as he launched one ball for six. Amusing moment when the camera panned to the crowd & I caught site of one bloke with a huge sign saying "The people behind me can't see"...they definitely couldn't.

It was also revealed that Gilchrist had the nickname 'Church' (it was emblazoned on the back of his shirt). On his first tour to England a little kid was asking for autographs from the Australian players...gets all their names right until he gets to Gilchrist. The kid looks at him and says "Are you Eric Gilchurch?" It's stuck - and prompted a few signs at the next game with people claiming that they were the REAL Eric Gilchurch!

On to the MCG & England were once again comprehensively outplayed, they never got going with the bat and the innings was effectively over once Pietersen got hit in the ribs. Australia reached the total easily, with Ponting looking in great form. Quite why England have the idea of putting in a 37yr old wicket-keeper making his debut & a bunch of no-bodies to try & beat the best in the world is beyond me.

The World Up in March is looking VERY promising for Australia & on this form it's difficult to see anyone matching them - their batting line-up is long & powerful, whilst the bowling attack is varied and the fielding awesome. The only doubt is that they do not really have a wicket-taking spinner....but I'm sure they can overcome that & make it 3 in a row (do they get to keep it then?). And to cap it all off Australia even have a much more tasteful uniform!

England on the other hand should plan on doing nothing more than topping up the tan & I hope they haven't put a deposit down on the hotel for longer than the opening rounds.

One final mention, this time on the TV coverage. During the last Ashes series the big thing was "Hawk-eye" & I lost count of the number of times Hussain & Atherton mentioned 'nurdle' (is that a made up word?). This time the big TV thing is the "Hot-Spot" (an infra-red camera which shows the heat generated by impact of ball on bat / pads) and the mention is of the "ball getting big". Most interestingly, whilst in the UK the coverage NEVER shows streakers, here they pan out so that you can't see the detail but you can see the police chase, which is often highly amusing. Unfortunately, no female streakers yet.

Xmas & New Year in Oz

It's probably a bit late to be writing about the festive season (or a bit early for 2007) but I do have something to write & I guess it's better late than never!

Despite my not being 100%, Lucy & I managed to have a decent time, although it was definitely VERY different from the UK version!

For a start the weather was much warmer (although we did have a fair amount of drizzle & even some fog), and in general I got the feeling that Christmas just wasn't celebrated as such a huge event. Crude examples would be the garbage collection men out on Xmas Day and the lack of festive TV schedules, but the most disappointing thing was the lack of decorations anywhere. Apart from the occasional tree in a shopping Mall there was nothing...the average high street in England would have more lights & trees than the centre of Sydney.

I bowed to pressure from Lucy, and my sister Kirsty, and got a tree for the house. However, by the time I got to the store the choice was a little limited - a little pink number, a care-worn natural version or a ridiculously expensive tree from the department store. Eventually, I found a decent looking one, which pretty much filled our criteria for $125 and quickly got it home. It was only when I unpacked it that I realized I had just purchased a 7ft tall tree! Just as well we have tall ceilings here....although it still looked bare with the few decorations we added.

On Xmas Eve, having overheard several people at work talking about going to see "the Xmas lights in Avalon", Lucy & I set out to take a look to get into the festive season ourselves.
We got to Avalon High St. (the obvious place?) and not decoration was to be seen, apart from the neon purple sign in the local Indian restaurant, or the piece of tinsel in the pizza shop window!
Feeling a little downbeat we decided to have a cruise around to see if we could find anything & eventually came upon 'the lights'. Now we hadn't expected something on the scale of Blackpool illuminations, or Oxford St, but what we found was a street of 8-10 houses with a few lights and that was it. One or two of the houses looked impressive, and at least they'd made some sort of effort, but quite why people where making the effort to go and see them I'm really not sure (unbelievably Lucy & I were not the only people taking a look - whole families had gone out for the craic!).

Xmas Day itself was spent with VanEsy's family, and what a lovely day it was. It was great to have kids running around (that makes Xmas really) and to have lots of people to celebrate with. Lucy & I were made to feel really welcome and thoroughly enjoyed the day. Did make me think that perhaps I'd missed out a little on not having a big family around for Xmas when growing up, but I guess that can't be helped....and I'm not sure how well we'd have lasted the day given my sister insisted on waking at 5am (or earlier) until she was 18!
It was a little surreal having Xmas lunch (which was fantastic & certainly different from home - although no Yorkshire Pudding!) outside, with the sun shining, and kids running around whilst their Grandfather fed meat to Kookaburra's! And I managed to avoid chipping my teeth on the six-pences placed into the Xmas pud.
Must remember to send that Thankyou card.


As it turns out New Year was a somewhat more celebrated event than Christmas. Lucy & I had left it a little too late to book into a hotel (unless we wanted to fork out $2,000+) and the effort required to get into the City seemed a little too much so we decided to stay in Manly.
We popped into a neighbour's party on the way to Manly Cove & then treat ourselves to a little picnic....bottle of Cloudy Bay & some dessert wine....and watched the fireworks put on by the local council (together with all those displays we could see in the distance). It was actually a very relaxing evening, as we sat on the beach, chatted, ate, drank, watched some fireworks and generally enjoyed ourselves.
We were back home by midnight (the Manly display was on a 9pm) and we watched the Harbour Bridge display on TV....looked spectacular, although not sure why the TV producer kept cutting to drunken members of the Neighbours cast rather than focusing on the fireworks.
For this year, we're planning on getting in early and arranging tickets to watch the display from Taronga zoo....offers great views and removes a lot of the hassle of getting into the City.

A really long, pointless fence....

After writing about rabbits in the last blog for some reason my mind was cast on the story of the Rabbit Proof Fence....the longest, and most pointless fence in the world.

The No 1 Rabbit Proof Fence was completed in 1907 (started in 1901) and stretches north to south across the state of Western Australia for a total of 1,837km and it provided little deterrent to the pesky bunnies. After this failure the WA Government decided to build another two fences (which had more success) bringing the total to 3,256km of fencing.

Seems that the No 1 Rabbit Proof Fence failed to keep rabbits out (they hadn't noted that rabbits can jump & burrow and some people even kindly left the gates open for them!), but it was quite handy for finding your way home if you were part of the 'Stolen Generation'
(Watch or read 'The Rabbit-proof Fence', both very good & unbelievable that such things happened so recently - although then again at the same time Hitler was about to come to power in Germany)

There's also a Dingo Fence but that's a story for another day....

Down Under with Bryson

I've been reading Bill Bryson's excellent book 'Down Under' for the past few days (which I would thoroughly recommend to all) and as well as laughing out loud at some points, I've also often nodded in agreement as he comments on all things Australian - he really does have a sharp eye.

At one point he ends up in Surfer's Paradise talking to a barmaid who's from Canberra...here's how the conversation goes:

"'So which is better, Canberra or Surfers Paradise?'
'Oh, Surfers by a mile.'
I raised an eyebrow. 'It's that good, is it?'
'Oh no,' she said emphatically, amazed that I had misread her. 'Canberra's that bad.'
I smiled at her solemnly.
She nodded with conviction. 'I reckon if you were going to rank things for how much pleasure they give - you know? - Canberra would come somewhere below breaking your arm.' I grinned and she grinned too. 'Well, at least with a broken arm you know it'll get better!'"

Having been to both of those places I know exactly what she means. However, I spent 30 mins at Surfers (basically a poor version of Blackpool but without the lights, the tram or the tower!) and would never feel an urge to return, whilst Canberra (historic buildings from 1927!) had at least some mild interest to me (although ZERO nightlife).

Another point Bill talks about is the large number of things that can kill you in Australia...and getting a shock with the spider on my balcony this morning (non-poisonous this time) reminded me of that. Snakes and spiders are just the start of it here, there's also sharks, stonefish, box jelly-fish, sea-snakes and crocodiles - and if that's not enough the number of lethal sting-ray attacks is increasing too. Oh, and there's a huge bird - the Cassowary - similar in size to an Emu but with claws which can slit your throat. Of course, the number of deaths from each of these is not huge, but I am curious as to why so many deadly things reside in one country....and most Australians seem very nonchalant about the whole thing!

One final point from the book, and then I'll stop ruining it for you, is about rabbits. Amazingly enough, rabbits have had by far and away the most devastating effect on the ecology of Australia - as well as destroying swathes of farmland, plant species & the habitats of many native species (to blame for extinction of 1/8 of all Australian mammalian species) they are to blame for many of the erosion problems here. There are now 300 million rabbits in Australia, and this is just half of the number prior to myxomatosis being released into the population in 1950....all of this from an initial release of just 24 rabbits in 1859 (a Thomas Austin released them so that he could pursue his hobby of rabbit shooting).... I guess that's where the term 'breeding like rabbits' comes from. (24 to 600,000,000 in 90 years is some going!)

Early Observations

Having been here for just over 3 months I guess I'm qualified to make a few observations.

The 1st thing I would say is that Australia seems to be still searching for it's own identity. At the moment, Australia is culturally somewhere between UK and USA...the UK connection is obvious, but I'm not sure where the US link comes from since there really isn't that many Americans here - perhaps TV?

The service is generally very friendly and efficient, much better than England, but without the 'in-your-face' nature of US service. However, the banks are AWFUL. Go into one of the Citibank branches and attempt any transaction and they will direct you to a telephone so that you can speak to someone in the Phillipines, go into HSBC & despite having a UK account with them for 16 years it is almost impossible to open one in Australia.....and it does not get much better at the domestic banks. Customer service is shoddy, REALLY shoddy.

Cars drive on the left (as in UK) but there are very few roundabouts (similar to the US) and everything is metric (French?).
Most of the cars are automatic - which as it turns out is not a bad idea given all the traffic lights & junctions you have to stop at. And the road signs are terrible.... often they come AT the turning rather than before and sometimes even AFTER.... missing your turn can be a nightmare.

TV shows are pretty much split between modern US crime shows (CSI, etc) & old UK comedy (Benny Hill, Frank Spencer) whilst the adverts are most definitely more of the American ilk... in fact they are awful & lack any sort of intrigue or comedy value - the Gusiness adverts would most definitely not go down well here.
A typical example would be an ad for a shop selling doors; bloke comes on screen and shouts "Doors, Doors, Come and Get your Doors.....Doors, Doors, We sell Doors"...then reals off a load of prices. To the point or what?
And of course the adverts also fall the annoying US habit on TV shows with the show about to finish, then adverts, then show returns for 20 seconds plus the titles.....why oh why do they do that? Just finish the damn show!

The language is also mixed; rubbish is garbage, shopping centre is a mall, and petrol is called gas (actually it's more difficult to get diesel here than it is to get lpg). The Australians also make up their own words for things....one which seems to appear in the Press a lot is ICE (actually crystal meths if you're from UK). On that subject a lot of fuss tends to be made out of small events here... the 'Police Update' page seen in most papers tends to have petty things in it, like a window getting smashed...hardly newsworthy!
And just like in the US there are a limited number of regional accents. In fact, here there seems to be a 'city accent' and a 'country accent'...nothing else. Compare that to the UK where you can drive 30 miles in the UK & be faced with huge differences (Scouse - Mancunian, Geordie - Teesside (yes there is a difference!)).

Bill Bryson makes an observation in his book, that stepping outside the major cities is like stepping into 1958 in the USA. Well, I'm not old enough to know what 1958 was like, but I know what he means, and to be honest you don't even need to leave the City. Whilst Sydney does come across on the surface as new & vibrant, there is something distinctly 'old school' about it. Maybe it's the old ferries still in regular service, maybe it's the many high streets which hark back to a by-gone age with butchers, bakers, fishmongers, ironmongers and several laundries (rather than just one out of town supermarket - it's actually quite a nice thing but not as convenient & also makes eating at home as expensive as eating out...on that subject books are damn expensive too).
Or maybe it's the complete lack of political correctness (not sure how people get away with using the terms Wogs or Chinks in today's society) - given the amount of British TV on here I'm not at all sure why Alf Garnett isn't on the box he'd go down a treat with some of his views. Not sure how the politicians are surprised that race riots happened a couple of years ago.... it may have been the result of a life saver getting beaten but my guess is it's been brewing for a LONG time. Did you know that it wasn't until 1967 that the Government included Aborogines in the census? And that up to the 1960s Queensland used a text book which described Aborogines as 'feral creatures'?

What else can I ramble on about? Well there's the rum & coke on tap (or served in a can if you prefer), the random names for beer measures (schooners & midis as well as pints), the fact that nearly all Australians think we like warm beer in the UK, that bars ask you to leave the moment that you appear even slightly drunk, some hotels have condoms in the mini-bar (any ideas?), most bars have an abundance of 'pokies' (in fact gambling is often the only way some bars stay in business - but it is still sad watching some people feed in their wages), and most of the beach fronts really do not make the most of their location. Bondi is a prime example for this, known around the world for it's beachfront yet how many bars or restaurants are located there? 3 and one of them is terrible....

Finally, I can't fail but mention the apparent love of queues and queueing! The English have a terrible reputation for enjoying queueing but I can promise you this pales in comparison to the Aussies. Go for a bus & you face a queue (actually refreshing after the scrambles on London Transport), post a letter & you can queue for up to an hour!, go to the local store & you face a lengthy queue, want to ask a question at the tourist information? You'd better queue..... gain entry to a bar? You'll be queueing. Why so many queues exist I'm uncertain, maybe it's lack of staff, or the fact that when you do get served the service is exceptional..... but let me tell you, it's damn annoying! One day, Lucy & I are going to go and stand in the street to create a random queue, just to see if anyone lines up behind us. (This was one of Lucy's time-fillers on her way home from school!)

Oh, and I'd better not forget the flies. They haven't been too bad of late, and I'm told they are much worse in the Northern Territories, but believe me when I say they are persistant. No matter how many times you try to swat them away they will attempt to enter your mouth, nose, ears, basically anywhere with moisture..... and for a laugh try opening your mouth to drink some water... you'll be blowing out flys for a week.

The Cat on The Mat

I hope that you've enjoyed (or at least read) the 'update e-mails' I've been sending on a monthly (or thereabouts basis)... however I thought that they were a bit cumbersome and by the time I got around to writing one I'd often forgotten what I'd been up to or was in such a rush to get down what I'd actually done that it just became a monontonous list of events and had no real feeling or humour (no comments on how that is exactly like me please!).

Anyway, I thought that having a blog might be an easier way of doing things, keep you all more up to date with goings on here, and hopefully solicit a few more comments.

Before I came here, KB said that I should remember that 'life goes on at home' whilst I'm here and that's something I've really had to take on board.... but if you do get the time to jot down even a comment to a posting then it would be appreciated.
We'll see how this goes and maybe I'll revert to e-mails at a later stage.

The photo of Spot playing Twister has just reminded me of something.... shortly after arriving here in Oz I decided it might be a good idea to have a couple of board-games in the house (always enjoyed them growing up) as they might come in handy so I wandered off to the local mall.... came back with Jenga and Scrabble.... unfortunately I'd forgotten that Lucy was dyslexic! Needless to say that hasn't been used much.