Happy New Year etc

Hello!

I'm afraid that I've not got any particular ethnic group to whinge about today, sorry! It's nearly new years out here, and whilst everyone in England seems certain to spend it indoors, shivering, whilst the house is being lashed by gale force winds, I'll be doing....well....not a great deal. Possibly having a few drinks and seeing a gig or something. I'm not a big fan of the whole new years thing. It's a pretty pointless celebration, right? All we're doing is celebrating the addition of a digit to an arbitrary calendar system, and noting the fact that the Earth has completed one more lap of the Sun and is therefore one lap closer to it's inevitable destruction when the Sun goes pop. I just despise enforced jollity, I often find it brings out my inner bastard.

We've been in our hostel almost a month, now, and it's getting a bit much to bear. There's 4 guys in a room not a great deal bigger than a bathroom, the window opens exactly 1 inch, and the room cleaning consists of being woken up every now and then when some bugger bustles into the room to empty the bin. Suffice to say, the room is beginning to pong. This is thanks in no small part to our French roommate (who has an unpronouncable name, and thus is referred to as "pierre"). He seems to take the French disregard to hygiene to new levels, and presumable considers showers to be something that should be taken in concordance with a solar eclipse. Perhaps he's a druid, who knows? What I do know is that the man's musk is probably attracting polar bears even as we speak, and that my life is no doubt in great danger. To rub salt into this, the hostel prices are being raised in a few weeks, and as such I'll be being charged over 50 fecking quid a week to live in a something the size (and smell) of a shoebox. We really need to find a flat. Especially as we now have a copy of SNES Street Fighter 2, but no SNES and no TV to play it on. Franly, I don't care, as I've finally got something I can consistantly whip Morgan's ass at.

Wacky Crimbo and a Zany New year, everyone!

Continuing my series of vaguely racist rants I'm now going to complain about the Irish. Or, at least, their pubs. You see, as soon as an Irishman has been out of his country for about 5 minutes, he starts to feel a gnawing feeling inside his belly, he get the tremors, turns pale and begins to hallucinate. Why? Withdrawal symptoms, of course! He's missing his good ol' Oirish Pub!

Isish pubs are the most bloody ubiquitous thing in the world. Whether you're in an Alpine ski resort, an Australian city, the Sarah desert or even Atlantis you're probably never more than 5 minutes from one of these holes. I hate them, I really do. I hate the way that they're all dingy and smoke filled. I hate the way that the Guinness (brewed locally, and tasting of piss) is the most overpriced thing in the universe. I hate the way that the decor only ever consists of adverts from the 1920's and old farming equipment. But most of all, I hate the guy who plays acoustic covers of dreck like The Proclaimers every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. The thing I want to know is, if I hate them so much, how come I always accidentally seem to find my way into one?

Oceans, mountains and mozzies.

To those of you who actually looks at this, sorry, we've been a bit poor in updating it recently so this might be a bit of a monster entry.

Been up to quite a bit in Melbourne and have settled here for quite a while it seems.
We also must apologise for the smugness we displayed when we got tickets for some of the MCG test match. Yes we were smug bastards, yes karma has come around to bite us in the arse.
Still should be an awesome day at one of the best stadiums in the world and with any luck we may see Warneys 700th wicket.

We took a bit of a road trip the other day down the Great Ocean Road then ventured north to the Grampian mountains. The views were fantastic and it was a great drive but one thing really captured my imagination. We visited a place so special that I still can't comprehend the greatness of it. The Lighthouse from "Round the Twist"! Admitedly it was just a lighthouse but we were genuinely excited beyond belief.
Now I've seen the Opera House, been up the Eiffel Tower, visited the Colloseum, gazed in awe at the pyramids and I can safely say that this topped them all.
It was AWESOME!
The only downer of the road trip was the fact that a bastard mosquito tried and succeeded in putting a small mountain range on my back and arms.

There's still loads for us to do in Melbourne so our fun filled adventures will continue. However we must make one key decision above all else at present. Do we visit the set of Neighbours? there's also a possibility of getting pissed with some of the cast. Now, neither of us are exactly the biggest neighbours fans in the world but we understand that a lot of you guys are. So do we do it just to spite you all? This karma craps annoying, i fear if we do then Lee Trundle may get struck down with injury for the rest of the season.

Sam's still being Sam and is currently waging a one man war against facebook for deleting his "I am the Ipswich Ripper" group. Don't think I've ever seen him this upset.

Its weird it nearly being christmas out here, I don't feel christmassy at all. Not really buying presents and to send you all cards would cost me a friggin fortune so you'll just have to settle for my christmas wishes to all and hope you all have an brilliant time for christmas and new year.

If anyone desperately wants a postcard or any of that crap put your address up here and I'll decide if your important enough! oh and I've finally put some photos on facebook as well.

Ok, getting bored of bloggin now, think I might go get me a nice cold one and sit out in the sun!

love to all


Morgan

Hellfire and Brimstone and Melbourne, oh my!

I don't know, what're the odds? I come away to Australia for 6 months, and then something exciting actually starts happening in East Anglia for the first time in a decade! For Christs sake! Ah well, at least I've got a watertight alibi, eh? I hope that the tabloids back home come up with something more original than the "Ipswich Ripper", though.

My kitchen-based ire has now shifted away entirely from Germans, and is blazing full force in the direction of the multitude of sloppy Asians who are inhabiting the cookery. It appears that the Koreans, in particular, have something of a gift for spot-weilding rice to the bottom of a pan. I have no idea why or how they do this. I can only assume that in aincient times, they somehow used to use cooked rice to create armour for their warriors, because this stuff is harder than bloody granite. I swear, kitchens out here should come equipped with a chisel as standard washing up equipment.

As Morgan so correctly stated earlier, we've been in Melbourne a week or so now, and it's generally a nice city. Although it appears that it is not the most geographically gifted city in the world, located as it is in the middle of a seemingly endless infirno of nearby bush. Apparently the current bushfires are the worst on record, which is hardly surprising as at the moment every natural phenomenon seems to be setting new records with ease. I'm sure that global warming is essentially the weather equivalent of steroids. Anyway, the nearby fires are gifting the city with a wonderful, smoky atmosphere. You can rarely see the sky, and everyone seems to be coughing lots. It's all terribly atmospheric, and I do rather feel like I'm living in a 40's noir film.

I had perhaps my favourite moment of the holiday thus far, earlier today. I'd nipped out to make a quick phone call, at about 8am, when out of the blue two asian guys, who were either stoned drunk or both, stumbled up to me and asked if I knew of any strip joints that would still be open. Which, you have to admit, is a hell of a lot better than Weetabix for breakfast.

A legend was born and he was stacked

For those of you old enough to remember, a major event has occured in the travels of myself and Spamuel. Of all the people in all the citys in all the world we've met one so awesomely beyond belief that I've frequently been seen slapping myself to confirm that I haven't slipped into an alcohol induced sleep.
So for those Trevelyanites that may (or may not) read this we have met up with the man, the legend, the dancing monster that is Pete Hull! It's really odd to me as I didn't really know Pete in my time at Durham as he graduated in my first year but Sam knew him quite well. Thus we met up for lunch and a wander with Pete and his charming girlfriend in Melbourne CBD. He's still stacked, a lovely bloke and according to his missus still the greatest dancer the world has ever known.
It's always nice to see a friendly face and I appreciate being able to get to know Pete while I'm out here. To JJ he sends his love and to Middleton he responded with a "what the fuck? he's still there!".

Melbourne really is my spiritual home, sport is on here 24/7 and it's awesome. So many of the pubs are like the "old" and better New Inn with sports on constantly, cheap beer and pool tables a plenty! (Current Score lies at 26-12).
Beaches are about 10 minutes on the tram down the road and best of all the MCG is within walking distance.

Things are generally cool out here at the moment but we're starting to get freaked out by christmas being present in a place where it rarely gets below 20 degrees. Think myself and Spam are adopting a policy of concentrating all remaining hope we have on the cricket.

So all of you will be singing carols, stuffing stockings & wearing delightful rollnecks with reindeers on. With that we wish you all well. But I think I'm gonna concentrate on Cricket, Sun, Surf, Sea and Sand!

Merry Christmas to All


Morgan

Dunkirk 2006

After witnessing Sam's rage reach boiling point we decided to make a swift retreat from Brisbane to the much nicer (and more British) city of Melbourne. The aforementioned rage was due to a number of factors, firstly the most ineffcient Germans known to man in the kitchen, meaning he was permanently getting hungry! Followed closely by the fact he's still getting battered at pool. The current score lying at 18-5. However all is well at the moment as someone is watching anchorman in the hostel, thus he's grinning like a cheshire cat on acid.

Brisbane was fun, but ultimately too hot and pretty boring. For a the third biggest city in Oz there really wasn't much there. Plus after watching more cricket I feel If I'm going to survive out here for another 4 months I need to revert back to a Welsh Accent! I can't take the taunting any more........................Bloody fat boy Warne.

So we hopped on a flight this morning and have just checked in here. Melbourne seems really nice and has a lot more to it than Brissy, plus everywhere you look there are sports grounds. I really like it here!

It seems from the few comments we get that the general perception is that all we're doing is drinking and playing pool. So to those naysayers.............your pretty much right! But we're doing it in an environment where we have no responsibility and have no-one nagging us about what we're doing with our lives. So HA! Also we have seen a few sights here and there, the gabba, sydney opera house and apparently we walked across the harbour bridge but think I'd had one too many at that point!
Plus just got more tickets for the cricket, what a waste of money.

Hope your all ok back there in winter (we're not gonna see one of them for a while)!

Mwahahahahaha

Morgana

Bloody Germans...

You do get some odd insights out here, or at least that's what it seems. For example, over the last few days I've really come to admire the German army in the late 1930's. See, as everyone knows they managed to Blitzkreig their way through most of Europes armies in a matter of weeks. However, a lesser known fact is that they did this fighting for at most an hour a day. The rest of the time, it would appear, they were ensconsed in the kitchen, either taking an hour to make a cheese sandwich, or two hours to wash up the 3 pots, 2 bowls, 10 knives, 6 plates and a whisk that it took to make the wretched sandwich in the first place.

German efficiency my arse.

Dear Lord...

OK, I think I've probably had enough of Australia now, and am just about ready to come home. I think the heat has driven me insane. You see, the other night at about 3am I had a kebab. This, however, was not just any old kebab. Oh no, it was a delicious, tasty, juicy kebab with meat that was identifiably lamb. Of course, I know that this is an impossibility. I have therefore concluded that all the craziness of this continent, things like the toilet water swirling down the wrong way (this is actually a lie, and doesn't happen) have conspired to make me utterly fucking loopy. There is no other explanation. None.

I suppose that it could just be the air, mind. Since it transpires that Brisbane seems to be the marijuana capital of the universe. I think that tobacco smokers are actually in the minority in this part of the world, which is by no means a bad thing.

Apart from the hallucinations, kebabs and drugs, there's really not a lot going on in Brisbane. The most exciting thing about our hostel is that when you take a shower, it feels like you're being bathed in a nice, warm stream of pins. I suppose that this is an achievement of some kind. Otherwise, life is nice and warm and dull, which makes for excellent blog material. I'm not even annoyed at anything particularly, at the moment. Apart from Jamie Oliver's face. It's everywhere, even out here. I suppose it's an indictment of Australian culture that they can't even come up with their own celebrity chefs, and instead they have to steal ours. Not only do they steal our chefs, but they also manage to steal the most irritating bugger out of the lot of them. I mean, take Ainsley for God's sake, he's a nice enough guy and his cup-a-soups are almost edible. Still, if it means that Oliver's not on British tv all the time, it can only be a good thing, right?