Top 5 things to do in Canberra

5. Rediscover alcohol. See, until you come to Canberra you will no doubt have though of alcohol as perhaps a social lubricant, something to make your stories more interesting, your embellishments more entertaining and your dialoue more sparkling. However, in Canberra alcohol becomes almost a nightly necessity in order to retain one's sanity. Drinking, instead of being a means to an end (getting drunk, vomiting, waking up next to a Hattie Jacques lookalike) instead becomes the end itself. I imagine this is why so many Irish become alcholoics.

4. Stand in front of the mirror and blink really fast and try and see if you can open your eyes fast enough to see your eyes being closed because it is possible because light only travels at finite speed and muhammed ali could probably do it because he said he could turn off the light and be in bed before it got dark but to be honest that was probably a lie and he was just saying that to big himself up as they say in the hood.

3. Sit in front of a PC for hours on end trying to come up with funny, witty blog entries, but fail because the malaise that seems to lie across canberra like a suffocating fog has somehow managed to infect you too, so you barely have an original thought let alone one worth commiting to the written word. Get bored and then decide to do another 'top 5' instead.

2. Go and visit the parliament building, and gleefully fantasize about repeatedly punching each and every politician, civil servant and bureaucrat in their stupid face.

1. Read the entire BBC website.

It's not all bad!

I actually found something I liked about Canberra today! There's a little music shop called "Landspeed Records", which made me think of Richard Hammong, whihc in turn made me laugh.

Canberra, everybody!

The Breaking of The Fellowship

I've finally done the right thing, and ditched morgan. It was hard and there were tears, but he was holding me back from my true potential and we both knew it. So, at the moment, I'm in Canberra lifting furniture 12 hours a day for a living. It's fairly good work, pays nicely and most importantly it keeps me occupied. Because frankly if I didn't work every hour that God sent me this city would send me over the brink of madness in no time whatsoever. It's a desolate wasteland whose only good point is that there are roads that lead away from it. Not that I would ever want Canberra destroyed, though. You see, it's actually a very shrewd move by the Australian people. Canberra is the capital city, and as such the govornment sit and reside here, thus it's full of politicians, buearucrats and public servants (And not much else, there's no coast, it's a small city and could hardly be called cosmopolitan). You can tell this from just driving around town, there are literally more 'no parking' signs than people. However, since Canberra is a nowhere town in the middle of nowhere, it means that the politicians live miles away from the people, and what's wrong with that? Canberra's architect (yes, the city was designed, it has an awful sterile feel as a consiquence) was also clearly a drugged up spirograph fanatic. Most cities are based on squares, which is perfectly logical when you think about it, what with squares having lots corners, making life very easy if you miss a turning. Canberra is, for whatever reason, based on some kind of series of concentric circles, the circles being centred on the Parliamentary house. Not only does this make navigation and utter bloody nightmare, since the circles don't always join up, meaning if you miss an exit you're screwed, but it also means that you spend most of your time in Canberra orbiting the politicians, which no doubt boosts their collective ego immensely and only further convinces them that they are the most important people in the world, instead of the inconsiquential busybodies that they really are. In summary: Canberra, don't go there.

The only other thing of note to happen in the last few days was that Friday was "Australia Day". Having been to a fair few sporting events where aussie nationalism was on display (The Ashes) I was pretty sure what to expect, and wasn't really all that far wrong. It was basically a load of drunken aussies stumbling about and wearing their flag, singing waltzing matilda and going on about how great it is to be australian. There were loads of events and concerts and that, and even the newspapaers went all mad for it going on at length about "What it means to be Australian". Apparently, this includes "Democracy, freedom of press and a fair judiciary". I'd have thought that this also was what it means to be French, Greek or Japanese too, but there we go. Apart from the drunken flag waving and fairly meaningless generalities, there's not a lot to Australia day really. I suppose this is due to the fact that it's a young nation with no real history or culture to celebrate (unless you count a love of bbq and the beach) and any indigenous culture that did exist was crushed fairly effectively. As such the Aussies seem to cling to their flag and their sports teams perhaps a little too fervently. And as Samuel Johnson once said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel". I have no idea who this man was, but it's a nice enough quote, no?

I think that, at the moment, my opinion of Australia can best be summed up by a line from a sketch on the program The Day Today. "Nice video, shame about the song".

It Finally Happened

No, Morgan hasn't come out (yet), I've finally done an honest days work. Well, honest in that it was hard back breaking labour. You could say that it was slightly dishonest in that it was cash in hand and I didn't pay any taxes, but who gives a toss. I've done a bit of furniture lifting, hurt my back, and been paid almost $200 for the privilige. Of course, such manly work wouldn't be complete without a display of hairy flesh and the appropriate amount of ogling of the ladies whom we drove past, and I'm pleased to say that I managed both with flying colours. The only arts of furniture removal that I have yet to master are the 45 minute tea break, and the 'take a really stinky dump in the new toilet' although I believe my failure in the latter is down to my diet having too much healthy fruit and veg in it at the moment.

In other news, I still need money, so feel free to post as much as you like (relatives). Unfortunately, the Poker Millions tournament in the nearby casino has come and gone, so my chance to make a tonne of money gambling will not come to fruition. I'm very tempted to start pimping Andy, as I'm fairly sure he'd bring in a reliable stream of income which could keep me in silks. The only other exciting thing that has happened to me recently is that I played on a 'Playstation 3' the other day. It were rooobish!

The D, Free Cricket, Tennis and many other staple Aussie stuff

Well, we've managed to survive this long in what can only be described as the Australian equivalent of Manchester. Myself and the lanky one have come up with a survival plan that involves running to and from the station and ensuring we see no more of this hell hole than we absolutely have to.

Having never been to Manchester I apologise for categorising it as hell but anywhere which is home to Gary Neville and Cristiano Ronaldo is pretty much my idea of hell on earth.

We're keeping ourselves busy by going to lots of things as far away from here as possibly. Tomorrow I'm dragging Sam to the Aussie Open to see some tennis and then on friday we're off to see the D.
Now for those of you fluent in hockey, you'll know that the d is a mythical term associated with a certain Oliver Musto as well as being the band of a Mr Black. When he was shouting "top d" what he actually meant was he was making an effort to be at said postion but might get there at some point in the next few minutes. That boy had pace........................oh and we're seeing the band not the rapid hockey genius.
Speaking of Hockey, we've met up with Pete a few more times and have thus now been inducted into the circle of "ze germans" or Pete's girlfriend, Steph and friends.
Having a lot of sport in common with the stacked one has led to a strange occurance. I call it the "STEINEE" phenomonom. Which basically involves us shouting steinee in a german accent at each other when drunk. It makes the Aussies leave us alone about the cricket at least.....

Five things I've Learnt from Sam

1. Never under any circumstances fall asleep in his presence.
2. He looks wonderful with a mullet.
3. He confuses the countries Brazil and Germany.
4. He hates Andrew Symonds more than he hates Pyman.
5. He's pulled more Men than most women do in a lifetime.

That is all.

5 Celebrities Morgan Resembles Most

5. Martin Clunes
4. Ricky Tomlinson
3. Jo Brand
2. Lassie
1. Bill Cosby

Welcome To Footscray (hell)

Another chapter in our Australian adventure unfolds! You see, we've managed to find a house and settle somewhere for a month that isn't a stinky hostel. The house is quite nice, cheap and the Nepalese guy who lives there is....interesting. To say the least. The only real problem with the place is that it's in an armpit of a place called "Footscray". Just roll that around in your mouth a few times. Fuuuuhht-sceraay. Sounds like some kind of hideous podiatric disesae, doesn't it? Something involving scabs, pus and toenails dropping off with great frequency. In fact, it's not all that far from the truth. I've already been yelled at by a crackhead, seen random druggies getting arrested and stumbled across what was probably a domestic in full swing. Footscray is also the setting of a Russel Crowe film called "Romper Stomper", in which a load of Neo-Nazi thugs run around beating up the local Vietnamise community. In many ways, this place reminds me of Manchester.

I'm also running out of money at a rather alarming rate, and will soon be reduced to subsisting on 10p noodles and tapwater, just like being a student all over again really. Apart from all this, there's relatively little to report. It's been baking hot, but it rained today which was lovely. The Aussies have been crowing particularly loud about the Ashes whitewash, so I've had to put my cricket shirts into mothballs for the present. Also, Morgan is still yet to offer an opinion other than "I dunno" or "what do you think" when questioned regarding the days possible activities. I'm hopeful one day he may present a thoughtful critique of some proposed destination, but I'm not about to go hoping for it. Miracles are rare things.