Death and Breakfast

20 Facts You Never Knew About... EGGS!

2011-10-08T16:42:00.001+01:00

1. The shape of an egg can be described as a prolate spheroid, usually consisting of a prolate half and a roughly spherical (potentially even minorly oblate) ellipsoid joined at the equator, sharing a principal axis of rotational symmetry. Or - to put it another way – eggs are egg-shaped.

2. The many thousands of eggs adorning kitchen tables across the land each morning come from chickens. However, although the eggs typically consumed by humans are, by a large margin, chickens’ eggs, there are many other types of eggs in the world. These include ostrich eggs - which are huge - and pheasant eggs, which are fowl.

3. Also, ducks.

4. Oh, and then there's caviar. That counts too. It's fish eggs.

5. Fritzl. Moat. Shipman. Goering. You may think these gentlemen had nothing in common, but you’d be flat out wrong. As it so happens, the four of them each enjoyed the exact same thing for breakfast every single day of the week – a soft-boiled egg, lightly salted, with toast soldiers for dipping. (Apart from Sundays, when Moat would choose to break his fast with a packet of honey-roast ham from his local Morrison's.)

6. The expression "dog eggs" does not literally mean the egg of a canine; this would be preposterous, for dogs are mammals and do not lay eggs in the traditional, biological sense. No, it just means dog shit.

7. Egg cups are thought to have been in use since prehistoric times, with some of the earliest dating back to the Bronze Age. It’s likely these early egg cups were in fact made of bronze, rather than the porcelain variety common today. They also probably weren’t shaped like miniature monks, VW camper vans or testicles.

8. The term "poaching" can be used to describe not only the act of illegal hunting, but also the process of simmering food - such as eggs - in liquid. It can also mean the act of illicit snowboarding, but this has about as much to do with eggs as stealing plants and animals. Unless of course you’re poaching wild birds, then stealing eggs from their nests. Then that’s pretty egg-related.

9. The largest omelette ever made contained over 110,000 eggs and was prepared by 80 chefs. Once finished, it was consumed by a single man, which was fitting as omelettes are a staple food for men who can’t get a girlfriend. He remarked at the time, "It was a bit on the plain side - could’ve done with some grated cheese."

10. When storing eggs at home, the optimum temperature is 4°C or below. It’s also possible to freeze eggs for future use, but this is only done by very weird people who smell of biscuits and have no friends.

11. At Easter, people often like to fill their faces with egg-shaped chocolate treats whilst watching The Sound of Music or whatever other film Channel Five happens to be showing. The reason we have chocolate eggs at Easter is neither interesting nor relevant. As for the idea of the Easter Bunny laying eggs for children to find, that’s just perverse. Especially if rabbit eggs are anything like dog eggs.

12. The egg-and-spoon race popular at so many primary school sports days is now often carried out with some kind of ball instead of an actual egg. This is an example of both political correctness and health and safety going mad simultaneously, all at the same time.

13. The scientific term for the study of eggs is Oology. The scientific term for a student of Oology is an egg-head.

14. Popular BBC general knowledge quiz "Egg Heads" is actually a misnomer, for the regular panel are not students of Oology, nor do they have shell craniums containing a yolk suspended in albumen. However, as an interesting aside, host Dermot Murnaghan once took half a dozen organic eggs from his local farm without paying.

15. The word egg can be used to form the basis of many puns, often found in newspaper headlines. Popular examples include 'egg-static', 'eggs-centric' and 'eggs-cellent'. People who use such lazy witticisms are themselves referred to as 'predictable cunts'.

16. Owing to their striking resemblance, small, virtually flat breasts are sometimes referred to as ‘fried eggs'. These are often a source of great frustration and disappointment to any gentleman hoping for a ‘sausage sandwich’.

17. The Latin word for egg, or egg cell, is 'ovum'. In human beings, the ovum is one of the largest cells in the body. Measuring in with a diameter of 0.2mm, they’re actually visible to the naked eye, should a naked eye be looking for one. Contrary to popular belief, this type of ‘egg’ doesn’t taste nice when scrambled with a dollop of HP.

18. King Egbert of Wessex was - ironically - not a fan of eggs, and on many occasions attempted to ban them across his realm and beyond. In the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, he is quoted as saying "þy geare geeode Ecgbriht cing Myrcna rice eall þæt be suþan Humbre wæs" or, in modern English, "Begone all the eggs of this fair land, through Mercia to the Humber, for I detest thee more than thou could ever knoweth."

19. Scotch eggs are not simply eggs from Scotland, but rather a snack consisting of a hard-boiled egg swathed in a sausage-meat mixture, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. They are popularly found at depressing family picnics, cheap wedding buffets, and underneath seats on public transport, usually half-squashed and covered in grime.

20. Scottish eggs, however, are simply eggs from Scotland.

Life's A Beach... And Then You Fry

2010-09-20T20:48:00.001+01:00

The Australian Adventure
Part 7
Original e-mail date
Wed, 20 Sep, 2006

Hey up, one and all!

Here it is; the next thrilling installment of my egotistical ensemble electro-mail - love 'em or loathe 'em, they're longer than Shakespeare's collected works and harder to get through than War and Peace...

As everyone in Cairns was mourning the death of crocodile hunter and Australian legend Steve Irwin just a few miles up the road (well, almost everyone - within hours the evil text message jokes were whizzing around the town) and the humidity levels seemingly pushed themselves to an all time high, I decided it was time to leave.

Craig, living up to his MacGyver reputation, had splurged some of his hard-earned dollars on a white-water rafting trip, bungee jumping and a voyage to Fitzroy Island, and thus he decided to stay on in Cairns a while longer. I, however, had no such commitments. And so, on the Wednesday morning, I hopped on the Greyhound coach, and was gone.

On our journey so far we've met countless people that are travelling alone, and once you're over here you see just how they manage to do it. It's a bit like going down a really steep flume at a water park or swimming baths - possibly even the Waterslide to Hell... When you're standing at the top, peering over the edge, it seems really daunting, but once you've plucked up the courage to chuck yourself down you end up having a right old giggle.

My first stop on my one-man mission was, aptly enough, Mission Beach. I checked into a hostel less than 100m from the beach (as the advertisement boasted). Once I'd dumped my stuff in the dorm, I felt ridiculous - I didn't know what to do with myself! I walked around the village itself, which took all of three minutes, then went for a swim in the pool. Then, feeling adventurous, I wandered down to the beach. This is Australia, not Mauritius, but it was almost like a Bounty advert...

It was stunning, and pretty much deserted. The mountains of Dunk Island created a luscious vista across the sea, fading to blue in the hazy midday sky. After admiring the view I looked down and saw the most peculiar thing - a pile of tiny, perfectly sculpted sand-spheres. In the centre of the pile was a small, black hole, leading vertically downwards into the ground. Then I looked up, and it was like discovering that the pattern on your kitchen tiles actually makes up a chicken, and you can suddenly see it on every single tile (worse still, you notice the ones that have been grouted on upside down...) - the entire beach was covered in these miniscule sand-balls.

It was then I discovered the strangest thing - tiny beige coloured crabs, running around my feet, camouflaged by the wet sand. I realised that these were responsible for the carpet of sand-balls; they were clawing out their holes and leaving the excess sand deposited on the beach! After hunting down some fish in the rock pools and walking to the end of the beach and back, I sat down under a palm tree and continued reading Michael Crichton's 'Prey', suddenly imagining that a swarm of crabs would attack me a la the nanoparticles in the book...

For my evening meal I bought a burger with 'the lot', which meant lettuce, cucumber, tomato, carrot, cheese, bacon, a fried egg, a ring of pineapple and a thick slice of beetroot... I couldn't fit the bloody thing in my mouth. I've got to stop buying burgers with 'everything' on - I mean, pineapple? On a burger? What's that all about? It's hardly garlic bread, is it? (Ooh, it's the future - I've tasted it!)

That night I went to a bar called 'Coconutz' with a few people from the hostel. I was talking with a couple of fellow backpackers; a girl from England and a girl from Israel, and as they were pretty much the only females in the bar we ended up being besieged by a pack of Australian labourers. To be fair, they'd just got back from six months working over on the nearby island, so I suppose it was a little like re-emerging into society after a stint in prison. One even said they had to queue up for food like they do in jail...

The next morning I caught the coach to Townsville, which took around four hours of travelling. The small city was pleasant enough, if a little empty, and the next day I hiked up Castle Hill, a dominant feature in the town skyline. I opted to take the 'goat track' - I soon realised it was called so because only a mountain goat would have the stamina (and, indeed, a much better beard than mine) to climb such a steep route... Later, after my "Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down A Mountain" jaunt, I meandered my way along The Strand and took a dip in the artificial rock pool.

My next stop on the coast was a little town called Ayr. Even though you could describe it as a real one-horse town, there was still a very dominant fast-food presence. (As Craig is so fond of saying each time he spots the golden arches on the horizon: "M for Mass Production; M for Capitalism...) However, scary looking clowns and colonels aside, I was pretty much all alone as I wandered around the streets, so I went back to my hostel.

Little did I know, I'd happened across Ayr during the one night of the year when anything actually happens in the town - it was the Ayr Water Festival. A couple of hours later and the main street was teeming with people, so I went outside to watch the parade. Afterwards, the crowds poured onto the street, and I peered down from a balcony in my hostel. Ayr is surrounded by sugar cane fields that are harvested by hand, and so these are often set alight to burn away dead leaves and venomous snakes. And, sure enough, as I watched the festivities from on high, plumes of smoke began to fill the sky as the sun went down.

At night I was sitting in the bar with a jug of what Australians laughably call 'beer', when, much to my surprise, a Scottish marching band paraded right through the middle of the beer garden. Later, I went along to the local club with a fellow called Pete from Leeds. The group on stage started playing AC/DC tunes, and so I nodded along accordingly. Bizarrely, the club seemed to be mostly full of fifteen year old girls, and yet I still got asked for ID on the door! But it started me thinking - despite only having one social event per annum, the large amount of teeny-boppers leads me to believe that in a few years time Ayr will be the place to go...

Next stop was Airlie Beach, yet another nice little coastal town nestled between green hills, and also the springboard for most visitors to the Whitsunday Islands. Here I met up with Tom, the drifter from Kent who we met in Melbourne. He'd volunteered his services on a boat for a couple of nights, so I spent my time relaxing by the lagoon, getting sunburn on my knees, and reading, reading, reading. Over the week, I tried out most of the hostels in town, (including one particularly weird one with a long, triangular attic dorm), and I even spent a night in Tom's van. At the end of the week Craig finally caught me up from his travels, and, that night, the three of us re-united hit the town.

The next day, Craig and I embarked on our trip to the Whitsunday Islands on a boat called the Atlantic Clipper. We set sail in the afternoon, dropping anchor by one of the islands before nightfall. Everyone on board had brought bucket-loads of alcohol, but, perhaps because we were still suffering from the previous evening, we'd been quite conservative with our beer purchasing, so we didn't drink much on that first night. (I even had a nap; that's just how hardcore I am...)

The following morning we sailed to another island and took a short bush walk to a lookout point. From here you could see the famous Whitehaven Beach, with its ultra fine high-silicone sand. (It even squeaked when you walked on it.) That afternoon I went snorkelling, while Craig and some others did a spot of scuba diving. You're advised to swim in groups, so I went with an English lad called Michael and a Dutch guy called Pim who looked like my Uncle David. As far as I'm aware, however, this guy wasn't involved in the adult entertainment business...

The snorkelling itself was really good fun; like floating over a vibrant city. We saw dozens of beautiful fish of all shapes, sizes and colours; starfish, butterfly fish, parrotfish - one was so bright it looked like a 1970's disco. Conversely, we saw some mean looking denizens of the deep too - a small school of dark green fish with protruding brows reminded me of the underwater gangsters from early morning cartoon Sharky and George, crime-busters of the sea...

We had to tread water constantly as not to damage the coral. I was a little clumsy at one point, and broke a few small pieces off with my foot. However, it was OK, because when I glanced down I saw six or so fish of differing species swarm around and swallow it all up, so I know it went to a good home. We spent a few hours swimming around the bay, and then it was back to the Clipper for lunch and a much-needed cup of coffee.

That evening, everyone went a bit crazy and we all got very, very drunk. We started out with a few games of cards in the bar area, then we all went up on deck to play drinking games. It was someone's birthday, so the crew made a birthday cake (which actually tasted like a real sponge) and organised a "wedding ceremony" between the birthday girl and one of the horny young crew members. We were all given roles to play in the service, such as best man, maid of honour, etc. I was given the part of the "drunken uncle", and my speech consisted of me staggering to the front and shouting "You're all a bunch of wankers...! I've been a bit sick, and I can feel it burning the back of my throat..." and then staggering off.

Craig and I were sharing a cabin with a bloke called Big Al, someone else on our travels we've designated as a legend. (Everyone knows a legendary Big Al...) He'd fallen asleep early, so after the ceremony everyone on ship all piled into our tiny little room to wake him up. It was like the Guinness World Record for cramming as many people as possible into a telephone box - there were writhing bodies everywhere. It was manic! He took it all in good spirits though, and soon enough he was out of bed, necking a cup of Goon and playing his guitar.

Later, after yet more inventive drinking games (most of which were new to me, but I did bring a few old favourites of mine to the fore - The Which was particularly popular) the last few stragglers stayed up on deck singing Beatles songs, and an Irish girl called Anita sang a beautiful Gaelic song. Then, myself and a couple of others thought it would be a really good idea to strip down to our underwear and get in the spa. The water was at absolute zero; yes, that's right, the point on the thermodynamic temperature scale where heat energy is at a minimum: -273.15 °C. Well, maybe not, but it bloody felt like it...

The next morning, with most of the passengers still feeling rather intoxicated, we visited another beach, donned our stinger suits and all went snorkelling again. This time we saw turtles. Craig and I spotted a rather large one we decided to call Keith. It was amazing; we followed him for ages, swimming right next to him and stroking his shell. Then we went back to the beach, and, as if to reaffirm my masculinity, I dug a big hole in the sand and buried my feet in it. It had to be done at least once...

That night everyone met up for an after-boat party. Everyone was still feeling fragile, and even suffering from a touch of land-sickness - at times, it felt as though we were still swaying to the motion of the sea. However, soon enough, the party was in full swing again, and Craig organised the biggest chain of Jägerbombs of the trip so far.

The following day I felt the familiar mixture of pain, depression and guilt (mostly from spending too much money) that often accompanies a hangover. I can see why people warn you that the east coast saps your funds. All in all though, the boat trip was fantastic, and worth every penny.

We had to hang around Airlie Beach for most of the day, waiting for our bus. I think many parallels can be drawn between the life of the traveller and the life of the substitute teacher; seeing a new place each week, learning lots of people’s names, and generally feeling like you're in a constant state of transition. Our night-bus was two hours late, so we didn't board until after 10pm, and then it was yet another uncomfortable twelve-hour journey of fitful naps and a lot of fidgeting.

As we've travelled south, the scenery has gradually changed from the rich, green mountains of the far north with tropical trees and plants clinging to their sides, through flat wetlands and marshes to fields full of decidedly nonplussed cattle. We are in Bundaberg at the moment, famous for the rum of the same name (as in "Make mine a Bundy...") and also the one-time home of pioneering aviator Bert Hinkler. That's pretty much all it has to offer; we're only staying here for one night.

Photographic documentation of our peregrination is constantly being added to our usual nook of the Interweb.

Signing off for now,

Liam

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Higher Than Daniel Thompson's Loft

2010-09-11T18:33:00.003+01:00

The Australian Adventure
Part 6
Original e-mail date
Mon, 4 September, 2006

Warning: This e-mail is extremely long. Any attempt to read it in one sitting without the aid of a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits may result in acute boredom, fatigue, and in some extreme cases, dozing off. You have been warned.

Hey up, everybody!

Here it is; a collection of typed letters organised into identifiable words and sentences, which, in turn, shall relay to you our latest adventures and exploits.

So, the scenery has changed quite a few times since my last correspondence, and we've tucked a fair few miles under our belts. Leaving Melbourne was every bit as difficult and emotionally draining as I expected. Even though we had plenty of time, an hour before our coach was due to leave we were rushing around our room, cramming things into our backpacks.

We had to say so many goodbyes, and there were even a few tears at the bus station. Sleeping on the coach was horrendous, even though the driver put 'Shopgirl' on the TV, which helped send us to sleep a little (I enjoyed the Steve Martin novella, but the film version wasn't all that good.) The air-conditioning made the coach freezing cold; quite ironic really, as the bus company was called Firefly...

We arrived at Adelaide bus station at around 5:30am, and we promptly set our clocks back half an hour to local time. We dragged our rucksacks into the small and dingy bus station and collapsed onto the rows of chairs. Outside, it was cold, dark and raining. We decided to store our backpacks in the bus station lockers, but, typically, we picked the only locker that didn't work, shut the door and trapped our luggage inside. Obviously, the woman who worked at the bus station cafe had nothing to do with the lockers; obviously, no-one in the bus station was affiliated with the locker company at all; and, obviously, we had to phone the number on the lockers and get a bloke to climb out of bed and come down and get our bags out...

Presently, we checked into the hostel across the street. It was called Canon Street Backpackers, and had murals of Australian stuff on the wall - fish and kangaroos and criminals and things. It put me in mind of Myers Grove school. It was an OK hostel, even though the kitchen was a five mile walk from the reception - annoying, as they kept the crockery down there. Doubly annoying, when you want a cup of coffee and realise you've forgotten to collect a cup - you needed a Ghurkha guide with you to set up camp halfway up the stairs...

As day dawned in Adelaide, Craig took a nap on his bunk and I went for a walk. Within minutes I realised the dirty, sordid truth... Adelaide looked like England. Specifically, Doncaster. The overcast sky and cold weather didn't help, but it transpired to be a very ugly little town. Our photographs don't reflect this though - we made a pact not to take a snap of anything that looked remotely grotty. So we got a few nice shots of the river, the cricket ground, and the Victorian architecture of the university and library. Oh yes, and one of Craig mounting a statue of a pig...

Two days in Adelaide was more than enough. We met an English Language teacher from Leeds who had been living in Asia for the past four years, and we sampled the nightlife (one pub called the Cumberland Hotel), looked around the market (as we tend to do... maybe we should start up a website or something - market-hunters.com...) and caught a tram to Glenelg, a small town on the sea. There was nothing there, so we caught a tram back. (We quite like our trams too... light-rail-lovers.com)

On the Saturday morning we awoke and arose at an ungodly hour. We were in high spirits though - we were heading for the desert! Our first trip would take us two days, straight up the middle to the Red Centre. We’d booked with a company called Groovy Grape, and the mini-bus collected us from our hostel.

We spent the day on one long road through the desert called the Stuart Highway, which runs all the way up the middle of the country from Adelaide to Darwin. It's named after a famous Scottish explorer, who finally made it all the way from the south of Australia to the north on his third attempt. Unfortunately, he lost all of his teeth and went blind, then returned home to Scotland to die. Nice...

Our overnight stop was at a place called Coober Pedy, the opal mining capital of the world. It was so bizarre - most of the houses and buildings were situated underground; they were actually carved into the rock. (It put me in mind of David Essex on Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds album - "We'll build a brave new world! You know where? Underground...!")

Upon arrival, we had a tour of the museum, then dropped our stuff off in our underground hostel. Then we all went out for pizza in an eatery that was, disappointingly, on top of the ground. The brochure touted it as "the best pizza you will ever eat". (It wasn't. It was OK though.) Afterwards, we went for a drink in the world's only underground bar, then went back to our underground hostel again. (Can you see a theme developing?)

The museum guide explained that the reason why people build their houses under the ground is to maintain a constant temperature. Supposedly, even if it's boiling hot or freezing cold outside, the rock keeps the ambient temperature at around 24 degrees. Craig and I had no sleeping bags or quilts, and at 4am I was forced to get out of bed and wrap a scarf around my head whilst muttering, "24 degrees my arse"...

No opal mining is actually permitted inside the town; residents purchase a plot beyond the perimeter, and whatever they find is theirs to sell. However, although you can't actually dig in the town, people are also free to keep the opals they find as they construct their houses. As a result, the residents of Coober Pedy have quite large underground homes; they simply keep building extra rooms, from squash courts to swimming pools, in a bid to uncover a hidden trove. (Later in the trip, I met a woman who'd lived there for eleven years and didn't find diddley-squat...)

We hit the road the next morning. About half way between Coober Pedy and Alice Springs, we stopped to chat to a German guy that was walking along the road with his dog and two camels. Apparently, he's been trudging around Australia for twelve years! So, when you think about it, that means I was ten years old when he first set off. Crazy stuff!

By dusk we were in Alice Springs. We checked into the YHA, desperate for a good night's sleep. It was a shame when we realised we were sharing our dorm with a man who resembled a hippopotamus. He was like the Ugly Naked Guy from "Friends", laying on his bunk with his arse cleavage poking out from his boxer shorts, sweating, stinking, and, worst of all, snoring louder than a battery drill... not the best environment for getting a good kip.

Nonetheless, excitement and adrenalin prevailed, and the next morning we embarked on our three day trip into the outback! Our tour guide was called Vicky. She looked like the lovechild of Demi Moore and Roland Rat, coming across as a sort of Australian Calamity Jane. She was nice; very hyperactive and funny. Our mini-bus was amazing - it had four-wheel drive and looked like an army truck.

On the first day we drove to Uluru, a.k.a. Ayers Rock, stopping only to collect firewood. It certainly didn't disappoint. We went to the cultural centre first and learned how important it is to the Aboriginals of the region, and how they don't want anyone to climb it. Then we went ahead and disrespected their wishes and climbed it anyway... It sounds callous, but it had to be done. I wish that I had a stronger sense of character, or a larger stock of willpower, but when I saw the amount of tourists coming back down with such a look of elation on their faces it was too much to resist. It was a once in a life time opportunity, and we went for it. After the climb, we could see why they don't want you to climb it. Not so much because of the danger of falling, or even the threat of erosion, but more because we realised it truly is a special place.

The climb itself proved to be more difficult than it looked. There's a chain-rope for the first third, and it's a good job it's there because it's a lot steeper than you expect, especially when the desert sun is beating down. Part way up I felt like I was slipping, and a bit of vertigo kicked in, so I used a boost of energy to take me all the way to the top of the chain to a nice safe flat bit.

When Craig caught me up, I explained how it was going to be difficult for me to get down. It was the same when I was a kid, climbing up into the loft of my next door neighbour Daniel Thompson. I didn't really like clambering up the rickety step ladder and heaving myself into his attic, but it took even more courage when it was time to do the same thing in reverse. Same principle, I reasoned. Just a teeny bit higher.

Fighting hydration, we battled on. The last portion of the climb was less strenuous, but equally as hazardous. Without a chain to grab hold of, we had to negotiate the rock face carefully, with the wind threatening to tip us over the sheer drops on either side. Finally, we made it to the very top. As we stood there admiring the breathtaking view, the wind whipping our hair, Craig telephoned his mum and told her where he was. I called home too, but no-one answered. Typical.

Once back on terra firma (even though, you could argue, we'd never left it) we rejoined our gang. At sunset, we joined the other tour groups at the nearest looking point and took about a million of the same photograph. Boring, but mandatory. Then we went to our camp near the Yulara resort, made a fire, cooked our evening meal, then slept out under the stars - literally. We didn't have tents; just swags and sleeping bags.

The next day we got up at 5am and drove out to watch the sunrise over Ayers Rock and the Kata Tjuta mountain range. It was yet another ideal opportunity to take squillions of boring photos. Then we drove over to Kata Tjuta and did the Valley of the Winds walk... so yes, plenty more pics there too. After lunch we drove quite a long way to King's Creek Cattle Station, and settled down in a camp much more remote than the one on the previous night.

The stars in the Southern Hemisphere are amazing, especially when seen without any light pollution. Everyone was seeing shooting stars too, but I was always looking the other way. I did manage to see one before I fell asleep though; it was only small, but it was mine! I didn't really make a wish, only to fall asleep... and I did.

The next day we went to King's Canyon. (Yep, you guessed it - it was photograph city.) As we wandered around the canyon, with the desert sun high in the sky, we were thinking of the pints of lager waiting for us back at Alice Springs - we truly hoped it would be Ice Cold In Alice...(Oh yes, I've only gone and said it! You were thinking it, but I said it!)

We had a barbecue for lunch, then we called off at the cattle station so Vicky could call her boss. As coincidence would have it, we bumped into Leo, one of the Korean lads we met in Melbourne! Turns out he'd been working there for that past six weeks! It was unbelievable, bumping into him like that in a place so remote.

On the way back to "civilisation" (I use the term loosely - Alice Springs is pretty small), Vicky took us off-road. Most of us wanted to sleep, but we ended up taking a bumpy desert track for over 100km. It was amazing fun though, and we saw plenty of camels. No wild kangaroos though... rubbish.

That night we checked into a much nicer hostel called Annie's Place. The food there is really good and really cheap, so our entire tour group came round for a meal. Later, as everyone began to leave, a Texan guy from our tour called Zac decided to keep buying the remaining six of us shot after shot after shot. He got hammered, so we put him in a taxi. Fifteen minutes later the taxi turned up again with him still in it! Craig and I dragged him out and put him on a bench inside our hostel gate, but he rolled off onto the floor. Eventually, he fell back to sleep. The next morning, all that was left was his hat, sitting innocently on the bench...

The next couple of days we hung around Alice Springs. On the Thursday night we went to a saloon bar in the centre called Bojangles with a couple of German girls we met on our Groovy Grape tour. They have cameras on the wall, and apparently broadcast images over the Internet. Feeling touristy, we had a picture taken with a snake around our necks, as you do...

And so the next day we flew to Cairns, and that's where we are now. Thinking about it, we left the state of Victoria a couple of weeks ago, paid a visit to South Australia, travelled up to the Northern Territory, and now we're in Queensland. Cairns is situated pretty much at the top of the east coast; an ideal starting point for many travellers.

As a town, it's relatively small. Parts of it look quite American, but there is generally a Spanish '18 to 30s' holiday resort feel to it. Basically, it's full of young, British backpackers - apparently, there are more tourists here than locals. The centre is largely made up of Internet cafes and souvenir shops. The weather is not only stifling hot, but very very humid. As a result, it's hard to breathe and you sweat all the time. I'm currently taking two showers a day, but it's a losing battle...

The sea is across the Esplanade, but there's no beach. There's a man-made lagoon, with grass and a large swimming pool, but apparently all the beaches in the area are north of here, near Port Douglas. I'm sure I'll cope – it’s beaches all the way down the east coast. Plus, unlike Craig "Bronze God" Hithersay, I'm not that much of a sun worshipper, despite my yoga training. I like hot weather, don't get me wrong, but lying on the beach all day every day doesn't appeal to me.

Henceforth, Craig and I have decided we may well do the east coast separately - we want different things from it. Our plan is to buy a bus ticket apiece, then we can hop on and off at our leisure. It's far from unusual for mates to split up for a while when travelling; if anything, it is commonplace. We might end up sticking together for most, part or even all of the east coast, but having that extra bit of freedom will help us each do what we want to do.

For now, I think I'm going to drag myself away from this computer, go window shopping around the tacky tourist shops and maybe even treat myself to a cold shower or six. I realised the other day that I've been experiencing winter time for about a year. But that's all changed now. All being well, I've just entered the longest summer of my life... Bring it on!

Over the next day or so, we are trying to upload as many of our photographs as we can from our journey 'up the middle'. Naturally, should one wish, one can seek them out.

If you've made it this far, I salute you.

Take care everyone, and I'll be in touch again soon.

Liam

Gatecrashing the Great Ocean Road

2010-09-07T20:32:00.001+01:00

The Australian Adventure
Part 5
Original e-mail date
Mon, 21 August, 2006

Hey up, everybody!

Here it is; it's overdue, it's scary, it's longer than ever - it's the über-mammoth Bumper Edition of my gargantuan self-reflective travel log!

I've been so busy in the past few weeks, working hard, playing hard, and trying desperately not to spend too hard! So much to report. Too much to report! Let me cast my mind back to a suitable point where I can resume... Ah yes. Our road trip along the Great Ocean Road. A good a point as any!

So, one weekend a few weeks back, a bunch of us got together and rented an eight-seater car. We hit the motorway and headed south-west. First stop was a place called Torquay, so I refrained as much as I could from doing Basil Fawlty impersonations. It was difficult, so very difficult... ("Don't mention the war, I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it!") It was essentially a surfers beach, much like Bells Beach, which we found a little further along the coast.

Later that afternoon, we happened across a picturesque seaside town called Lorne. All of us instantly fell in love with the place and wanted to raise families there - there was just something so inherently nice about it. We ate at the "Lorne Fish and Chip Shop" (est. 1954, and boasted the slogan "If it was any fresher, it'd still be in the sea"), perused the attire in "Lorne Girl" (the local equivalent to Topshop), and we even considered booking ourselves into the Lorne Hotel... forever. ("You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.")

The place lent itself to picture-postcard views; it had a river, with ducks (oh yes, ducks), a beautiful ranch-style backpackers' hostel with a bistro underneath, a quaint little supermarket, and even some plastic statues of women with oversized mammary glands. The only bad thing I could see about the place was an eatery called "Kafe Kaos" - I had mental flashes of me walking in there and falling down the stairs... Other than that, it was all groovy, and we spent the rest of the trip sighing and saying things like "I miss Lorne"; "I love Lorne" and "It's not as good as Lorne".

As we meandered our way along the coast, we passed through loads of little villages. Some of the houses were very strange - Australia seemingly allows its architects to go completely wild. One building perched on the edge of a cliff actually looked like the Jetsons' house. None of the towns were, however, as good as Lorne, though a breathtaking moment did occur when we saw a rainbow form across one of the bays; you could see it end right in the middle of the ocean. The photographs we took simply don't do it justice.

The State of Victoria is actually known as Australia's "Garden State" (although, unlike New Jersey, it wasn't the inspiration for the Zach Braff film.) There are lots of cows, and it's very, very green. Parts of it look a little like - dare I say it - Blighty. After taking a rather lengthy detour to find a lighthouse (we ended up just driving round the car-park three times with the radio on full blast to freak out the locals - we later discovered it was the lighthouse where they filmed, aptly enough, Round the Twist...), we pulled up at the Twelve Apostles.

Now, to be honest, I wasn't all that enthralled about seeing a bunch of rocks sticking out of the sea, but by the time we arrived the sun was setting, and we ended up going on a helicopter ride right over the top of them. I'm known for being unenthusiastic about these things, but it was my first time in a helicopter and I was loving it! Afterwards, we got talking to the helicopter pilots, and they invited us to a party that evening.

After coming down (both literally and from the adrenaline high), we drove onto Port Campbell, our stop-off for the night. It really was a one horse town - the only shop shut at 7pm and the nightlife made Rotherham look like Las Vegas. Luckily, we'd been invited, by-proxy, to the party at the aptly named Surf Club, so we checked into a small little backpackers hostel, had a quick nap, then turned up fashionably late.

It turned out to be a guy called Tom's 21st birthday party, and we walked into a room full of his family and friends just as they were making the speeches. We felt a little out of place, but we didn't care! We took full advantage of the free food and the free drinks, had photographs taken with the birthday boy and his grandma, and boogied the night away to the rock band that were playing. Everyone was wondering just who the hell we were! Afterwards, we all poured out of the club and across the street to another hostel, and we stood by the beach looking at the stars... but it was flippin' freezing so we went back to our backpackers. The next morning we hit the highway, stopping off at one of the many McDonalds in Geelong to reminisce about the beautiful Lorne...

Upon arriving back in Melbourne, we still had the hire car for another few hours, so we drove off to find Ramsey Street. It's actually called, disappointingly enough, Pin Oak Court, and, as everyone seems to say, it's much smaller than it appears on TV. I don't know how Billy Kennedy and Toadie used to play cricket on there.... Still, I've now walked down both Coronation Street and Ramsey Street, so I can die happy. Well, it's not the Nobel Peace Prize, but I can die marginally contented, anyway. And, it gave me plenty of inspiration for my Neighbours spin-off - Ramsey Street: 2150.

A couple of days after the road trip we checked out of the ultra plush Urban Central and moved round the corner to a hostel called, Bev and Mick's. (absolutely true - but not a Crokey-Boss in sight.) We've been living here for the past three weeks, and we really like it. It's situated above a pub, is quite small and has a distinct lack of wallpaper, carpets, and, in some rooms, ceilings. Craig describes it as "rough and ready", but the owners are very friendly and the atmosphere is really chilled out.

The pub downstairs is rather smoky so we don't spend all night there, but I've won the quiz a couple of times so we had to use up my $150 bar tab! On one of the quiz nights, they had bonus rounds. There was a race to down a pint of fizzy soda water and munch through a whole Boost bar. I came second, but I managed to be the champion of "Rock, Paper, Scissors". It was weird, I seemed to be able to read everyone's minds - it was like I was possessed!

We originally shared our room with a New Zealander - he was a 33-year-old bearded ex-hip-hop DJ called Jaz, and he was the laziest man alive. He was worse than me when I was living in Southampton - the guy NEVER got out of bed. He's since left, and we're now sharing with a Ricky Gervais look-a-like from Colchester called Tom. We've spent a lot of time with two girls from Northern Ireland called Lynne and Lisa (two of the Great Ocean Road ensemble who now also live at Bev and Mick's), and we made new friends at the hostel including Jaz's mate Mike (another Kiwi who reminds me of Garth from Wayne's World), and a German girl called Pia. We're loving meeting new people, but we're sick of constantly having to say goodbye... such is the nature of our Odyssey.

The last few weeks really have been a bit of a blur. On the tourist front, I checked out the TV50 exhibition at the Australia Centre for the Moving Image; Craig has visited the odd art gallery; we've visited the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Shrine of Remembrance; we went to a free wine tasting in a Bottle Shop; and we finally, finally made it to the observation deck at the top of the Rialto Tower. Don't worry, we took squillions of extremely boring photographs of the Melbourne skyline for you all to fall asleep in front of. The funniest thing about that day was the video they play when you go up the tower. It was the tackiest, most cringe-worthy promotional film for Melbourne that you could ever make - one of the lyrics to the cheesy overlaying song was: "Melbourne... It's a never-ending story!"

Last Friday a huge group of us went on a night out in St. Kilda. Well, I say we went out - we ended up spending the first half of the evening in the bar at Urban Central and then the second half inside another English-themed pub. I didn't come to the other side of the planet to be reminded of Slough. Nonetheless, everyone came out and it was a fantastic night.

A lot of my time in the past few weeks has been spent with a Mexican girl called Mariana. She used to live at Urban Central, but now has her own apartment in the city. She is studying environmental engineering at university here for one year as part of her course back in Mexico. She's here on scholarship scheme; not only is she bi-lingual, she's won dancing competitions, plays the piano, and writes articles that get published in Mexican newspapers. I think she wants to be some sort of environmental journalist.

We met about three weeks ago, and we got on really well. Yesterday we had a really nice day; we went out for coffee, did some shopping and then I cooked us a meal. It's been difficult though, because she has so much homework to do for her degree and I feel as though I'm keeping her from her studies. I do like her, very much, and it's going to be incredibly hard to say goodbye to her. Our time together has been far too brief, and I think it will be my most difficult farewell of the trip.

Employment wise, we haven't fared all that bad. We've had quite a few jobs - I took over Craig's job for a week at the building on Queen Street that's undergoing renovation. I had to put my practically non-existent DIY skills to the test - they had me sanding and varnishing tables! And I was introduced to the legend that is Jeff.

Now, I think he was a janitor of some sort, but he just used to sit there and drink tea all day. He wore the same knitted jumper each day of the week and even though he was in his late fifties he still lived with his mum. He was a fantastic guy though, and agreed with everything you said. His catchphrase was "Yeah, yeah... oh shit yeah!". I asked him once where he'd been travelling. He said he'd been to England, and thought London, Liverpool and Manchester were pretty good. I asked him if he'd been anywhere else. He said he'd seen a lot of Europe, including Germany, and he thought it was pretty good. He told me he'd been to Rome, and seen the Colosseum, so I asked him what he thought of that. He took a sip of his tea (his tenth cup of the morning), swallowed thoughtfully and said... "It was pretty good, yeah". Legend.

I worked alongside a Scottish lad called Gordon, who was a nice bloke. The guy who owned the building owned lots of backpacker hostels in the city, so we were always able to go for a free pint after work at Flinders Station Hotel, and, on occasion, we'd check out the seedy strippers in the nearby Hosies. It was quite a good little job, but I could only work there for one week as the inspectors were sniffing round and it was only a cash-in-hand job. The following week, Craig and I each did a day on another renovation job. It was horrible work for a miserable man. Somehow, when I introduced myself, the guy misheard my name as William. Instantly, before I had time to correct him, everyone thought that was my name, so I ended up having a full day of builders calling me Will...

We've both had jobs setting up stalls at the Melbourne Exhibition centre, and we've both spent a Saturday morning apiece washing cars at a second-hand dealership. My favourite job so far has to be the one I did for a couple of days last week at a little cafe in the South Melbourne Market. I had to load and unload the dishwasher, toast sandwiches, wipe down tables and take coffee out to people. It was great. The people were really friendly, and they wanted me to stay, but, sadly, it's time for us to move on...

Yes, in a couple of days we hit the road. We've been living here in Melbourne for a total of two months, and this city has really captured my heart. Maybe, time and funds permitting, we'll get a chance to visit it again in the summertime. For now thought, we're heading west, then north (via that big red rock thingy) then due north-east. And all in a week and a half!

So I suppose it will soon be time to finally buy a wide-brimmed hat, slop on some sun-cream and don my sandals and shorts! I won't miss the cold weather, but I will miss this amazing city.

I'll be in touch again when I can. Although the chronology has all gone to pot and they're getting a bit mixed up, the latest photographs, as ever, are at the usual address. You know the drill.

Speak to you all soon,

Liam

Make Mine A Bundy

2010-07-25T09:35:00.001+01:00

The Australian Adventure
Part 4
Original e-mail date
Thu, 27 July, 2006

Hello All,

Still taking advantage of the Internet access available in this developed city, here is yet another sprawling chapter of our epic journey.

Last Thursday was our final night in the Flinders Station hostel, and thus, to mark the occasion, we decided to play a drinking game involving a deck of cards, a long list of complicated rules and box upon box of cheap wine, otherwise known as 'Goon'. As we have learned, Goon is both the backpacker's best friend and worst enemy - it'll get you drunk for around eight dollars but then the following morning you'll know exactly why... Beware the wrath of Goon.

The next day was the big move. Carrying a backpack across town with a hangover is not fun. We're now residing at Urban Central. As usual, names can be deceiving, as its location is decidedly none-central. Quite peripheral in fact; it takes a good half an hour to walk into the CBD.

This new hostel was definitely built for "Flashpackers" - it's brand new and has all the mod-cons. It's almost up to the standard of a hotel and would normally have the price-tag to match, but as it's off-season it's quite reasonable. It reminds me of the travel tavern from "I'm Alan Partridge". The walk-in showers are my favourite part; they're clean, hot and powerful, and not a hair in sight. Craig is worried that such luxury will go to our heads, and we'll be suffering all the more when we head up north and find out all the hostels resemble garden sheds...

We're sharing a room with a guy called Shaun. He's not a hells angel like the other Shaun, but he too happens to be from Canada. He's pretty much Lawson, in terms of looks, voice and personal outlook. The rooms are very clean and the bunk beds are modern. In the evenings, they have stuff going off in the bar ("Make mine a lady-boy") including pool tournaments and live bands. The comedy night on Sunday was really good, and, more importantly, free...

It's a much nicer environment than our last hostel, but there's something a little clinical about it. And, although we've made some new friends, people tend not to mingle as much here - they seem to stick in their pre-established closely-knit groups. Also, we've met our fair share of nutcases. There was Minami (aka Minnie) a tiny Japanese stalker that followed us everywhere, and then of course Andy, who definitely has a screw loose. I have a sneaking suspicion that he's actually Evil Mark, sent back in time from ten years in the future... (Sorry Mark, he's not really like you at all, just your alter-ego. And he does have a London accent and wear a very similar tracksuit top...) So yes, we booked ourselves in for one week, and, although I'm loving the showers, I doubt we'll extend our stay.

On the first night here we met a group of people from Taiwan. They let us try some kind of egg and rice dessert, and we had a good chat with them. Later, when we were back in our room, I was sitting on the top bunk reading quietly, when we heard voices outside in the hall. Craig opened the door, and the gang of Taiwanese people spotted him and all burst out into a massive collective cheer. It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen - Craig, international Western superstar, disappearing through the door to rapturous applause. It was like I had a backstage view of Stars In Their Eyes...

We went back to the Queen Victoria Market the other day. We were feeling peckish, so decided to try the food at a place called 'Vic Fish'. Not the best name for a food outlet, but quite appropriate because the chips were every bit as crap as the name. The staff weren't too clever either - when Craig asked what was inside the dim sims (according to Wikipedia, a dim sim is "a Chinese-inspired fried meat dumpling-style snack food popular in Australia") the woman behind the counter simply said "meat". Craig asked what kind of meat, so she said "Normal meat." I kid you not. He bought one anyway, and then we sat down to eat our horrible, horrible chips. They were far too dry, so we bought some little cartons of ketchup. Struggling with the alien packaging, Craig managed to fire tomato sauce all over his coat, jumper and neck. The girl sitting at the other end of our table wasn't impressed...

Craig has managed to keep his job on a pretty permanent basis. It wasn't exactly furniture removal like he expected; more renovation and construction. He's helping to rip the guts out of an office block in the city centre as it's being converted into a hotel and shopping centre. It looks as though perhaps Melbourne doesn't yet have enough shopping centres after all...

I, naturally, have had much worse luck in the employment arena. I did, however, manage to find work for one night at a nightclub called 'Publicity'. It wasn't exactly my scene - they were having a hardcore trance night and I was plonked behind the bar next to the DJ. Bear in mind, I've never worked in a bar before, and all I was given was a two-minute introduction and then told to serve a customer - being thrown in at the deep end doesn't even cover it. My worst moment was when an Aussie bloke kept asking for a "Bundy and Coke" - his accent, coupled with the loud music, made it impossible for me to hear him the first two times, and even when I did manage to decipher what he was saying I didn't have a clue what he was asking for... turns out Bundaberg is a type of rum and "Bundy" is its nickname. Still, soon enough I got into it, and I was whipping the vodka bottles upside down like a trooper. They asked me to leave after a couple of hours though. Something about the club not being full enough... I took a bottle opener as a souvenir/compensation.

I've got a few interviews coming up, but I'm really hoping for cash-in-hand work as it's almost time to move on. We've been here a full month now and we're both getting itchy feet. Our MasterPlan© has changed yet again; the latest version involves us heading west to Adelaide, going up the middle of the country and then down the east coast. Apparently, if we do that, we get to see some kind of big red rock thingy...

We've met a girl called Sarah who lives in Melbourne and we've sort of adopted her as our unofficial tour guide. The other day she took us on a tour of the suburbs south of the city. We went to a place called the Spudbar for lunch. The jacket potatoes were both delicious and huge, and they came served in a large plastic bowl. The number of stuff you could pile on them for no extra cost was amazing; even more choice than the fillings in Subway.

Afterwards, she drove us down to St. Kilda, which is on the sea. It was raining, so it did sort of resembled Skegness, but with palm trees. There's a place called Luna Park that wouldn't look out of place in any British seaside resort. Another factoid for you metal fans - apparently, St. Kilda is where AC/DC wrote their first album. We checked out a hostel with an under-floor fish-tank that you could walk over. We may spend a couple of nights there, which will give us a chance to explore St. Kilda properly. And hopefully it won't be chucking it down next time...

Righty-ho. Time to do some laundry, methinks. I've only worn this particular pair of boxer shorts four times, but I'm in the mood cleaning them early... Treat myself, you know.

The latest snapshots can be seen, as ever, online.

Toodle-pip for now,

Liam

Episode III - Revenge of the Whiff

2010-07-17T11:17:00.000+01:00

The Australian Adventure
Part 3
Original e-mail date
Tue, 18 July, 2006

Hello All!

Well, we've been in the fair city of Melbourne for quite a while now, and we've yet to conquer the mountain of tourist type stuff we've set ourselves to do. To be brutally honest, we've spent quite a few nights getting drunk and generally just having a laugh. Craig got his university results last week, so that qualified last Wednesday night as an automatic bender. Unfortunately, no-one told us that Wednesday nights in Melbourne are the quietest nights of the week, so all the bars were empty. It didn't stop us getting drunk though, especially when we found a pub called the Sherlock Holmes that actually served proper ale...

Feeling the need for a little culture, we wandered over the Yarra River to the south bank last Sunday to check out the Picasso exhibition at the international gallery. It was quite expensive so we didn't go in, but with the cascading 'wall of water' in the foyer the culture in the air was so tangible you could almost touch it. Craig actually did try and touch it, and ended up getting water down his sleeve...

Afterwards, we wandered around the market stalls dotted along the riverside promenade. A street entertainer was trying to pacify a small crowd by lying on a bed of nails, when some drunken heckler started shouting abuse at him. Admittedly, the entertainer did look a bit of a pillock prancing around in purple boxer shorts, but there was no need for such abuse. He kept yelling things like "You guys are all clowns" until he got a reaction, and then it all kicked off. The crowd leapt to the entertainer's defence, but the drunk guy just wouldn't go away. I personally reckon he was from a rival street entertainer gang that specialised in 'robot miming', and was jealous that the 'laying on a bed of nails' man was moving in on his patch...

A warning for all fast food lovers who may find themselves in Melbourne - stay away from the KFC. As former employees of the fried chicken franchise, Craig and I are fully aware of what goes off in the kitchens, but we knew this one was especially bad just by the taste of our meals. I ordered something called 'The Works', which turned out to be, bizarrely, a Zinger burger with ham and pineapple on. On the way back to the hostel, I felt a strange gurgling sensation in my gut, and was forced to run all the way back. I only just made it to the toilet in time, and I didn't even have a chance to shut the cubicle door. I now know why it was called 'The Works'...

As far as employment goes, we're still stuck in somewhat of a rut. However, all is not lost, as Craig has started a job doing furniture removal and I've got an interview at a Ben Sherman shop, so I may be selling my soul to the retail devil once again. Failing that, we're keeping our eyes peeled and ears to the ground for more cash-in-hand jobs.

One interview we went to was a complete joke. It was for an energy company called 'Victoria Electricity'. We turned up at the building, a huge turquoise monstrosity that looked like a rotten tooth in a mouth full of pristine dentures. The company were based on the eighth floor, had an ill-fitting carpet, an MFI-style 'Black Ash' effect desk and half a computer. They wanted us to traipse around the city streets banging on doors trying to convince residents to switch over from their huge established gas and electricity companies. The base rate was awful and we would have had to make about a million sales and wait eight weeks before we even got a sniff of any commission. The set-up put me in mind of a certain ANT Marketing... Derren would have loved it.

Craig, it seems, is quite the car enthusiast. He's constantly getting into fits of excitement as we walk around the streets, and he managed to get a snapshot of a parked Lamborghini. Although, even I was impressed when we spotted an Aston Martin DB5 racing past. It wasn't silver like the one in James Bond, but instead had British Racing Green paintwork. But yet more exciting for me was the day we found AC/DC lane! I've finally had my photograph taken under the street sign, named of course for the infamous Australian heavy metal band. We're easily pleased...

We're still at the same hostel as of now, but we are moving on this Friday. People are leaving in droves in search of pastures new. As a parting gift, one girl gave us a Spiderman finger-puppet that she picked up on her travels in Peru. I pointed out that he had no arms, so he's now been dubbed (in true none-PC style) 'Thalidomide Spiderman'. We want to get a snap of him in every location, such as outside the Sydney opera house, just like the garden gnome on Amelie...

As many people have told us, the Flinders Station hostel where we are staying is quite nice compared to other hostels. However, rather a lot of disturbing incidents have happened over the past few weeks. One of the most disgusting things I have ever seen in my life was the word 'slut' daubed on the mirror of the ladies toilets in faeces. Don't ask me why I was in the ladies toilets, but let's just say the smell alone caused me to exit sharply. I was impressed with the sheer amount of soilage though, and the clarity and neatness of the word would have had any self-respecting calligraphist nodding with approval. If only I'd had my camera on me; I could have sent it into 'rate-my-poo.com'...

We've recently met a guy called Rob who has had the misfortune of sharing his room with a chain-smoking deaf guy. And, because he can't hear, the bloke makes a hell of a lot of noise. He's got a deaf girlfriend, and she often comes round to visit. When she does, they make a tent out of sheets on the lower bunk and make all kind of strange noises. When he's not with his bird he coughs all night, and, one morning, Rob awoke to the sound him throwing up in the dustbin. For the first six nights sharing his room, Rob went to bed drunk. It only took one sober night with the deaf guy and he asked to move rooms...

There are definitely some characters around; we're sure if this hostel was televised it would rival Big Brother. A lot of funny stuff happens in the kitchens. One woman put a lasagne 'ready-meal' in the microwave for fifteen minutes! It come out looking like a small chunk of carbon, but she ate it anyway... Shaun, the bearded Canadian biker, bought two absolutely huge steaks from the market, fried them up and slapped them on his plate. I asked him if he was going to have any vegetables with it. He looked at me sternly and replied "Cows eat the grass, I eat the cow. That's the food chain."

So many people we've met have either left or are leaving soon: Lyndsay, the perpetually drunk girl from Newcastle; her room-mate Sam; Steve, another Geordie (and quite possibly one of the funniest people I have ever met) and his girlfriend Mags - all of that gang have flown to Cairns in northern Queensland. There's actually hot weather up there, and it's where we want to go next. We're still planning to travel along the East Coast, only instead we're going to do it north to south. In other words, the right way round, and hopefully we can escape this cold weather once and for all. I'm sick of sleeping with two quilts and all my clothes on...

Chris and Graham, the two young lads from Canada have also headed north, and Steve-O the Irish guy and his two friends are also due to leave. A fellow called Tom will be off soon as he is a true drifter - there's just him, his van and the open road. I wish that I could be more like that - I don't feel like a true traveller yet as Melbourne has a lot of home comforts. I'm sure when we hit the tropical north things will change, and I'll be pining for mosquito-free nights and a dorm we don't have to share.

Right - I'm off to hand out yet more C.V.'s. Here, they call them resumes, but actually pronounce them 're-shu-mays', with a definite 'sh' sound. Is this normal, or am I going mad already? If you've read all of this (my third gargantuan e-mail) I commend you, as it's probably taken a sizable chunk out of your day, so for now I'll leave you be.

Our newly uploaded pictures can be viewed at the same site as usual.

I'll be in touch soon.

Liam

Dirty Dancers and Pongy Peppers

2010-06-20T21:11:00.009+01:00

The Australian Adventure
Part 2
Original e-mail date
Sun, 9 July, 2006

Hello All!

Here it is - another electronically delivered treat on which you can stuff yourselves silly.

Every city has a seedy underbelly, and Melbourne is no exception. And, within a fortnight of staying here, we were sucked into it, for last Wednesday Craig and I found ourselves working for a strip club called Dallas Dancers. On our first night, we had to stand outside the Telstra Dome football stadium, giving out tickets to the unsuspecting crowd.

We were working for a guy named Butch. On that fateful first night, we strolled up to the front door of the club and asked for our new boss, but the bouncers informed us he'd nipped out, so we wandered down to the nearest 7/11. Two minutes later, in bursts Butch, a middle-aged pervert with floppy grey hair that looked an awful lot like a bad toupee, sucking on a carton of milk. Half-pissed, he blurted out in a broad Ozzy accent, "Are you guys looking for me?"

That first evening at the Telstra Dome wasn't so bad. There were so many people around that the time flew by. (Tempus fugit, as they say.) Plus, at the end of the evening, we were invited into the club for a couple of free drinks. The next night, he only needed one of us to work, so Craig ended up giving out tickets on the door.

Friday night was the worst. We were stuck on the street corner for ages, and even though we had about three jumpers on, we were frozen. Then it started to rain. Craig, with his MacGyver-esque features, was allowed to stand on the door again, but, seeing as I don't resemble a young Richard Dean Anderson, I had to stand in a smelly doorway across the road for the rest of the night.

We'd already decided that as soon as we were paid on Saturday, we were out of there. It was a really dodgy set-up - some guy from a rival club was filming the front of the bar with a secret camera hidden in his coat, and we were told that if the police came past we had to stuff all of our leaflets in our pockets and walk off. As well as perving on all the female clientele, Butch, we realised, was an absolute nutcase - the man didn't know what planet he was on. In the end, he severely underpaid us, so we cleared off early, never to return.

Working for a strip joint is not the only cash-in-hand job we've done. One day last week we hopped on the train to an inner-city suburb called Kensington, and ended up packing cucumbers and peppers for some strange little Italian fruit merchant. There was a large group of us, so it was quite a good laugh, but when you've sifted through about ten huge tubs of rancid, rotting peppers it'll put you off them for life...

Again, as with handing out flyers, the pay was pitifully low, but it's a start. I think we'll go back to the fruit packing place next week, just to earn a little bit of dosh. We've yet to actually utilise our working visas yet and secure a proper job, so until we do it'll have to be slave labour and donkey work.

We're still staying at the same hostel as before, and we've met some pretty cool people. There's a geezer from Kingston called Andy (he hasn't heard of Tom Melia but says the name Alex Lawson rings a bell) - he's got a rounded nose and plays Libertines songs on his guitar... (sound familiar?) He's been here ten months and he's going home tomorrow for his brother’s wedding, but plans to return to Oz in a couple of months to continue travelling.

He's currently sharing his room with a Geordie girl called Lyndsay, who has no money and is constantly drunk. There's a bunch of Irish folk who also enjoy their booze, and a couple of friendly Korean lads who we usually have breakfast with. Their actual names are difficult for us to pronounce, but the Western monikers they usually go by are 'Leo' and 'Charles'...

There's a lad from Vancouver called Chris who also used to work at the Dallas bar, but he too has had enough. He delivers phone books in the day, and his driver is this huge Canadian guy with a beard and pony-tail that looks like he's either a Hell's Angel or a WWF wrestler. He swears a lot.

There are loads of people coming and going, many of whom are travelling alone. But, as I said before, it's wintertime, and, although there are always plenty of people chilling out on the bean bags and playing pool, the hostel is only half full. A lot of people we've met are moving on this week, so it could get even emptier. Rumour has it there's a hostel south of the river that has clean bedding and nice showers, so we may move there soon... we'll have to see.

Already, life is becoming routine. The skyscrapers seem perfectly normal. Nipping across the street to the supermarket as the trams trundle idly by is now the most natural thing in the world. Speaking of supermarkets, I've noticed certain items are much more expensive here. You'll pay around 80p for a normal size bag of crisps, loaves of bread are triple the price of England, and bars of chocolate are simply extortionate! Still, let's hope this sudden price increase on my favourite foods will do the old waist-line a bit of good...

We haven't done much tourist stuff in a while. We went to the Melbourne Museum last week; that was pretty good. The bug section woke us up to the fact that we're actually in the same continent as so many scary creatures - we saw some rather terrifying spiders up close, both dead and alive. And we've encountered our first Gripples of the trip - we spotted them holding up huge tapestries in the museum foyer. We took some photos which, as usual, can be viewed online.

That's all for now. I'll be in touch soon.

Liam

P.S. I've had a go on a didgeridoo already - I thought I'd try and get as much of the stereotypical Australia stuff out of the way early. Now I'm off to find a boomerang, a kangaroo and a mysterious red monolithic rock...

Greetings From "Down Under", "Oz", and Several Other Clichés...

2010-06-14T19:36:00.002+01:00

The Australian Adventure
Part 1
Original e-mail date
Mon, 3 July, 2006

Hello All!

Where to begin? For those of you that aren't in the know, have completely forgotten I exist or are just plain ignorant, myself and my fellow travelling companion Craig have upped sticks and flown halfway around the globe to Australasia. (That's not a typo - that's what the area of the continent is called...)

We've been in Melbourne for almost a week now, and it's absolutely freezing. So all of you back in Britain, I hope you spill your ice-cream down your top and get sun-cream in your eyes... It's taken us all week to recover from the jet-lag - we kept waking up and falling asleep at bizarre times (such as Kanrah o'clock) - and to make matters worse I've been ill. Just a touch of cold/flu, so don't worry mum and dad...

Because of the overall disorientation, we haven't actually done anything yet. Time has been spent recovering and getting our bearings. The journey itself was rather exhausting - after two hours sleep we set off for Manchester Airport, and ended up arriving almost three hours before we could check in. After a mere forty-five minutes in the air we found ourselves wandering around London Heathrow, looking for a plane with a big kangaroo on it...

We were awake for the entire second leg of our journey, touching down in Hong Kong around ten hours later. While the plane was re-fuelled, we found oursleves in yet another airport, but it was, admittedly, probably the best airport either of us have ever seen. We wanted a snapshot of the Hong Kong skyline, but there was just too much airport in the way and we couldn't find a window facing in the right direction. In the end, we took some pictures of some tall apartment blocks in the suburbs. We reckon they are probably part of the Lowedges of Hong Kong...

On the final stretch between Hong Kong and Australia, we finally got a bit of sleep. It was fitful, with a lot of shuffling to try and get comfy, but it was sleep nonetheless. We landed in Melbourne at around 8pm on Wednesday night. You have to declare all foodstuff on arrival, so I told them about the tea and coffee in my hand luggage. Because of this, we had to go along a different route to everyone else, and we actually got to skip the queue. Bonus.

We caught the Skybus into the city centre, then caught a taxi to the hotel we'd booked into for the first two nights. We were located on the other side of the river, in a district called South Yarra. Our accommodation was called the Hotel Claremont, and it was quite homely, even though the room was a bit cramped. It had a really tall ceiling with a fan and it reminded me of a scene from the film "Twelve Monkeys". Thankfully, Bruce Willis didn't turn up naked though...

After the initial two days we moved to the Central Business District, or CBD. (Ooh - get me!) Essentially, it's the city centre. It's divided into square blocks like an American city, even though Melbourne is actually touted as Australia's most European city. The jury's still out on that one - it's difficult to decide what this place is like; it's so ecclectic.

We're now staying at the Flinders Station Hotel. Don't let the name fool you - it's a backpacker's hostel. Now, it may not be the Plaza or the Ritz, but it's actually quite nice as far as hostels go. The reception is on the third floor, and it has two TV lounges, a computer room, a large kitchen (with a cold room for food storage) and a dining area. There's also a bar on the second floor which is open all night.

We're on floor six - there's a huge painting of Jimi Hendrix on the wall as you step out of the lift. Our room is 'reasonably' clean, 'reasonably' warm, and has two sets of bunk beds in it. Because it's off-season, fingers crossed we won't have to share with anyone else. The toilets and showers are just down the corridor. They are slightly less clean - there seems to be an awful lot of hairs on the floor... Still, overall it's a good hostel, and we've been forewarned that there is much much worse accommodation out there. I'm sure we've still got it to come!

It's $125 per week here, which works out at just over fifty quid. That's about seven pounds a night, so it's dirt cheap really. Plus, we get breakfast for free (tea, coffee, cereal and toast - "All you can eat! All you can eat!") and the central location is pretty good, so we reckon we'll stay here for a few weeks.

Melbourne is a pretty huge place - bigger than I imagined. Even though it's wintertime, it's still a very beautiful city, especially when the sun is shining and the air is crisp and clear. The public transport puts Sheffield (and indeed most of England) to shame. The rail network to the outer suburbs is extensive, and the CBD is made up of a criss-cross of tramlines. And it's the first time in my life I've been surrounded by actual skyscrapers.

Melbourne truly is the home of the coffee house culture. There are pavement bistros down every road and alleyway. It's also a shoppers paradise. You can't go for a walk across town without stumbling into yet another mini-shopping centre. Imagine Meadowhall... double it, and you have say, the Trafford Centre... double it again and you have the Metro Centre... now multiply that by twenty and you might have got a fair idea of all the shops in Melbourne.

It's also teeming with art galleries and museums, and I joined the city library the other day. There's loads to see and do here, but, like I say, we've hardly had a chance to do anything yet. We went food shopping at the Queen Victoria Market (it's absolutely huge) and bought some fresh ingredients for a beautiful chilli, and we've checked out some of the bohemian stores up on Brunswick Street. We've also been to see 'Superman Returns' at Melbourne Central. It - was - wicked.

Hopefully, after a good nights sleep last night, we'll be significantly energized to take on some serious sights. We're also going to try and open an Australian bank account today, and continue our job-hunting.

We've not taken too many photographs so far, but the ones we have can be viewed online.

I'll be in touch soon. Ciao for now.

Liam

Kelly

2010-04-30T13:35:00.002+01:00

An emotionally charged musing that really encapsulates the frustration and despair of unrequited feelings, as well as displaying a flagrant disregard for form, rhythm, rhyme and meter.

Even though we only ever spoke
Across the counter of the Tesco Metro
You never failed to brighten up my day.

Sometimes I wouldn’t see you for long periods of time.
I never went as far as asking the staff about you
Or tracking you down via other unsavoury methods,
But I would often worry that you may have left;
Got yourself another job or something.

But then I’d see you one afternoon, out of the blue,
On my way home from work;
I’d be popping in for some bread and milk
Or perhaps some Italian-style lettuce,
And I’d see you there stacking the bottles of Carlsberg.

You were always such a darling;
Such a little sweetheart.
I’d say to my flat-mate, “She’s such a darling;
Such a little sweetheart.”

I knew your name from the badge that you never failed to wear
But never did I have the chance to say it out loud
To your face.

Oh Kelly!
I loved it when you were the one that served me because
You always asked for my clubcard with a smile.
And even now to this day I like to think you jumped on a till
Just for me.
And not simply because
The queue was getting too big for the other cashiers to manage.

Orange

2010-02-01T07:46:00.009Z

A little piece I wrote when I was about eleven years old. Many have suggested it was the zenith of my creativity...

I'm an orange, as orange as can be,
You can squeeze me after dinner, then drink me during tea.
I'm a fruit, a drink, a colour as well,
I seem to be so popular; I really go down well.
When I'm a fruit, you eat me slice by slice,
I'm succulent and juicy; you'll find me quite nice.
When I'm a colour, I'm dazzling and bright,
I come in different shades; dark, medium and light.
When I'm a drink, I'm poured into a glass,
But if you don't drink me, I'm sure to turn to gas.
Tennis players gulp me, after they've scored deuce,
Now I really must stop writing as I'm running low on juice.

The Art of Embarrassment

2010-01-26T22:28:00.024Z

Whenever you find yourself in a situation so uncomfortable, so cringe-inducing, so downright awkward and embarrassing that the skin on your face has soared to obscene temperatures and all but melted completely off, there isn't much you can do other than laugh about it afterwards. The truth of the matter is, no-one enjoys experiencing those blush-inducing moments, and yet - it has to be said - a certain solace can be found when telling the tale afterwards. I'd go as far as saying that recounting our ordeals to others once they've occurred makes up for them happening in the first place, and by turn, actually worth enduring.
We've all done things so stupendously stupid that we wish the Earth would swallow us whole and excrete us out the other side; we've done them in the past, and we'll do them again in the future. Some of us are even doing them in the present - I guarantee it. We've all sent messages of a sensitive nature to the wrong person by mistake. We've all stumbled in the street and made it look as though we did it on purpose. We've all wandered into the incorrect toilet - though not all of us chose to wander back out again. We've all accidentally spat food into the face of an acquaintance mid-conversation, broke wind at an inappropriate time and failed to remember someone's name we've worked with for seventeen years. And we've all, as school-children, called our teacher ‘mum’; something that's all the more embarrassing when the teacher is a bloke.
As it goes, one of the earliest memories I can muster up in which my cheeks were enflamed with abashment was during a lesson at primary school. The teacher was drawing up some maths problems on the blackboard - as I recall, she was attempting to show us how a simple sum could be phrased as a mathematical 'story', along the lines of 'if there are fifteen pupils and three school buses...' etc. I wasn't paying any attention whatsoever, so when the teacher asked me to give an example of a story, my response was 'Peter Pan'. A couple of giggles rippled across the class at first, then a few more, until the entire room had erupted with laughter. There's a good chance I'd have gotten away with it being an offhand remark - a joke at the teacher's expense - if only the blood vessels in my face hadn't betrayed me.

In more recent memory, one particular incident always springs to mind when I feel the need to delve into my internal treasure-trove of shame. It was Remembrance Day, and I was at work, at my desk, in a large, open plan office. Earlier that morning, an e-mail was circulated to inform us all that at 11am we would be observing the two minutes silence. I read the e-mail, digested the information, then promptly forgot all about it. When 11 o'clock came around the entire compliment of workers stopped what they were doing and lowered their heads in a respectful hush. Everyone, of course, apart from me...
Please, hear me out. In my defence, the office was more often than not somewhat on the quiet side anyway; people were always comparing it to a library. And as I'd completely lost track of time, it's not beyond the realms of compassionate understanding as to why, as everyone entered the bubble of silent contemplation, that I was left on the outside, inhabiting my own personal sphere of complete and utter ignorance.
Looking back, if I'd continued to work at my desk for the subsequent couple of minutes, I daresay anyone would've noticed. As it was, I needed to print something as a matter of some urgency. I hit the print button, raised myself purposefully up from my chair and headed off across the office, totally oblivious to the numerous pairs of eyes stalking me as I marched off down the central walkway.
As I neared the printers, I spotted the managing director of the company seated at a large meeting table with two guests. The three of them stared at me, open-mouthed, as I continued walking in their direction. One of them caught my eye, and I shot them a friendly nod before turning into the print room, thinking how unfriendly they were for not at least giving me a small smile in return.
Waiting for me inside the tray was a warm, freshly printed document. When I mentioned before how important this particular document was, I may have been exaggerating slightly; it was the lunch menu for the local deli. I grabbed it, made a 180, and stepped back out into the office. By this stage any normal, reasonably cognisant person would have surely noticed something was amiss. Not me. Literally everyone in the office was either staring at me, or shifting in their seats uncomfortably, trying to stare at anything but me. And yet I continued, unperturbed and unaware.
I was about halfway back across the room when I spotted a friend on the edge of my field of vision. As I adjusted my course and made my way nearer, I found the look on his face to be a confounding mixture of horror and bemusement. And then it happened. I placed the menu down in front of him, clapped my hands together loudly and boomed the immortal words at the top of my voice: "So! Sandwiches?"
Well, that was too much for him. The laugh he was stifling began to make it's way past his teeth and out of his mouth; the air rushed out in fits and starts. I stared back into his pleading eyes, extremely puzzled by this point. Suddenly, the woman seated at the next desk made a loud shushing noise. I looked up to see her angrily pressing her finger to her mouth, gesticulating that I be quiet. The penny finally, finally dropped. In that one nauseating instant I realised exactly what was going on.
The familiar paralysing sense of dread flooded my body; pinpricks of sweat burst forth from every pore on my face. An immense desire to travel back in time and strangle myself at birth overcame me as I looked around the room to see everyone glaring in my direction. Far too ashamed to remain where I was, I slunk past a tirade of disapproving shaking heads and crept slowly back to my seat. The remaining thirty seconds or so of the two minute's silence passed by all too quickly.
In each of the cases I've outlined above, I had no-one to blame but myself, and therein lies the innocent beauty of it all. There is a poetry to be found in the unpredictability of embarrassment - it has to be unpredictable otherwise we'd learn from it and never put ourselves through it again. You can't force it of course - I have no time for people who actively enjoy embarrassing people on purpose; those who take pleasure in seeing people squirm, who actively make them feel uncomfortable. There's no real joy to be had in hearing someone tell you how they humiliated someone else.
And I'm sure a much more benevolent world it would be if everyone was so socially well-adjusted they constantly and consistently compensated for any unintended faux-pas and made each other feel totally at ease at all times. There'd be no more stomach-churning blunders, no more flustered flushes and no more head-slapping gaffes. But then, in this idyllic world there'd be no embarrassing stories to share afterwards either, and where would the fun be in that?

Making the World a Drier Place

2010-01-17T16:47:00.007Z

When I was about eighteen years of age, a most peculiar change occurred within my body. I’m not talking about puberty belatedly kicking in or anything - although, in many ways, that could have proved less humiliating than this. The more I think about it, I wouldn’t rule out the cause being, in some way, hormonal. It certainly wasn't hereditary, so it was quite likely to be triggered by an internal imbalance of some kind, or perhaps an environmental stimulus. But I digress.

One seemingly normal day, quite without warning, I began to sweat excessively (and, may I add, exclusively) from my arm-pits. To paint a picture for you, try to recall the Lynx advert from a few years ago, the one with the bloke suffering from water gushing out from underneath his arms as if each were connected to a fireman’s hose… well, it was rather a lot like that.

It was as if someone had happened across two high-pressure valves that were inextricably linked to my body – one to each armpit – and on this day they'd finally decided to undo them. I, on the other hand, was completely in the dark when it came to these other-worldly hydrants, and I didn’t have the foggiest how I was going to turn the water supply off again.

If I am to make only one thing clear it must be this: I am, and always have been, a hygienic person. Just as I do now, at this point in my life I showered daily, washed myself thoroughly, and maintained at all times a pleasing, if not particularly fragrant, bodily aroma. I scrubbed, soaped and sanitized every inch of the fleshy wells underneath each arm, without question removing any pesky bacterium that dared to call either of my pits its home. I dried myself suitably and carefully, sprayed on the correct amount of anti-perspirant deodorant, and wore freshly laundered clothes at all times.

So although I was sweating profusely, I never succumbed to the advanced perils of body odour by adhering to the regime described above. As I searched desperately for a solution to my newly developed dampness, I could at least avoid developing any unpleasant whiffs by changing my (admittedly stained) t-shirts regularly, and deny the aforementioned organisms the chance to swarm and multiply in the jungles of my underarms.

But there was no escaping it - I had a problem. I couldn't possibly afford the amount of new t-shirts I'd continue to require, so instead I turned to science to help me out. I figured if it was possible to put a man on the moon, then a cure for my unwanted moistness should be a snap. And yet, after making my way through a variety of 'special' deodorants, I began to give up hope. Not one of them made an impact on my issue; not one of them offered me a light at the end of my dark and sticky tunnel. Not one, that is, until I happened upon a concoction called aluminium chloride hexahydrate; a miracle potion known commercially as... Driclor.

To say this particular product changed my life is not an overstatement. I assure you I'm not being paid hard cash by the manufacturers to tell you this, but nonetheless I can happily and honestly say I endorse the fruit of their labours wholeheartedly. You'll pay around five or six pounds for what you may think to be a disproportionately small container of the stuff, but this is not half as bad as it seems when you realise you don't have to use it all the time.

For all intents and purposes, it operates exactly like a normal roll-on deodorant, but as the instructions point out you must apply it just before bed and wash it off the following morning. What the instructions fail to point out is that most people will suffer from an unpleasant burning sensation during the night, accompanied by a terrible need to scratch the irritated skin. This is usually a small hurdle to be overcome, and if you cannot make it through that first night then it shouldn't be anything a damp flannel can't fix. And yet, I suppose, if your skin does not react favourably each time you use it, then perhaps you are one of the unlucky ones, condemned to an eternity of embarrassment and shame.

For the vast majority, however, any faith tentatively placed in Driclor will not go unrewarded. As the label says, it "combats excessive perspiration", and "last for weeks, not hours" - this sacred text should be taken as gospel. It's such a small change to make to your normal routine; you simply carry on using your normal deodorant as usual, and gradually decrease the applications of Driclor. When you start to notice the results (unstained clothing; skin dry to the touch; lack of derision, giggling and outright screaming from those around you), you will feel truly blessed.

As you can imagine, my eighteen-year-old self was overjoyed with all this; it really was the answer to my prayers. It's a real testament to the product that even now, years later, I still continue to use it, and I've found that these days I only have to apply it once every two months or so. Maybe by blocking off my sweat glands it's slowly but surely clogging up my entire insides, until one day my head explodes in a spectacular shower of suppressed secretions, but until that day I'll blissfully reap the benefits.

Other than admiring the now-familiar white container on my nightstand and adhering to those bi-monthly applications, I spend the rest of my time spreading the good word; I seek out fellow sufferers of hyperhidrosis and convert them to the ways of Driclor. Many people have mocked me for worshipping a deodorant in such a manner and decry my preaching, but they are far outnumbered by the gratified souls that heeded my advice. If the day ever dawns when they stop producing it, then myself and the hoards of other loyal followers will truly be up sweat creek without a paddle. I can picture it now; it'd be like the world's worst impromptu wet t-shirt contest.

Incidentally, on a slightly related note, at around the age I first discovered Driclor I once tried washing without any products - such as soap, shower gel and shampoo - for about a month, in an attempt to attract girls. I’d heard it'd worked for some bloke out there, the theory being that cosmetic products mask our true human scent. This way, the chemicals of sexual attraction could be free to diffuse through the air rather than be muted by the artificial smells we so readily douse ourselves in. It didn’t work.

An Ode To My Uvula

2010-01-17T15:13:00.002Z

A widely unwelcome piece of poetry that has no business in existing, and yet – perhaps ironically – is based entirely on facts and truths.

You hang there in your slimy cave
Like a slippery pink stalactite
Sometimes your soft tissues
Inflate and swell and block my throat
Meaning I can’t drink
Or eat
Or breathe

I wish you would stop doing it
Aren’t you happy
Living in my mouth?
You pesky little ceiling grape.

Gone Swimmin'

2010-01-15T08:41:00.002Z

As a young child, I absolutely adored the swimming baths. Actually, let me just hastily apologise for deceiving you so readily; barely a sentence in and I’ve already told a bare-faced lie. In reality, when I first started learning to swim I felt quite the opposite. Swimming pools, lakes, and of course the seven oceans of the Earth were mysterious, forbidden domains to me. I wasn’t even a fan of the bath.

I was probably about seven or eight years old when I first started learning to swim properly. My early lessons at the local pool used to strike the fear of dread into me, especially when the fateful day arrived that I had to swim the entire width of the shallow end without the support of any kind of floatation device. I do recall making it across on my first attempt, but to this day my swimming teacher is totally oblivious to the fact that I put my foot down on the floor of the pool at least seventeen times…

Perhaps, psychologically, the inherent anxiety around bodies of water when learning to swim stemmed from a few choice incidents earlier in my past. I distinctly remember a rather traumatising event from a childhood family holiday; I couldn’t have been more than a toddler. I was togged up in my elasticated swimming trunks as my dad dutifully blew up my arm-bands. As soon as they were pushed onto my arms I was picked up and plonked in the water, then my dad turned his back for a second, only to glance back and find that I’d vanished.

It transpired that it wasn’t an ordinary swimming pool at all, but a whirlpool of some kind, and the current had swept me away. I still hold a very vivid memory of being whisked along the edge of this large circular pool, with my father running frantically around the edge to retrieve me. (He of course did retrieve me, and I lived to tell the tale – in blog form, no less.)

On my 6th birthday, my parents took myself and some friends to the Doncaster Dome; at that time a brand spanking new leisure centre in South Yorkshire that, at least to our young impressionable eyes, appeared to be some kind of water-based theme park dreamland. At this stage I still couldn’t swim without some kind of inflatable aid, but a few of my slightly older friends were becoming quite strong swimmers. When we first emerged from the changing rooms my pals leapt into the water with shrieks of joy. I, believing it to be the shallow end of the pool, followed suit, only to have my elation turn to shock when my head disappeared under the surface with a watery glug.

These mentally-scarring episodes didn’t merely happen in the confines of the swimming pool, however. Another time, whilst amusing myself on my grandparent’s back garden (in the purest possible of senses), I was desperately seeking attention and showing just how clever I could be by running backwards and yelling “Look at me!” at the top of my voice. Unfortunately, I wasn’t anywhere near as clever as I thought, tumbling into their garden pond with a terrific splash. Shaken to the core, I quickly clambered out sporting a new slimy green coat of algae and frogspawn.

All things considered, I’m surprised I never developed aquaphobia and became completely petrified of water altogether. Indeed, it’s a wonder I don’t run from the room screaming like a madman if anyone so much as turns on a tap. Thankfully, once I’d finally mastered the basics of keeping myself afloat, I overcame my fears of the deep, and remained – for the most part – happy enough.

It quickly became apparent that I was never going to be a natural swimmer, and strength and speed were certainly not my greatest assets – but I was content simply to not be sinking like a stone. Like so many things in life, it’s sometimes satisfying enough just to be, well… treading water. When I was entered into my school swimming gala for the very first time, I strained with all my effort to do my very best, and in the end I finished my race in a solid third place. Family members and friends not present at the gala seemed rather impressed; that is, until I explained there were in fact only three people in the race.

Back in those early days, it was mostly my father who took me swimming. I remember travelling in the car to a small swimming baths a few miles away. The pool was exceedingly old fashioned for the time, perhaps harking back to the days of my father’s youth, more so than something that should belong in mine. I remember the huge number board on the wall that indicated when your time was up – definitely unusual for the time. Thanks to its erratic opening hours, it was often shut when we arrived, forcing us to turn around and go straight home on more than one occasion.

There were numerous other such swimming establishments in the area I frequented at some time or other. Before they built the Ponds Forge leisure complex with its Olympic-sized pool, its predecessor in the centre of Sheffield was Sheaf Valley Baths. To be honest, I don’t remember too much about it, apart from the fact that it was located right next door to the bus station, and from the pool you could watch the buses come and go through a huge glass window. Admittedly, it was hardly like staring out across a glowing cityscape halfway up a Tokyo skyscraper whilst you perfected your breaststroke, but it was novel in its own way.

When I got a little older, myself and a couple of friends would often go to the ‘Splash Sessions’ at the local pool. These were special ‘children only’ events when the pool would be filled with oddly shaped polystyrene floats with bite-sized chunks curiously missing from them. Sometimes these sessions also involved a giant inflatable monster in the centre of the pool, tethered to each side to secure it in place, and rather a lot of kicks to the head as everyone scrabbled up its slippery legs.

They were relatively simplistic affairs, but quite exciting for us nonetheless. Beforehand, we’d put on our trunks underneath our clothes, and pack clean underwear and a towel in our little bags, and trot merrily down the lane to the pool. I remember one time – in all the frantic excitement – I forgot to pack a spare pair of underpants in my little rucksack. I distinctly recollect how much I hated queuing up in the chip shop afterwards with nothing on underneath my trousers, much to the amusement of my friends.

By the time I started secondary school, we’d often use our pocket money to travel by train to the Barnsley Metrodome. I’d been there many times before as a younger child, in the days before its extensive refurbishment. In those days, it was one of the only places in the area that had any kind of waterslide.

Originally, there were two flumes, which were yellow and white respectively – a colour scheme which, at that time, was commonplace throughout the building. Having spoken to many people about it since, I was not alone in thinking that the yellow and white air-conditioning ducts that ran through the foyer and over the reception desk were in fact part of the slides, and that there were people whizzing along inside them…

After the extensive revamp, the Metrodome became known as ‘home of the Space Adventure’, with three brand new slides each with some sort of sci-fi premise. The Black Hole was a rather basic dark tube that ended in a sort of trough, but had the novelty of displaying the time it took you to travel from the top to the bottom. The Red River Cruiser was designed for everyone to travel along it on inflatable dinghies, which was all well and good, but meant you had to queue up twice – once at the bottom for the dinghy, and once again for the slide.

Best of all was the Terrorship 3000; it started out as a steep, curved flume that fed into a large bowl that – from the outside at least – looked like a flying saucer. With water spurting in from the edges, the momentum you’d built up in the flume carried you clockwise around the bowl, gradually edging closer and closer to the gaping hole in the centre, before tumbling through into the water below like some sort of giant evacuation of the bowels.

One of the other great things about the Metrodome – aside from the wave machine – was the diving pool. The sheer height of the top splash, especially to a young boy, was a sight to behold, especially when you were standing of top of it, peering over the edge into what could have been an infinite abyss. Despite this, I used to really enjoy leaping off those diving boards, until the fateful day came along when I performed a somersault off the middle board, only to have it somehow turn into one and half somersaults. I hit the water with an almighty belly flop, knocked the wind out of myself, and vowed never to do it again.

The most unique thing about this particular diving pool was how it was raised above the level of all the other pools, with circular windows set into the walls so you could see people underwater after their dive. One time, a group of us took it in turns to pull faces at each other and the like, in competition to see who could get the biggest laugh. The winner by far was when one lad swam all the way up to the window, pulled his shorts down and slapped his arse again the window.

In spite of all the fun, the Metrodome could also be considered ‘home of the Great Disaster’. A boy from my school was once hung over the edge of the Red River Cruiser by an disgruntled adult – I don’t know what he’d done to deserve it, but being suspended by his neck over a 60ft drop above a tiled floor was both stupid and extreme.

What made this possible was the fact that the Red River Cruiser contained two open-air whirlpools held high up in the air and joined together by the sections of slide. One day it collapsed and made it onto local news – one of the whirlpools split open and slid down the pole that was supporting it, no doubt causing everyone to hold on to their dinghies for dear life and scream at the top of their lungs. It was hastily closed and re-built with stronger supports covered by fake rocks, re-opening under the new moniker of Alien Mountain…

If you did survive the slides, you were bound to work up quite an appetite. (I mean of course through all the splashing around, nothing untoward. Although, I never understood what ‘no petting’ meant and to this day I still don’t think I fully do.) As with the chip shop opposite the local baths, swimming and food were again inseparable. At the Metrodome there was little more than a vending machine and a greasy poolside cafe, but I can’t call to mind another time when over-priced, bland junk food has been as exhilarating to me.

Many years later, as men in our early twenties, a bunch of us went back to the Metrodome in an attempt to ‘re-live the dream’. It was much like we imagined, only somewhat smaller and – naturally enough – full of children. Some people said we were wrong to do it, that we were stupid to try and recapture a piece of our childhood in that way; others said we were brave for giving it a shot. But all were in agreement about one thing – namely, as we waited in the queue for the slides, shivering, half-naked and, somewhat crucially, without children of our own, we must have looked rather strange…

For many people, swimming is more than a mere leisure activity, it’s a sport they love and pursue – some even go on to make a living out of it. One of the staples for almost any holiday is the swimming pool; the filthy rich have them installed in their homes, and swimming is a great low-impact form of exercise. However, I do find it difficult to relate the Men’s 200m Butterfly to my early swimming lessons, or to find a connection between doing lengths to keep fit and having cannonball competitions, or to draw any kind of comparison between cardiovascular fitness and eating a hamburger with wet hair. I think for me, both the tremendous fun and the outright anxiety I associate with swimming is something that belongs in the past.

Why?

2010-01-14T10:42:00.000Z

A rather damp reflection on life that is positively dripping with teenage angst. Aims to be as deep as the ocean; comes across as shallow as a lily pond…

A desperate ache from deep within,
A hint of guilt, a touch of sin.
A searing rage rips all apart,
A chasm yearning in the heart.
A grinding hate spawns disbelief,
A fleeting hope gives no relief.
A vacant space leaves me to die,
All the while wondering why.

A Mild Touch of OCD

2010-01-12T15:39:00.003Z

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a very serious ailment, and I know many people out there suffer greatly, so I will try to keep the quips to a minimum. But I do believe there is a faint whisper of the dysfunction to be found in us all, and that the level to which it can affect your life differs from individual to individual.

I myself certainly have shades of it at times, as do other members of my family. For instance, a cousin of mine has difficulty leaving the house without checking that every electrical appliance has been unplugged, and is often completely paranoid that she forgot to lock the front door. These sorts of problems are perhaps the most commonly known forms that OCD takes, and certainly the ones with which I have had the most experience.

There seems to be something embedded within my synapses that fools me into believing I forgot to turn a key or flick a switch, when the sensible, logical portion of my brain knows for a fact I did. And even if I fail to believe this more rational, reasonable part of my psyche, I still tend to be blinded to the fact that it’s not ‘the end of the world’ even if I didn’t turn off the TV. This internal conflict causes my inner-fretfulness to manifest itself in various – often ludicrous – ways.

To this day I still suffer in many small ways, but I’ve learnt to cope with it a great deal over the years, and it’s safe to say I was much worse when I was younger. Throughout my teens, if I was the last person to leave the house I couldn’t rest unless I’d shaken the handle of the back door to make sure it was definitely locked – wait for it – one time for each of the years I’d been alive. (Annoying enough at 13; positively infuriating by 18.)

I even made up little jingles that I had to sing to myself. By way of telling my brain that my bedroom light was definitely off, I would chant “Everything is off, everything is good, everything is off and everything is good” as I left the room. It had its own special little tune and everything. This would allow me to rest in the knowledge that the light was indeed off, but even so, many a time I’d turn back to look under the door as I made my way down the stairs, deluded into believing that I could see a shining reflection on the gripper rod, and thus instigating the cycle all over again.

Like I said, I’ve learned to cope with it much more as I’ve grown older, but I still harbour the urge to have a swift scout around before I leave the house in a morning, mostly limiting myself to hot-spots like the iron and the hob. It’s not as if I expect the house to spontaneously burst into flames the moment I round the corner at the end of the street, and yet the nagging thought that this may happen the day I didn’t allow myself a quick check is constantly at the back of my mind.

It can of course be traced further back into my earliest youth. As a small child I would fly into a fit of rage if I stepped out of the car on ‘the wrong foot’, or would re-fasten the Velcro straps on my shoes numerous times in quick succession if they didn’t ‘feel right’. And, according to my parents, if I ever took a drink into the living room I would always have to align the handles of the plastic beaker with the edges of the fireplace. Strange, but true.

Psychologically speaking, it seems to be about finding a certain peace of mind; a comfort zone in which you can at least attempt to achieve a state of calmness. The compulsions exist as a way of attempting to neutralise the obsessions, and so by cancelling one thing out with the other you are graced with the (often ephemeral) reward of relief. It’s a losing battle, but there are brief moments of respite.

I openly admit to being a big bag of anxiety most of the time – I find it truly difficult to switch off and achieve a level of deep relaxation, to let everything go. Having practiced yoga a few years back, I know that achieving a completely meditative state is certainly possible, but, at least for myself, atrociously difficult. (I managed it only once, for a few minutes, and can liken it to one of those dreams where you’ve been bestowed the magical gift of flight, and yet for the majority of the dream it proves to be frustratingly tricky, and you only ever manage to accomplish a few fleeting moments of what can be considered serious ‘air-time’.)

For people with actual, advanced OCD – the true Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – it’s a totally different ball game. I can only begin to imagine the torment of having to count flight upon flight of steps, or the distress of having to clear your throat three-hundred times a day, or having such a fear of contamination that tactile contact with another human is an absolute impossibility. And yet, as I have shown here, the ways in which my own personal anxieties and stresses reveal themselves have earned me the right to empathise with them, at least on some minor level; I share with them a form of psychological distress.

The root of this distress is, simply put, the inability to cease the fretting at will. As human beings, we have evolved to worry – the impulse is biologically programmed into us to help us survive. It’s thanks to worrying that we ensure we have enough food to eat, and that we have somewhere to shelter us from the elements; we worry to protect ourselves and those around us. The problem is, when we’re not required to actively agonise over something, there’s no off-switch.

And so, although it’s often difficult to do in practice, because you can’t turn off worrying completely, you have to train yourself to worry less. I’ve tried to attack the situation logically by breaking everything down into the things I really should worry about, the things that are silly and not worth worrying about, and the things that I would like to worry about but have no control over, and therefore mustn’t.

Ergo, with regards to the bigger picture, I think I do show some signs of OCD, but the rational part of my brain that is so often quashed still maintains the upper hand, at least for the most part. I can’t eradicate my habits completely, but I can manage them to an extent, and I keep my little routines simple, concise and brief. Then again, I once went through an entire month afraid to use the humble colon in any piece of writing I was doing, so perhaps it’s not OCD after all. Perhaps I’m just bonkers.

Backronyms and Balderdash

2010-01-11T16:38:00.002Z

For those not in the know, a so-called ‘backronym’ is, essentially, an acronym in reverse. An acronym is usually (but not always) formed from the initial letters of a name or series of words to create a new word; hence a ‘backronym’ (of the home-made variety at least) is when a word is selected and then new words are attached to each letter to give the word meaning, related or otherwise.

It can be reasonably fun to create your own ‘backronyms’, depending on your particular idea of fun, the amount of free time you have, and also the general state of your love life. A good place to start is the word itself. Here is my first attempt:

BACKRONYM – Backwardly Attaching Claus Kernels Revealing Outstandingly Novel Youthful Meanings

As you can see, not every time you try this will be entirely successful. As I mentioned above, when acronyms are formed, the initial letters aren’t always used – a good example is RADAR, which stems from Radio Detection And Ranging. So you could always be a little more flexible if it helps:

BACKRONYM – Backwards Realisaton Yields to Meaning

However, some would say this is a form of cheating, and thus not a true ‘backronym’. I tend to agree – I think taking the initial letters only is much more fun, but then it has to be said I have a somewhat warped idea of how to have a good time, a hell of a lot of spare time, and no love life whatsoever.

The true backronyms out there have evolved rather logically; DVD has changed from its original meaning of ‘Digital Video Disc’ to ‘Digital Versatile Disc’ for example, although DVD itself is now a word in its own right, and therefore doesn’t officially stand for anything. Likewise, the Morse code signal SOS has been branded with the phrase ‘Save Our Souls’.

‘Backronyms’ are formed in a similar way to mnemonics, the difference being that mnemonics are generally full words used to remember a string of other words, and therefore the initial letters don’t necessarily make much sense when you put them all together.

For example, when you first look at MVEMJSUNP it will mean very little to you. When I write My Very Early Morning Jam Sandwiches Usually Need Peeling it will still, in all probability, mean very little to you, but it is of course a mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets in our solar system. As a straightforward acronym it simply wouldn’t work.

And yet, having said that, I always found the name ROY G BIV much easier to remember than Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain when learning the colours of the rainbow. For the record, another favourite mnemonic of mine is from a League of Gentlemen sketch – “DPI = SIN. Determination, plus Perspiration, plus Inspiration equals Success In Newsagency.”

But enough with the mnemonics – I can’t remember where I was going with them anyway. (Yes, I said it.) To create a truly impressive backronym, it is best to wheel out the old classics used in such cases. I mentioned RADAR above, and out of the squillions of others out there some other stock favourites include NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) and, of course, TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.)

Let’s see what words on this page take my fancy, and if I can rustle anything up for you. OK, here we go:

BALDERDASH – Bothersome And Loathsome Detritus Emitting Really Disgustingly Awful Smells Henceforthwith

DEATH AND BREAKFAST – Despicable Entrails And Terribly Horrendous Anecdotes Newly Disposed By Readily Embracing Ass-Kickingly Fast And Superior Technology

Larger words and phrases tend to take on a similar trend when you try and shoehorn as many adjectives and adverbs in as possible. With smaller words you can attempt to be more concise, and keep the meaning closer to the word you’re attempting to describe:

CHESS – Cloudy Head Equals Sub-standard Success

If this blog was read by more than two people, I’m sure that phrase would soon be tacked to the doors of chess clubs the world over… Whilst some are clearly more difficult than others, any word will do. To kick-start your imagination, you’ll need something that’s simple to visualise – try choosing something you eat, or an animal. Or an animal you eat.

PIG – Perfect In Gravy

RABBIT – Romping And Bounding Blindly In Tranquillity

If possible, pluralising a word by sticking an ‘s’ on the end can always help you out if you’re really stuck:

BANANAS – Bent And Nice And Nice And Scrummy

There’s no judgment when it comes to ‘backronyms’ – you can up the lewdness factor as much as it titillates you. One for the heterosexual men out there:

WOMEN – Warm Orifices Make Everything Nice

I think that’s rather sweet, in an objectifying, sexist sort of way. It’s a good barometer of loneliness too. Of course, they don’t always have to be silly; if you’re feeling a little clever you can always try and make a point:

POLITICS – Power Over Lives Instigates Trouble In Crowded Societies

UNIVERSE – Underlying Nanoscopic Infrastructure Verses Endless Reality Space-time Ether

See? Those two are a little clever. And when I say that, I literally do mean a little. Finally, here’s the one that inspired me to write about ‘backronyms’ in the first place. It’s a made-up word in itself; one my father has been using for years. He claimed he never knew exactly what it meant, but when we realised that all along it was actually an acronym waiting to get out, it suddenly made perfect sense:

BLASHFART – Bowel Loosification Assisting Sulphurous Hydrogenised Functions of Anally Released Tremors

I must admit, I’d like to have ended this little exploration of the ‘backwards acronym’ with something a bit more profound than that, but as that’s clearly not going to happen that will have to do instead.

The Hapless Hero and the Case of the Cataclysmic Tummy-Ache

2010-01-06T16:28:00.005Z

I’ve been thinking of some of the much-loved stories that I know of which I’d like to share, and I’ve decided on the one I’d like to get down in writing first. As with any tale, it’s bound to be more engrossing if the person telling it exaggerates a little, and I’m sure this story has been twisted and tweaked along the way for maximum entertainment value, but it is, at the very most, a third-hand incarnation, and I can vouch that at least the principal facts are true. So indulge me, if you will.

It all began one fateful night, as an uncle of mine took himself to bed feeling rather under the weather. Living, as he did, in a dormer bungalow, it was the kind of house where the roof comes down to the top of the ground floor, leaving enough room on the upper level for only two and half small bedrooms and a sort of spiral staircase. The bathroom, by design, was all the way downstairs; not ideal if you need the toilet in the middle of the night. And, on this particular night, my uncle was certainly in need of the toilet.

With barely enough energy to wipe his clammy forehead, he negotiated his way down the winding stairwell, clutching at his stomach as he half dashed, half stumbled down the wooden steps. Certain his bowels were about to open at any instant, he burst into the bathroom and promptly plonked his naked, feverish body down on the toilet seat, grateful he’d made it all the way from his bedroom in the nick of time.

But just before he did so, he suffered a momentary panic when he realised that perhaps what he needed to do more urgently was to throw up. Dizzily, he crawled off the toilet, turned around and kneeled quivering before the porcelain basin, like a condemned man praying for his soul. In the instant before he was sick, the toilet lid came down on the bridge of his nose with an almighty crack, breaking the bone and showering the tiled floor with scarlet drops of blood. Simultaneously, he vomited over himself, and, arse now in the air, let loose a terrific jet of diarrhoea, plastering the bathroom door with his excrement.

So this little fable ends with him lying there, exposed, trembling, and hurt, with both the room and himself positively covered with his blood, vomit and faeces. Like I said before, I’m sure some artistic license has been asserted during the various re-tellings, but like the very best of tales there’s no moral; no message. There’s hardly even a beginning, middle or end. Just some simple, premium-level toilet humour and the useless, ill-fated protagonist we always love so very much.

Things That People Say In Chip Shops

2010-01-05T12:57:00.010Z

Ingrid was waiting in the chip-shop queue.
Her day, she noted, had been particularly uninteresting. She’d spent the morning shopping in the town centre, buying food to fill her cupboards for the week. She had been feeling in a particularly daring mood, and had decided to splash out and treat herself to a new dress; blue satin with a shockingly low neckline. The afternoon saw her at the office – she only worked part time, but it was fine by her. Customer complaint followed by customer complaint was enough to drive even the most docile member of the rat-race totally and utterly gaga.
She shuffled forwards.
Peering around the yellow-brown shop, she surveyed the various customers waiting in line and sniffed slightly as she turned to examine the chalkboard menu. She hoped it wasn’t a cold coming on. It was drizzling lightly outside, and the walk home was dreary enough without the rain to contend with. She sniffed again, suddenly realising her stomach was rumbling quite openly. She’d had nothing to eat since the stale egg-mayo sandwich she’d bought at lunchtime – the majority of which she’d lobbed in the bin – and was now salivating at the prospect of a nice fish supper followed by a hot bath and bed.
She stepped forwards again.
The old woman behind her radiated with an aura of bingo and cigarettes. She seemed, on the face of it, to be a lovely old dear, shaking gently and nodding her head to no one in particular, although for all Ingrid knew she could have been harbouring the bodies of an entire netball team in her attic. The balding man behind, complete with his garish tie, leather briefcase and probably a karate chop action to boot, seemed to be itching for a decent shriek on his mobile phone as he stood there squinting out of the window, eyeing up some passing piece of skirt. Two teenage boys slouched by the door swapping jokes and giggling.
She moved forwards once again.
The clattering of pans and yelling of orders in the background soon began to aggravate her and she suddenly became all too aware of the gnawing ache in her fingers where the heavily-laden carrier bags were cutting into her hands. The old man in front, garnished with a tartan flat cap and smoking jacket, approached the pine-effect MDF counter, and asked, quite innocently, for a soft fish.
A puzzled look was thrown back at him from under a hairnet, as a woman with drawn on eyebrows blinked in disbelief. A lanky worker with far too much facial hair than could be considered hygienic whizzed around the small kitchen, much to the annoyance of everyone. Knocking over a tray of battered sausages in the process, he was ordered into the back to water down the vinegar.
As Ingrid finally stepped up to the greasy counter, she fiddled absent-mindedly with the loose change in her anorak pocket. Readying herself to ask for cod, a large portion of chips and a carton of mushy peas without saying ‘Erm’ first, she cleared her throat. And yet, before she had a chance to speak, she was instead forced to join the entire compliment of the shop in a moment of collective perplexity, which had been triggered by the naked figure who had chosen that very moment to make his entrance.
The unclothed youth streaked across the badly tiled floor – parting the people a la Moses and the Red Sea- darting towards the back of the shop and arriving next to Ingrid. In a rather casual manner he slapped his hands firmly on the counter, and with a grin etched across his rosy face the young man shook the raindrops from his hair and spoke.
‘Can I have chips and a Polish man’s forehead?’ he proclaimed in a broad Yorkshire accent.
Ingrid decided that today wasn’t so uninteresting after all.

Impotently Imparting Importance

2010-01-04T13:16:00.007Z

There’s an unusual phenomenon occurring of late, in which the person standing right next to you – whether they be your spouse, sibling, parent, boss, lover, long lost cousin, best friend forever, butcher, woodwork teacher, stalker, gardener, idol or favourite adult entertainment star – is rendered, in an instant, so completely and utterly null and void that your attention is diverted wholeheartedly (and with vim) towards someone else far, far away from your present location, no matter, also, who they may happen to be.

What I mean to say is, when you receive a phone call, text message, e-mail and the like, it doesn’t matter who it’s from; you will put everything, and, crucially, everyone, on temporary hold until you deal with it. Now, don’t think for a second that I’m not guilty of this myself – I’m not opting a ‘holier-than-thou’ stance here, because I do it all the time – but I still think it’s both inexcusably rude and downright bizarre.

Let me illustrate. Imagine, if you will, that you’re away from your home town visiting an old friend that you haven’t seen in years. Let’s also imagine that you’re a relatively social creature, with a nice smattering of friends within your home town also. Friends that you see often and contact regularly, despite being thirty and living in the box room at your parents house, and sleeping in the same bed you’ve had since you were eight, which is why your feet hang off the end. But I digress…

So. You’re visiting your friend – let’s call him Danny McStraw – in his home city of, say, Tickle Town. You arrived safely, met up with him, went out for a coffee together and called somewhere for a spot of lunch. And right now you are currently making your way back to your mate Danny’s funky inner city flat. At this time, Danny is going through a particularly rough break-up, and he’s using you as a sympathetic ear. And you’re more than happy to oblige because you are such good friends. You go way back, you and Danny. Way back.

And then, as is commonplace these days, there’s a small noise accompanied by a not altogether unpleasant vibration emanating from your trouser pocket. A text message, you think. Someone loves me! Danny swipes his key card and opens the main entrance to his funky, inner-city flat, all the while pouring his heart out to you. As you are ushered inside, you automatically reach into your pocket and pull out your mobile phone; your hand a seemingly sentient life-form in its own right.

As you both climb the stairs, Danny has moved on to a particular painful part of his story, a really sad bit explaining how he walked in to find the love of his life in bed with the dog or something, but you don’t care any more. You’ve stopped listening. You’re just nodding absently and murmuring the occasional ‘uh-uh’. You’re staring, not at him, but at your phone. The screen is winking at you – 1 new message!

Oh, the thrill of it all! Who could it possibly be? What do they want? They want me, they want me, they want me! Danny, the stairs, the entire block of funky inner-city flats falls away around you, dissolves into blackness – all that’s left is yourself, the phone and the message. The beautiful, exciting, virginal message – unopened and untouched. Danny, who you frequently stayed awake all night with at university playing Trivial Pursuit and quoting Monty Python routines, is having an immense emotional breakdown here, but now, thanks to this text message, he is swept aside, shushed up, and shelved.

Turns out it was one of your friends from back home. It was Steve. Steve sent you the text. He was just sending you a rude joke about a courgette. That was it. But you still feel compelled to reply. You know a witty comeback that’ll make him laugh. As you walk into Danny’s new flat for the first time, tapping away at your phone, you’re not going to even comment on how cool and funky it is – not until you’ve seen that little ‘sent message’ icon flash across your screen. Only then can you be totally sure your humorous reply is safely winging its way to Steve. In fact, you’re going to struggle to pick up the thread of the conversation at all, because Danny is now close to tears and you don’t even know why.

But here’s the rub. If the situation was reversed, and you happened to be at home with Steve, and you and Steve were having a similarly engaging or sensitive conversation, and you just so happened to get a text message from your old pal Danny McStraw – a text message all the way from Tickle Town, no less – you’d do exactly the same thing. Steve’s story about his sister’s terminal illness would go out of the window whilst you nodded like a fool and turned your attention to your phone, hidden secretly under the table, and tittered away to yourself as you thought up an amusing retort.

OK, OK – perhaps my example is a little extreme. I’d hate to think anyone would be so unfeeling as to reply to an SMS joke if one of their close friends was going through a relationship break-down or coping with a terminally ill relative. But I think my point still stands. Thanks to the simple act of a phone call or a text message, the person furthest away suddenly achieves a dominant status in our mind. And all because they’ve decided to contact us, regardless of whom they are or how highly we think of them.

There’s no denying it – we’re all at it. And what’s worse, we’re doing it en masse. All over the world we’re shushing and shunning the people we care about in mid-sentence, simultaneously shutting them up and putting them down, all in one fell swoop. We’re ignoring their very existence; they’re superseded by someone else – some remote other – despite their physical presence.

So why do we do it? Why do we relegate people in this manner? Are we attention-grabbing whores, suckling greedily at the teet of recognition? Always wanting the ‘new’, the ‘better’, the ‘more’? Perhaps it’s less than that. Maybe we’re just scared stiff we’re missing out on something juicy, or worrying that we’re failing to learn about an emergency we should be informed of immediately.

I have no answers. All I know is this: the trend seems to be operating like some curious disease that’s sweeping across every faction of humankind. Maybe it’s an affliction without a cure; maybe we’ll just grow progressively ruder to those around us, placing those furthest away on higher and higher pedestals. Eventually, we’ll all be punching anyone who walks into our line of vision squarely in the face, yet practically worshipping our service providers when they send us an annoying advert.

Or, equally, not. What I’m saying is, let’s try and give a little more of our attention to Danny and Steve and whoever else when we’re with them, especially if we don’t see them that often. Life’s short, and all that jazz, and nine times out of ten a text message or even a phone call can wait. Unless, of course, it’s a really funny comment about a bad haircut. I mean, imagine if someone you know has just come back from the hairdressers with a proper ‘three-weeker’ – bad haircuts are never anything less than hilarious. So if that’s the case, then reply my friend. Reply like there’s no tomorrow…

The Orkney Islands

2010-01-03T13:09:00.003Z

A poem you’d expect to be read out on local news, or perhaps something akin to the works of Huddersfield-born pumpkin-pie headed poet Simon Armitage.

The Orkney Islands; mystic, bleak and bold,
Ancient lands from times of old,
Hidden away, like treasured gold.
In the frozen northern seas.

The birds perch high on broken cliffs,
A-watching stones and monoliths.
And sandstone hills entrenched in myth,
Are flecked with shrubs and trees.

A painful sun attempts to fly,
Rays burst through the greying sky,
Boats drift and glide on waves so high,
In search of lonely quays.

A mother waits inside her home,
A father sits beside his phone.
A farmer lives out his life alone,
And time no longer flees.

Hark! The wind doth blow!
It whips the sea and sand, it
Rips straight through the rock and land;
The elements here are in command.
In the frozen northern seas.

A Time-Wasting Guide To Procrastination

2010-01-03T12:31:00.005Z

It’s weird, isn’t it, when you have something really rather important to do that, all of a sudden, you can find a million and one other things that are infinitely more interesting? It’s as if the least significant of objects can distract you – the tree in your garden you’d never cared to look at before seems to take on an almost poetic ambience you could write reams about, or the inner depths of your own navel unexpectedly become fascinating.

When I’ve got something to do, I tend to find a thorough tidying up will quite easily waste some time. There’s no need to stop at hanging up all your clothes and doing the dishes though. Be obsessive – align your papers and books so that they’re at perfect right angles, alphabetise your DVDs, and re-make your bed with hospital corners. Sometimes, if I’m really in the mood for avoiding doing something, I’ll happily go one step further and give the house its annual dusting, once-a-decade wiping or bicentennial hoovering. (I’m jesting – I’m not really that much of a slob. Not quite.)

Eating and drinking are good avoidance tactics too. Grabbing a simple sandwich can balloon into preparing the mightiest of all snacks – known in some circles as ‘The Hero’ – a full baguette with melted cheese, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, peppers, onions and your choice of meat, with a neatly arranged crescent of crisps and a side clump of cress. Preparing it is time-consuming enough, and that’s before you begin to take on the mammoth task of eating it.

For the record, hot beverages are by far the best time-wasters, chiefly because you can always go back and have another. I’d wager that a good two thirds of all cups of tea consumed in Britain are drunk out of sheer procrastination. For the best time-draining results, remember to pre-warm the pot, give sufficient time for the water to boil, and then, once poured, allow ample time for the tea molecules to pass through the semi-permeable layer of the tea-bag via osmosis. With these things in mind, the act of making a simple cup of tea can be stretched out to at least three weeks…

Usually, one begins to procrastinate when there is work of some kind to be done, and it’s quite likely that this work needs to be completed whilst seated at a computer – a computer, which, in most cases, is connected to the Internet. Which, in itself, happens to be quite probably the single most distracting invention in human history. A procrastinator’s paradise.

Never before has putting something off been so easy! Think about it. Aside from the obvious temptations of e-mail, instant messaging and forums, just one click away is the combined knowledge of the planet – an immense archive of images, videos, articles, jokes, recipes, reviews, games and enough porn to keep even the horniest of adolescent boys glued (often literally) to their monitors. Hours can be gobbled up in what feels like seconds, the days flood unrelentingly into weeks, and if you’re not careful the next time you glance out of your window you’ll see an unrecognisable vista of hover-cars, monorails and people in silver suits.

With procrastination there are, as with any discipline, perils to be pointed out and pitfalls to be avoided. Going to the lavatory is all well and good if you actually need to go, but don’t try and force anything as you may end up damaging yourself beyond repair, thus giving yourself far more time out than you first bargained for. And any procrastinator worth his salt will already know that flicking on the television is potentially hazardous if it turns out there’s nothing remotely entertaining on – you may simply spend a few measly moments channel-hopping before giving up and returning to the task at hand.

But, from one procrastinator to another, I’m presuming you actually want to waste a lot of time. Because, when all is said and done, if you’re actively looking for reasons to avoid something, chances are it’s pretty crucial you stick it out, focus, and get it done. If this is the case, then hunting for alternatives is naturally a very bad idea. But you probably know that anyway. In fact, it’s a given. We all know that procrastination is naughty and wrong; we do it on our own, in secret, and lie about it afterwards. And therein, I suppose, lies the thrill…

The Obligatory Introduction

2010-01-02T16:01:00.004Z

I find that starting something from scratch is usually much more difficult than continuing with something you’ve already begun. Others out there may believe the contrary; for all I know, the majority may be of the opinion that once you’ve started something it’s far easier to quit than to press on. But for me, having the ‘oomph’ about you to actually embark on something new is far more difficult to summon up than the alternative – to plod wearily along with something old, familiar, and, more often than not, a little on the smelly side.
It must be the fear of failing in my own originality that makes me all of a jitter. Anyone who wishes to share their thoughts and feelings with the world must be 90% ego at the very least, and with that much self-importance being bandied around there’s bound to be some serious bruising at some stage. Rejection, ambiguity and, above all, pure humiliation are all on the menu (as are a sizeable helping of metaphors to make things easier to swallow.)
Still, once over the initial hurdle, these things tend to take on a snowball effect; they grow and evolve from a few innocuous white flakes to a vast, uncontrollable monster; an almighty beast with aspirations and dreams of its own; to be wanted, needed, accepted. To be loved with no abilty to love back; to take with no power to give. To scream its way into existence and then never let go.
So, whether I’m speaking to the many or the few, to everyone at once or no-one at all, to the entire universe or to simply myself, from this virtual soapbox stand I declare my blog officially open, and welcome any wandering visitor who should find themselves trekking down this forgotten cyber-footpath with open arms and a lusty grin… Well, would you look at that? I’ve made a start. That’s the difficult bit over with.
Let the snowballing commence.

About

2010-01-02T15:58:00.006Z

So what’s it all about?
Well, that’s a damned good question. I, as the creator – the architect; the author; the one who breathed life into this blog – should probably know exactly what it’s all about, but, to be brutally frank, I’m not so sure I do. In fact, I’m only just coming to grips with what a blog itself actually is, never mind what mine specifically should have hopes and dreams of becoming.
Let’s look at it it this way – it’s a collection of words lumped together to form some sort of sense on an array of subjects I pluck from the very thinnest patches of air. You could of course look at it another way altogether, and choose to see it as an ostrich or a piece of pie or something, but that’s entirely your business and I’m in no position to even contemplate starting an argument with you.
All I can say is, I know no more how it will turn out than a parent can envisage the future life of their newborn baby. But I encourage you to come along for the ride, and see for yourself how everything grows, develops, and changes. Or, alternatively, how it succumbs to a short miserable life alone…
And that, fair reader, is what it’s all about.