Monday

Happy New Monday. Another year bites the dust. Has anyone else noticed that "2007" backwards is "7002", or is that just me?

New Year's eve in Sydney is highly recommended - "junior" fireworks down by the Opera House & Harbour Bridge at 9pm, followed by the real deal (which we watched from the other side of the river, meaning you can take in all 5 riverside displays at once) at midnight. Got some OK photos of the pyrotechnics and some bloody excellent ones of many, many scantily clad girls. Not for my gratification of course - Hoopy insisted. Copies will doubtless find their way to the Chandler residence as well...

It would appear that our timing has once again proved accidentally exceptional - this year's fireworks were the most expensive ever as the harbour bridge is celebrating its 75th birthday. For sure we picked the right year to visit the places we've been.

We're already into our third day here. Time flies when you're getting pissed. Hoopy had the window seat on the flight up from Melbourne and I instructed him to take a photograph as soon as we left the ground. He did so, meaning that I now have a permanent memory of the view of Melbourne I like the most - behind me!

So far we've done the usual touristy thing of wandering around, photographing the bridge (which we're climbing in 10 days - eek!) and the Opera House, visiting the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour etc. etc. Of course, it is illegal to be here without actually catching a show at the opera house, so we're going to see 'The White Album concert'on Friday night. One of my favourite albums (though I still like Revolver best so far as The Beatles go), so should be a blast.

Exercising a little delicate footwork on the clutch (bit of a session last night...), I think we're dropping down a gear today. Liverpool FC are playing their New Year's Day match later which is being televised live here (23:30 kick off) and Hoopy wants to go and watch that at Cheers Bar, which endeared itself to us very nicely thank you on Saturday. We also have our last scheduled hotel move in Australia, basing ourselves in Chinatown for the next 12 days, so a bit of relax-a-vous over the next few hours is called for.

The final test match kicks off tomorrow, so we're going to be ensconced at the SCG for a couple of days. Hopefully it might last a bit longer than that, but given England's woeful performances to date, I'd be surprised if this one gets past day four. In any event, I'm going to bugger off for a few days on Saturday (the 6th, 7th and 8th represent my only window of opportunity around everything else we already have planned) so would miss day five were it to happen anyway. Still undecided as to where I'm going - a return to Tasmania is still near the top of the list, but I'm also looking at visiting Canberra, flying up to Cairns and doing the barrier reef, going over to Uluru or even a flying (obviously - it's a long way to swim) visit across to New Zealand, if only to collect another stamp in the passport. Knowing me, I'll make my final decision mid-way through the gig on Friday night.

Off again

We had a good trip down the Great Ocean Road today. The journey itself was a little tedious at times (I reminded myself just how much I *hate* long distance bus travel), but the content was interesting and well presented by our driver. The southern Victoria coastline is impressive indeed, and by way of adding another little tick on the 'things wot I have done this holiday' form, I went up in a helicopter over the twelve apostles and London bridge rock, which was kinda neat. Transpires that the folk who were stranded on London Bridge when it's link to the mainland collapsed were not at all happy about the publicity surrounding their rescue - they were not supposed to be there - at least not together!

Fantastic time at Dracula's cabaret restaurant last night - highly recommended. We met with Alison and Kevin, a couple of ex-pats who now reside in new Zealand and are just visiting Melbourne for a couple of days. Given it was officially going to be Hoopy's birthday only 45 minutes after the show finished, the four of us continued drinking at a local bar for another couple of hours. Most enjoyable, though could have done with not having to be up at 06:30 this morning.

Speaking of getting up, tomorrow's worse. We have to be at Tullamarine for an 08:30 flight to Sydney, so it's a 05:30 start. Ugh.

Things that have impressed me about Melbourne :


* The nice people at the MCG replaced the Ashes fleece I purchased in Adelaide that had crapped up in the wash.

* Dracula's Cabaret Restaurant - bloody marvellous.

Things that have not impressed me about Melbourne:

* Everything else


Next stop Sydney.

Happy Birthday Hoopy!

Happy 40th Birthday Hoopy!

Debate

If you're just after the usual mundane claptrap about life, the universe and our 2 month, 1 day piss-up in Australia, you'd be advised to scroll down 5 paragraphs...

After another dismal day for England at the MCG yesterday, Hoopy and I decided to escape downtown Melbourne last night and wandered up to Fitzroy, where we found a damn decent boozer and settled down for the evening. After a couple of pints of Toohey's New, the conversation wandered from the mundane to the in-depth and back again many times and we spent a good three hours discussing philosophy, religion, spirituality, Darwinism, creationism and all that jazz.

We've had several of these conversations before and whilst we agree on some elements of what could, at its base level be defined as "belief", we're a few degrees apart when it comes to "God", who or whatever that may be. For many years, I would have described myself as a "strong atheist", though these days perhaps I'd be better described as a "strict agnostic" - the scientist in me suggests this to be better as we simply cannot know whether "God" exists or not, rather than the atheist view which states, matter-of-factly, the "God" does not exist. Perhaps I'm just hedging my bets as I get older!

Whichever way you spin the coin, ultimately I believe that it is one's belief in oneself that allows us to move on as humans. Darwin stated that 'it is not the strongest or most intelligent who survive, but those who are most adaptive to change' and there is much mileage in this.

Of course, what drives the inner beings' desire to change is, in itself, a contentious issue. Many would say that following a "leader's" move to change would classify as belief in that entity and could therefore accurately be defined as a ''religion'. The problem comes, of course, when the masses blindly follow the "leader" and allow logic, common sense, thousands of years of evolution and one's inner conscience to be ignored. It can be argued (and I do!) that such "fanatical religion" is the underlying cause of much of the world's strife and if people were to take a step back and look to one's inner-self rather than maintaining a blind belief in someone/thing that has never yet been proven to exist, we'd all be a bloody site better off. This of course is where we cross the line between religion and spirituality. That's another box of frogs entirely and something for another day. I can point you in the direction of James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy by way of an excellent text to get you started thinking about all this stuff, if you're one built of broad mind and intellectual independence, of course.

The carencia can provide an interesting analogy here. In bullfighting, the carencia is the part of the ring where the bull feels safest and the place where he will return time and time again when injured or threatened. He believes it to be a place of sanctuary whereas, of course, each time he returns there he exposes himself to ever increasing danger ultimately leading to his demise. Could the carencia be justifiably accepted as the bull's "religion"?

- - - - - - -

Anyhow, enough of that. Our plans for the next couple of days have changed a little since Boxing day. I tired, and failed, to get on a trip today so instead we're taking it pretty easy having drunk all that beer (followed by another meal at the Casino and some apres-grub activity) last night. Hoopy's still in bed (very forgivable, it was gone 04:00 when he went to sleep!) and I've spent the morning doing odds and sods like postcards and buying his birthday present. Tonight, we're off to Dracula's, a themed restaurant which one enters by ghost train prior to dining whilst being entertained by "talented performers sinking their teeth into a bevy of highly visual, sexy and at times insane acts, including The Human Serpent Woman, Killer Clowns escape illusion, Black Art Puppets from the womb, Musical Instrument mime and The Trapese act from hell. All set to a rockin' song list with a sinister 'carnie' sideshow spin."

Should be a larf, eh?

Tomorrow, our last in Melbourne (thank fuck - we still have no affinity for the place whatsoever!), we're off to do the Great Ocean Road Adventure, an escorted trip taking in Geelong, Bell's Beach (home of the world surfing championships), the twelve apostles and, it says here, the tragic story of the Loch Ard.

A bit blue-rinse brigade for us possibly, but it'll be nice to let someone else take charge of the day's events and will keep us out of the pub - a good thing as we have to be up at sparrow's fart on Saturday to get our flight up to Sydney. Looks like the 5th-8th of January is my window for a final adventure away from pre-planned cricket and ancillary activities. A return to Tasmania is still a pissoboloty, as are visits to Uluru, the Barrier Reef, Canberra or Darwin. Or I may run out of money and do nothing. Who knows? Maybe God. ;-)

Almost, nearly, very close, but not quite

Boxing day test. Melbourne. 2006. Attendance 89,150 - just a little short of the record of 90,800 when the West Indies played here in '61. I suspect a lot of half-interested locals decided to stay put at home, given that it's still bloody cold and wet here. The lowest Christmas temperatures since 1935, Hoopy discovered. It is, of course, scheduled to improve by ten degrees the day after we leave.

Still, we did witness three milestones - Shane Warne took his 700th test wicket (Strauss), Kevin Pietersen reached 2000 test runs and it's the 100th test match at the MCG. Shame Pietersen's runs weren't all in one innings, as once again (for the bloody third time this series) we've been knocked over by the Aussies for 150-odd.

Hoopy is absolutely convinced, and I'm inclined to agree with him, that Rudi Koertzen has a grudge against the English. Another shocking decision yesterday against us, then two appeals against Australia go unrewarded. Probably another bloody colonial with a chip on his shoulder, though one would image his angst being with the Dutch rather than the British, what with him being South African with a name like Koertzen? Guess we're the closest European team that plays test cricket.

Christmas Day didn't improve much. I finished my washing, Hoopy did his then we both crashed and watched Simpsons for an hour or so. Deciding that probably wasn't the most productive way to spend our time, we wandered down to the casino for Christmas dinner - scallops, roast turkey and all the trimmings - though Hoopy moaned about the lack of sprouts. Strange boy. Sadly, it didn't prove event-changing in any other respect and after a couple of hours we wandered back to the hotel and spent another 5 or 6 hours with Bart et al.

Laugh of the day yesterday came courtesy of a Chubb (who also happened to be chubby) security guard at the ground. When I asked him if he knew if the attendance record had been broken or not, he simply replied "don't know mate. There sure do seem like a lot of folk here though. Who's playing?"

Aarrggghhhhh.

So, cricket remains as shit as ever, but like I said to Hoopy, we must take the positives out of the trip. He asked me what they were and I explained that coming second was a good achievement (one extremely well rewarded, in my experience, if you can manage it in the bedroom) and it was the taking part that mattered. Cobblers, obviously.

One good thing - I've lost some weight on this trip. I know this as my trousers keep falling down. It's either down to weight loss or a natural trouser reaction to the multitude of scantily-clad totty there is about the place. Though thinking about it, that can't be the reason here in Melbourne because it's cold, wet and generally shit. Had I mentioned that before? ;-)

I'm doing a day trip tomorrow (Thursday), which will just leave Friday here, which also happens to be Hoopy's birthday - send emergency messages of glad tiding (or women) to the Hotel Y on Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. Fax number +61 3 9329 1469, room 405.

We have a few spare days in Sydney and I'm seriously considering going back to Tasmania. We'll see.

Time to wander down to the MCG for day two and see if we can knock these Aussies over.

There and back

I'm back in Melbourne. It's 10am on Christmas Day [good tidings to those of you who give a toss ;-)] and I have absolutely nothing better to do than this. What a life. As it happens, I'm being extremely sad and catching up on my washing at the same time - the hotel laundry being located slap bang next to the Internet PC's. Hoopy's still asleep after rolling in from the Casino (drinking, not gambling, I hasten to add) around 03:00. I couldn't hack the pace and was back in bed by 01:00 - mind you, I had been up since 06:30. I suppose I could always do what an old friend of Ali's did once and blame the Jet Lag - on a one hour flight in the same time zone. Mmmm.

Tasmania was just fantastic. My favourite place so far by a long way. After leaving Scottsdale on Thursday, I headed over to the North East coast and hung around St Helens for a few hours, popping back inland to Pyengana in the evening where I spent the night (and shared several gallons of ale with locals & visitors alike) at the internationally known Pub In The Paddock. What a great place! Beer drinking pigs and everything - and no, that's not a colloquial description of the resident Australian males.

That's the bar above. I've finally got somewhere where I can upload pictures from, though rather than include too many in these postings I'll probably whack 'em up somewhere else and link to them. Anne, Peter and Irene were exceptional hosts and I even got the chance to play good Samaritan, as four cyclists turned up - one with a broken bike - who ended up staying the night so I could give the guy a ride into town the following morning.

Friday I went back over to the NE coast for a few hours, then headed south (passing some very badly fire damaged forests and massive walnut plantations along the way) to overnight at the Island View motel in Orford. And what a view! Maria Island directly in front with a cracking view across Prosser Bay right from my room. Quite possibly one of the best views you'd ever get from a bedroom window (looking outwards, at least!). Spent an hour or so wandering around Triabunna as well - a neat little town that seems to have pretty much everything you'd need.

Saturday I headed off down to Franklin to meet up with John, Marguerite and Thomas Sturm. Stopping en-route to purchase beverages and flowers, I had a good laugh upon discovering that Huonville's florist shop also doubled up as the store where one could purchase toys for adult entertainment. Quite bizarre.

We had a fun day, centered around food, drink and good conversation. A nice way to finish my time in Tasmania, which was definately too short. I want to go back now!

By contrast, from what I've seen of Melbourne so far, you can keep it. It's grey, dirty and much like any sprawling city anywhere in the world. There are redeeming factors - some of the architecture is most impressive and the South Bank has some nice bars and restaurants, but "downtown" is, er, horrible. Of course, that's purely my opinion so far (Hoopy's too as it happens) and your mileage may vary. To be honest, once tomorrow's out of the way (Boxing Day at the MCG, should be the best atmosphere we'll ever experience at a cricket match), I'd be happy to do something else, somewhere else, before we head to Sydney on Friday.

Whilst I was having all that fun in Tasmania, back in Melbourne poor Hoopy wasn't feeling too good and spent most of Friday in bed. He did manage to get out and about most of the time though, getting a book signed by Shane Warne at a local store on Thursday, visiting the museum yesterday and discovering that unlike everywhere else we've been to in Australia so far, Victoria still allows smoking indoors. Yep, we both are again. Sometimes. However, unlike everywhere else in Australia, Victoria does not seem to allow the publication of advertisments for licenced brothels in it's newspapers, which has rather taken the fun out of that particular daily ritual.

Now it's time for me to go hang up the washing that can't go in the dryer. Boy I know how to live.

Broken Wings

I've arrived in Tasmania, after not nearly enough sleep.

Qantas kept us on the ground at Perth for an extra 3.5 hours yesterday due to a broken aeroplane. What made it a whole lot worse that we were actually on the bloody thing (and had pushed back away from the stand) when the problem was discovered. So, we had to go back to the gate, get back off the plane and sit around for a couple of hours whilst the correct engineer/screwdriver combination could be found to do the requesite fettling. We eventually got into Melbourne about 22:30 and it was well after 01:00 when I took to my bed. Suffice to say I was not overly enamoured when the alarm went off at 05:00 for me to go back to the airport.

By the good grace of the airplane God though, no problems with the JetStar service into Launceston (pronounced 'lawn-cess-ten' and not 'launce-ton' as we do for the one 10 miles down the road at home) this morning. I'm presently in Scottsdale and about to head over the the east coast to explore for a couple of days, prior to making my way down South (and a beer or six with John Sturm) on Saturday.

My couple of hours here so far remind me of Devon. I had to pull half an hour ago and pull my jeans on instead of shorts and now there's some funny wet stuff falling out of the sky, the likes of which I haven't seen for at least 6 weeks. To be honest, I actually don't mind. It's nice to be cool again after the oppressive humidity we had for the last couple of days in Perth.

Hoopy's mission in Melbourne whilst I'm over here is to locate a venue for Christmas dinner. I suspect he may manage to locate a bar or two as well, so the pool championship can continue. Wasn't such a good session for me on Tuesday night - Hoopy raced into a 1 rack lead at 36-35.

Move along...

Nothing much to see here. This will be the last update from Perth - we're off to Melbourne tomorrow morning.

Relaxing afternoon letting other people take the strain whilst we sat and drank wine and ate food on a Swan River lunch cruise. Very civilised.

Not content with winning the test series yesterday, Western Australia has also hijacked the real Ashes urn, so we went along to the museum this morning to make sure the cheating bastards were looking after it properly. It seems fine and as I'm fond of telling the Australians we meet, even though they may have "won" it, it'll be on its way back to Lord's soon enough. It's always kept in England, you know.

We experienced the excellent public transport again yesterday morning as we made our way via taxi, train and bus over to AQWA - the West Australian aquarium over at Sorrento. Very good it was too - though I wasn't too keen on the sausages in the cafe :-(

Finally, you'll all be delighted to hear that I've stormed into a massive 2 rack lead in our pool tournament. We've played 68 games in total now and the score's sitting at 35-33. Doubtless Hoopy will sort that later.

Farewell, Perth.

Laugh

Had a good laugh when Ali phoned from UKLand the other night -- apparently there's rumours doing the rounds in the village that a) she was extremely drunk when she passed out and hit her face on the floor in Maslin Beach (she wasn't, unless you count a couple of glasses of wine the day before and then sleeping for 7 hours, in which case yep, she was totally arseholed) and b) that it cost 3,000 (yep, three thousand!) of your British Pounds to have them fixed (it didn't -- the cost was less than my new camera).

How on earth do these things start? Oh wait, I think I might know. Is it because some people just don't have a life?

Those who need to already know the history here and the rest can piss off. Perhaps if their mouths were surgically modified to be the same size as their minds the human race could begin to make some progress eh? Made for a bit of light entertainment, I suppose.

For those of you kind enough to ask, by the way, she's doing fine.

Speaking of a good laugh, we went to see Kevin Bloody Wilson (http://www.kevinbloodywilson.com/) last night at the Burswood Theatre. What a laugh! Plenty of new material mixed in amongst the old favourites. My personal favourites were "You can't say c*^t in Canada" and DILLIGAF. Vietnam vets and KBW fans will know all about that...

They say you learn something every day, don't they? I have learned many things since being in Australia, some of which I hereby offer up for your delectation and delight:

1. pieLINK Internet kiosks are crap. I've used three now, so accept the fact that I know what I'm talking about. For a start, they have a horrible membrane keyboard, upon which it is impossible to touch-type and rather whisks one back to the days of the ZX Spectrum. Secondly, they feature a buit-n rackall (that's supposed to have been "built-in trackball" - see what I mean about the keyboard?) of the type normally offered up only to heavily disabled people who lean at 15 degrees to the right, are comfortable sitting with their right breast touching the back of their left knee cap and have really, really small hands. Finally, gasp, they disallow access to this blog "due to the nature of its content". Whatever could they mean? Fortunately, Google being Google had this problem solved us even before we knew it existed, by allowing one to post via email. So, pieLINK, all I have to say to you is go forth and receive fornication post haste. The only positive things I have to say about your product is that they are cheap to use (or at least would be were it not necessary to TYPE EVERYTHING THREE FUCKING TIMES) and they make a really satisfying "thud" noise when you kick them really, really hard.

2. With the exception of here in WA, Cricket Australia will insist on flying the Union flag and not the flag of St George for our cricket team. And boys, if you *must* do that, don't call it "Jack". That's only allowed when it's flown on a ship. Imbeciles.

3. Speaking of Cricket Australia cock-ups, they keep playing bloody "Sweet Chariot" when English batsmen / fielders come onto the pitch. Can somebody please tell them that's a FUCKING RUGBY SONG? Grrrr...

It's been an interesting last few days. We've been to the Brass Monkey (it wasn't) and Lucky Shag (we didn't) bars -- the latter being the Perth base for the Barmy Army. Right on the waterfront in 38 degree heat and packed to the rafters with women preferring clothing of the minuscule variety. Bloody marvellous!

I abandoned Hoops yesterday (Saturday) and took myself off to Rottnest Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rottnest_Island) for the day. What a great place! Even got to see a real life Quokker - which worldwide exist only on Rottnest and one other place in Western Australia.

I've finally sorted my trip to Tasmina - Hoopy and I get into Melbourne next Wednesday evening with me then leaving him there first thing Thursday to go to Tas. I'm going to spend three nights over there and will be spending some, or perhaps a little less or more, of that time with the erstwhile Mr Sturm (www.sturmsoft.com), formerly of the Daynotes parish downing a few beers (or whatever else he drinks). I'm really looking forward to that. His daynotes pages were most enjoyable - so nice to have something to read sometimes that actually makes you think. You would find none of this inane drivel on Mr Sturm's site - at least not very often ;-).

Sadly, inane drivel is all I have (if you discard the dashing good looks, toned torso, high intelligence and fantastic sense of humour of course), so if that's not good enough stretch your mind and go read John's old stuff.

So many questions about tattoos in email and comments - you all really need to get a life rather than wondering about ours - but I suppose I should answer them. Yes, we all had them. Ali has a dolphin on her shoulder, Hoopy has a horse's head and Chinese symbol for year of the horse on his upper arm and I've got a no entry sign on my arse in case I ever go to prison.

Actually, that last one was a lie. Mind your own business.

And to bring you slap bang up to date, we've just booked our Sydney Bridge walk (http://www.bridgeclimb.com/). January 11th. Dusk. Cool!

Hoops left me in the Internet cafe about half an hour ago to go grab a pint and it's high time I went and found him. Incredibly, we've still not played a single game of pool since being in Australia (1 month and one day yesterday - which means we're officially over half way now... sigh..) but as he's going to be a couple of beers ahead of me, perhaps I'll suggest we put that right today.

See - not quite so green as I'm cabbage looking after all, am I?

WA

We're here in sunny Western Australia.

Uneventful flight into Perth following nonsense at Adelaide airport where the Cafe stops serving breakfast at 10:00. How fucking stupid is that? Oh well, not the first time we've had junk for the first meal of the day.

The Emerald hotel is OK - our room has a shit view (of a brick wall), but the shower is powerful and they had Postman Pat on the TV so mustn't grumble really.

Today Hoops & I have ventured down the Fremantle - nice place. We've done the prison and the maritime and motor museums.

Ali's just text to say that her and the boys are on the ground in London, so I guess for them the holiday really is over.

Third Test starts tomorrow, so it's going to be cricket, cricket, cricket again for a few days.

Five to Two

INTERNET ACCESS has been awkward over the past few days, so apologies for those who've been waiting for replies to email or, more importantly, for me to do some work. It should all be done now... ;-)

It's been a mixed few days to say the least - Friday we spent doing not very much in McLaren Vale (the premier region for wine production in South Australia) during the day, followed by the Bond film in the evening. We did all manage to fit in an hours' swimming in the sea which was a great way to cool off and get a tan at the same time!

Saturday was the Dolphin swimming off Glenelg. Pretty good, though both Hoopy and myself gave up after the first swim and spent the rest of the time watching from the deck, where it was much easier to see them for long periods of time. Ali, Mike & Chaz went in for almost every swim and Charlie got to touch one (albeit with his foot), so he was a very happy bunny. It was the hottest day in South Australia, reaching 43 degrees at our house. A photograph of the thermometer will shortly be winging it's way home, just to piss everyone off.

Yesterday drove me to despair - Ali & Hoops had their parachute jump booked for 4.30pm, so we did bugger all in the morning as we had to leave at 2 for that. We got to the airfield a little after 4 only to be told that they couldn't jump and would have to re-arrange for today as the heat and lack of wind meant that their little airplane (a Cessna 6-2-something, if memory serves) was running like a snail and they wouldn't get to Ali & Hoopy until after dark. So it got to 6pm and all we'd done all day was precisely sod all! Fortunately, we did salvage something of the day by happening across Strathalbyn on the way home - a nice little town, with an amazing old tree and millions of cockatoos in the park, followed by dinner in Port Noarlunga.

As for today, it's Xmas! As Ali & the boys leave tomorrow, heading back home to drizzly Devon from the sunny Australasian continent leaving Hoops & I to watch England's cricketers suffer at the hands of the Aussies for another month, we're having our Dec 25th early. It is going to be, by far, the longest Christmas day on record. We've been up since 04:30, Ali & Hoops have done their skydive (thus rendering my final chance of a life insurance claim against her useless...) and we've all just been tattooed. That's tickling a bit, but not nearly as much as I expected it to. Now we have to go shopping for presents and Xmas dinner, which I think is going to be fresh fish on the barbecue.

We've taken about 450 photographs so far, so there's a lot of people back home in for some *very* boring evenings . Mind you, now that Ali & the boys are going, that snap-rate is likely to plummet as I suspect Hoopy and I will start spending a little (or slightly more) time in licensed premises, if only to continue the Pool competition we started in the UK before we left. We're presently 19-all, so we're both out for early blood. Look out Perth - we're on our way!

I've really enjoyed Adelaide and southern South Australia and definitely intend on returning sometime to explore further. Can't speak for the others, but it just seems more "comfortable" to me than southern Queensland, whatever that means.

Adelaide

After being extremely busy people for the past 3 weeks, we thought it would be nice to let someone else entertain us today and had planned on a bus tour of the city.

Of course, this being Lemmings & Hooper on tour, nothing went according to plan and we ended up in the city at 2pm (thus missing the last tour bus), rather than the 10am we had planned.

Many things came out of the delay though - we booked for all of us to go see the new James Bond movie tomorrow night (cool) and then get a boat out from Glenelg early on Saturday and swim with Dolphins (ultra cool). Ali & Hoopy have also arranged their skydive for Sunday (ultra stupid).

Oh yes, and the three eldest (I'll stop short of saying 'grown-ups') amongst us are all booked in to have tattoos on Monday morning...

Ali & the boys fly back to UKLand on Tuesday as Hoops and I march on to Perth, so we're going to have Christmas Day on Monday afternoon. We each have $10 to purchase a present for one other person - names drawn out of a cup this morning. I've got an easy one...

The day after

DOWN AT Victor Harbor today, with real, live dolphins swimming in the bay - very neat!

Bloody good job today's worked out so well, as the past 24 hours have not been great. 3:30 Tuesday morning Ali passed out and smacked her head on the marble floor at the house, breaking three front teeth in the process (ouch!), so we spent most of yesterday finding then attending a dentist for running repairs. Fortunately, they've been able to repair them very well and you'd struggle to tell that anything had happened; or at least, you will once her non-collagen injected top lip has shrunk back to normal size in a few days. She's still feeling a bit groggy but seems mostly OK in herself.

I'm told that Hoopy & I are not helping the recovery on the grounds that we keep making her laugh and the fact that I'm getting a bollocking would seem to suggest that normal service is not far from resumption ;-). The dentist seems to agree with our theory based on recent events that she has extremely low blood pressure, so that needs checking out back in UKLand - if nothing else, we can't afford for her to keep breaking herself!

And then, of course, England manage their age-old trick of snatching defeat from the jaws of a draw (if not victory) and go and lose the second Test. So now we're two down with three to play. Sigh.

Advice of the day comes courtesy of Hoopy on the way down here in the car - we were talking about travel sickness and apparantly, if you sit on a newspaper, you don't get car sick. No, he doesn't know why either, but it was his parents' guidance and has always worked for him...

We're halfway through our time in Adelaide now. This trip is going by waaaayyy too fast. Next stop Perth on the 12th.

Rescue Mission

IN KEEPING with my new "Superman" image (OK, OK, it's just a T-Shirt I picked up at Warner Brothers in Queensland), I was called to my first rescue mission yesterday when the Pedlo that Mike and Chaz took out onto the river in Adelaide city park had an unfortunate coming together with a buoy and got stuck in the middle, refusing to do anything other than float aimlessly downstream (much like myself at times). Anyhow, no sooner did they wave to attract attention than I ripped open my shirt, lept majestically into another boat, powered out at the speed of light (it was sooooo fast, it looked really slow, just like Steve Austin used to in the Six Million Dollar Man) and retrieved the lads. Don't think the concession owner was too happy, but hey.

I'VE COCKED UP. I left the charger for my Fuji F30 camera back in the UK and have now spent most of the day trapsing round Adelaide looking for either a replacement power pack or some sort of universal battery charger with no success. So, taking the path of least resistance, I'm about to do what any normal, sane, millionaire would and buy another camera...

ACTUALLLY, it's not that I'm buying a new camera for the hell of it - I've actually located a (very) slimline put-it-in-your-pocket-and-take-it-everywhere model that first caught my eye in the UK when it came out a year or so ago for Australian $289, which is only 115 pounds and therefore half price of what I can buy it for in the UK. A bargain. One can never have too many cameras.

THE CRICKET looks certain to be a draw, so probably a day away from the Oval (for Mike and I, at least) tomorrow. Looking forward to catching a few rays and not doing very much. It's actually been *cold* here the last couple of days thanks to a very strong wind. I shall, of course, be complaining to the appropriate authorities in due course. As Catherine Tate's character might say, "11,000 miles and they choose to keep it cold and grey - what a fucking liberty!"

AND I keep forgetting to mention that Hoopy bumped into a mate of his as we were sauntering through the Kangaroo enclosure at Australia Zoo last week. Is no place in this world safe?

Pessimist..

OK, so I was a bit pessimistic yesterday! England are rattling on very nicely thank-you. I suspect we'll see a declaration later on today so we have an hour or so at the Aussies before close of play.

Favourite quote on a T-Shirt at this ground so far - "My girlfriend can't wrestle, but you should see her box."

Snigger.

Lost & Found

It's lunchtime on 1st December and I've escaped from the cricket for an hour or two (doubt i'll miss much - it seems normal service is continuing with England on a paltry 43-2 having won the toss and decided to bat) to catch up on a bit of work back in UKLand. I'm delighted to report that my domain/email nightmare seems to be over. It would appear that the ISP in question, UK2 bless 'em, have not been enjoying much fun of late:

From: UK2
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:18:04 +0000
To: Mat Lemmings
Subject: Network Update from UK2

Dear UK2 Customer,
You may have experienced some network accessibility issues yesterday, if so I would like to take this opportunity to explain what happened.
UK2 were the victim of an incident called "IP Hijacking" which means that another organisation (an Indonesian ISP in fact) stole a part of the IP address space which belonged to UK2. This is a very rare occurrence and is due to the unrestricted nature and varying levels of security in some parts of the Internet (read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_hijacking). The impact was that some customers traffic was routed incorrectly, causing sporadic network downtime, delays and in a minority of cases the loss of data.

May I apologise for this inconvenience and re-assure that you that the UK2 team worked extremely hard to identify and rectify this problem, and all services were fully operational and back to normal last night. We also took immediate action to reinforce our network even further.
I would like to re-iterate that everything is now under control and that all services are fully operational and back to normal.

If you have any further questions or issues, please do not hesitate to contact our support team by raising a ticket via http://support.uk2.net/.

Kind regards

Ditlev Bredahl
Managing Director, UK2

The journey from Queensland over to South Australia was not the best -- I found the first flight (Brisbane-Sydney) a little too bumpy for my liking (I've travelled God knows how many hundreds of thousands of air miles in my life and I still don't enjoy the bit between take-off and landing very much) and then Qantas go and ruin their excellent first impressions by forgetting to send our luggage on to Adelaide. Fortunately it only spent a couple of hours at Sydney before being forwarded and was delivered to us just before midnight. The upside was we all got Qantas overnight kits - so we're all kitted out with airline T-Shirts and pyjama shorts now. May come in handy for something, I suppose. Something to change into next time there's a session in Chandler's hot tub if nothing else.

We're renting a fantastic split-level house in Maslin Beach, which is about 45 minutes south of the city. The views are fantastic and the beach is great [and features SA's only nudist bathing 800m South, which seems to have pleased Hoopy ;-)]. Even better, it's only a 10-minute drive to the metro station at Noarlunga, from which trains run to Adelaide several times an hour, meaning the door2door commute to the stadium only takes one hour. There a sea views from most parts of the house and there's a nice breeze along the coast which makes the daytime temperature (around 34 yesterday) somewhat more bearable than in Brisbane.

Having the same accommodation for 14 days is really nice -- we've actually been able to unpack and, gasp, *hang clothes up* and *put things in drawers* so we can actually FIND them. Having a washing machine and dryer on tap makes a big difference too. It's just like being at home really, save for the freezing cold, pissing rain and floods. Can't imagine why I wanted a holiday at all.

The first gold star of the holiday is awarded to Hoopy - he's now a fortnight down without a cigarette. I've had one, so on that basis a packet of 20 will last about 9 months. Be interesting to see how we do once Ali & the boys have returned to UKLand and the evening beer sessions resume in earnest.

I'm still hoping to get across to Tasmania to visit friends but if that happens it now won't be until between Perth & Melbourne, just a couple of days before Christmas.

Whilst Mike, Hoopy & I are at the Adelaide Oval today, Ali and Chaz are exploring (shopping centres, it would seem, based on Ali's SMS texts so far). Seems that Ali has found out about a local skydiving place, so we could be saying Adios to her and Hoops after all.

Vicar : "So, for the service, what were Alan's last words?"
Me : "Fuuuuuuuuuccccccckkkkkkkkkkk......"

Best get back to the ground now, Australia could well be batting...

Changing Times

WE'RE JUST leaving the Eton B&B in Brisbane to make our way (via some as yet to be determined stop en-route) to the airport to fly down to Sydney, in order to connect with our flight to Adelaide later this afternoon.

THE ZOO was OK -- certainly not the best one I've ever been to, but their conservation work is to be applauded, so they get extra marks for that.

IT'S bloody hot here at the moment (33c) and Hoopy tells us that it's 38 in Adelaide. Phew! Still, better than the rain and floods we're missing back in Devon.

CHINATOWN last night for food, which was nice. Though perhaps not quite as nice as the three pints of Guinness I necked beforehand in the Elephant & Wheelbarrow pub. Charlie even managed to get $5 from the guy who was running a quiz there.

SPEAKING of Chaz, he's now started calling Hoopy "Uncle Hoopy". How cute.

Balmy

IT'S hot and humid in Brisbane today. We've been waiting on a (apparently massive) thunderstorm, but as yet it's not arrived.

AS everyone (who cares) will know by now, England lost the first Test this morning - Hoopy & Mike ventured down to the ground in the hope of a seeing a staunch English defence, but it didn't happen.

WHILST they were off getting depressed at the Gabba, myself, Ali & Charlie 'did' downtown Brisbane, taking in a trip up the river on the CityCat catamarans, wandering around Queen Street mall spending entirely too much money and generally getting a feel for the place. It's certainly a lot smaller and less daunting once you've spent a few hours in the centre -- it's a city that makes little sense from behind the wheel of a car ("the WRETCHED one way system" as Hoopy calls it), but on foot all becomes clear and it's actually really easy to get around.

WE HAD first hand experience of the Barmy Army at the Gabba on Sunday - they chose to congregate right behind us on the ground level of the stadium and didn't shut up for hours! Mike & I left early 'cos we were getting headaches - even Hoopy [who's used to raucous mobs screaming from the terraces at Anfield ;-)] went and sat upstairs after we left. It was all pretty good natured mind you - even the police were taking it in turns to have pictures taken with the lads and also doing 'behind camera' work on request. Obviously a nicer bunch than the muppets of the first couple of days.

ONCE I get the right combination of computer, card reader and decent Internet connection (I've managed any two out of three everywhere so far), I'm hoping to throw some pictures up, if only to prove, as Chandler has suggested, that we're not simply having time off in Bognor Regis and making all this crap up from the telly.

AFTER the cricket finished today and we'd met back up, Hoopy & I went off to the museums. Brisbane museum is rubbish, but the museum of Queensland over the river was excellent.

I"VE been up a couple of late nights trying desperately to sort out a problem with a recalcitrant .co.uk domain that expired without warning last Friday. It's registered through uk2.net who, until now, have always done themselves proud on product, price and performance. However, that view is changing by the hour -- I've now been waiting THREE DAYS for them to get back to me. As is the way these days, they don't pubish any form of phone number, so you're simply stuck waiting for someone to respond to faults on their suport site or emails. Unfortunately, the domain in question is used by about 200 people for email services, so it's a big issue. Once the domain is reactivated, it'll take me 20 seconds (with one hand tied behind my back) to change the MX record and get things working again, but until they pull their finger out of their arse I'm stuffed. Grrr. So much for not working this holiday. Note to self - when you get home, move any and all domains away from UK2 to someone who actually ANSWERS CRITICAL FAULTS when you raise them. Meantime, if anyone can get me a telephone number, I'll buy several beers...

AUSTRALIA ZOO beckons tomorrow, so we may be one down come Wednesday if Chaz reclaims his natural place in the Monkey enclosure.

NOW it's beer o'clock. So long.

Not welcome here...

I've learnt a few things since we've been here.

Firstly, I now know that what we call flip-flops are called thongs. This led to some initial amusement, until we kept being refused entry to night spots due to Ali's underwear. Now we know better, she's gone out and spent millions of pounds on shoes, quite unselfishly, just so we have a choice of eating establishments in the evening. Moreover, it would seem that the Australian for camper van is 'Bus'. Which wouldn't be half as confusing if the word for 'Bus' wasn't 'Bus' as well.

And of course, as we learned yesterday, the Australian for policeman is 'screaming fat tosser in uniform'.

A welcome day away from the humiliation (read 'cricket') today for myself, Ali & the boys. We headed North to Noosa, about 140kms from Brisbane. Fantastic beach, women and weather. What more could a man want?

We're in the middle of the first proper drinking session we've had since arrival down under, so I make no apologies for the brevity of this post nor for any speling mistooks contained herein.

We move hotel tomorrow for 3 days, then it's off to Adelaide. We may or may not have Internet access for a few days, so some of you back in the UK may be receiving postcards henceforth...

Same old story

So we're just back from day two of the first test and I'm delighted to report that it's business as usual, with the Aussies declaring on 602-9 and England finishing the day three down for a mega-impressive 53 runs on the board. It's all bloody Andrew Strauss's fault - WHEN is the boy going to learn the difference between a one-day run chase and a FUC&ING FIVE DAY TEST MATCH? Grrr...

On a lighter note, we have been part of two new attendance records for cricket at the Gabba - 39,288 yesterday and 39,315 today. One thing is for certain though - they'll be at least one down tomorrow as I really don't see the point in going. Only two things can happen now - we can bat all of tomorrow (ha!) in which case the likly result is a draw, or the Aussies are going to bowl us out, make us follow on (we need to score 403 to avoid that particular indignity) and thence win the game. So I think I'll use the day to explore central Brisbane - there's soooo much to do here I really think we should have come away for 2 years and not 2 months.

Oh yes, can someone please tell the Gabba security staff / local Police that they are all screaming fuckwits.

Today, upon entering the ground a burly security guard removed Mike's small Ashes series commerative bat from his hot and sweaty stating that "items that could be used as weapons are not allowed in the ground." An understandable stance, or at least it would be had we not BOUGHT THE DAMN THING INSIDE THE GROUND YESTERDAY. Sigh. I pointed this out to stroppy bollocks, who eventually agreed to let Mike have it back and take it in, providing I hid it in my newspaper. So toy cricket bats are no good, but concealed weapons are OK!

Yesterday, several good folk were ejected from the ground for having the temerity to attempt to start a Mexican wave. I did relish in pointing out to the ex-Colonials sitting behind me, who'd be going on all day about how they were the new frontier, the land of choice and freedom, that in ENGLAND we are actually ALLOWED to make our own entertainment at sporting venues. "Zer shall be no fun at ze Gabba today inmates." Indeed.

A great article in the local paper this morning about an enterprising local chap (Tony Bridge, to name and shame), who rents out his yard for car parking when there's events on at the Gabba. When asked why he put the price up from $10 to $15, the reply came "I have to fund my dog's heartworm medication somehow."

I'm starting to worry about these Australians.

Today's the day..

FIRST day, first test. In Australia. What fun!

UP early this morning (05:00), leaving the Sea World resort and heading North into the city centre. We're now based at Terraces on Wickham for the next 3 days, which, it seems, happens to be the "official" base of the travelling Barmy Army, so I expect we're in for some fun apres-cricket activity.

The journey into the city only took 1.5 hours door-to-door - we've arrived so early that we've still another hour to wait for the courtesy buses to the Gabba to start running.

Fun day yesterday at Warner Brothers studios, Ali & Hoopy notched up another two coaster rides, with Mike & Chaz coming in with 1 a piece. Chicken shit here took the photographs.

Hoopy seems back to normal now, partaking of a few beers last night rather than poncy cocktails. And he's still not had a cigarette since Singapore...

C'Mon England!!!

66.6% to go...

MY chances of leaving here a rich man diminished somewhat yesterday as Ali (with Hoopy) went on the roller coaster twice. Oh well, there's still her bungee jump and free fall to go...

BUSY day at Seaworld yesterday, with, I'm pleased to say, no recurrence of the vertigo I seemed to be suffering from at the Rugby the other night. I was feeling quite unwell sat up the top of Suncorp stadium.

MANAGED to dump the kids into a club for a few hours last night and ventured into Southport with Ali & Hoopy for dinner and drinkies, letting Ali lose her virginity on the driving front on the way back.

THERE'S definitely something in the water here; we've all been up long before 08:00 every day (I was out at 05:35 this morning driving around!) and Hoopy, gasp, was seen last night in the bar drinking Pina Colada's and Gin & Tonic. What ever is the world coming to...?

TWO days to go until the first test and the Ashes is (are?) everywhere here. Apparantly there's another 9,998 Brits coming as well. Hope they leave some beer for us.

Stuffed...

... In more ways than one. Mike & I have just had breakfast (Ali's awake but not ready, Chaz will sleep for another hour or more I suspect and we probably won't see Hoopy for another 3 days), having got back at 00:10 after the Rugby. A resounding 33-10 win for the Kangaroos. Let's hope that the British defeat wasn't a sign of things to come in the cricket.

It's 08:35, hot and sunny. I'm sure everyone back home is really pleased for us... ;-)

Down Under

We're here. Boy that's one hell of a flight. Both legs were fairly uneventful (which, I've decided, is probably the best way for one's time in a metal tube doing 550+ mph at 35,000 feet to be).

Hoopy ended up covered in curry at some point during the Heathrow-Singapore set, apparently as a result of an over-anxious steward. Charlie caused a bomb scare at Singapore airport by leaving his rucksack on a bench, which he didn't remember about until 20 minutes later. By that time, of course, the spooks were out in force and poor Ali ended up being led away by four coppers (with big guns, apparently) for questioning. I, being me, was oblivious to all this excitement having taken up residence in the (i must say extremely clean) personal hygiene facility. Anyhow, they let (kicked) us out of Singapore in the end and we got into Brisbane 6:35am Aussie time this morning. Qantas are a good airline - I just wish I was either a foot shorter or much richer. At 6'6" and 230lb, I just don't do a cattle class seat very well...

With Michael moaning about impending death through lack of nourishment the moment we cleared customs (despite having 86 breakfasts/dinners/snacks on the plane (all at the wrong times - you have no idea how crossing the International Date Line *and* seven time zones really confuses the hell out of the concept of Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner)), we picked up the rental car and headed for the nearest McDonalds.

At which point Hoopy, bless him, picks up a newspaper (I didn't even know he could read...), discovers that not only is the Great Britain/Australia Rugby League game on tonight but in fact is being played at the Suncorp Stadium right here in Brisbane. So within 5 minutes of arriving at the resort, the receptionist has called the stadium, booked us tickets and it seems therefore that we're going. Should make about 50 hours straight without sleep by the time we get back to the resort later...

Scary Moments

Is it just me, or am I right to be paranoid when you're in the airside departure lounge at the world's busiest airport when all of a sudden an alarm starts going off and an arabic-speaking woman starts blurbing something over the tannoy at warp speed?

Anyway, that's where we are. We've just had the pre-boarding call for our flights (for those with young childen, disabilities or the 356 terminally stupid people who pretend to have one or other of these ailments to jump the queue), so I suspect we'll be getting on in about 15 minutes.

Chandler - if you're reading this - you don't need to send the same text message to Hoopy & I at the same time - in case you've not quite recovered from Saturday yet, may I remind you that we are, in fact, *together*! ;-)

The big silver bird awaits to head south...

A Transvestite Dog called Steven

230 MILES down and about 11,000 to go. We've made it as far as sister-in-law Carol in London, about 15 minutes from Heathrow, having met my mother for lunch (Nandos... yum, though I "forgot" (ha!) to buy Hoopy any food so he was about 10 minutes behind the rest of us in eating) en route.

So just time for a cup of tea (and perhaps a sharpener or two at The Sawyers Arms whilst Ali & Carol chat some more) before going 300 yards down the road to sister-in-law Sheila who's doing the Airport run and babysitting the car for us.

Hoopy's had 2 cigarettes so far but still insists that the last in the departure lounge later will be the last ever. We'll see.

Next stop Singapore, where we're due to arrive in about 16 hours' time.

Sorry 'bout the title today - as it happens, we don't have a dog, let alone one with a penchant for ladies clothing and fake breasts - but the name came to me in the middle of the night when I was having a dream about recording an album and decided upon that as a title. I think Hoopy makes a valid point here - he's just said "you're mad". I guess.

It Begins...

SO, here we are then. Nearly 4 years (Thursday 7th January 2003, to be exact) after I finished my last stint of creating publicly accessible drivel, it's time to do a little more.

HOWEVER, I'm not for one minute intending this to be a permanent return, and it's highly unlikely that anything you'll read here will be of any interest whatsoever, especially if you've come here thinking you'll find a techie based diatribe like wot I wrote before [or other stuff along the lines of what the remaining Daynotes (http://www.daynotes.com/) boys still do]. I'm doing it for the purely selfish reason of having somewhere to record my 2-month-and-one-day (don't forget the one day...) trip to Australia and Hong Kong, which starts, er, tomorrow. Nothing like preparation and planning here, you understand.

FIVE of us (myself, 'er indoors Ali, #1 Son Mike, #2 Chaz and our doubtless soon to be ex-friend Alan "Hoopy" Hooper) fly out at 22:00 tomorrow on Qantas QF10 London-Brisbane, via Singapore to commence a 62 day barrage of alcohol abuse, street fights with Australian cricket fans (a contradiction in terms, surely?) and cramming in as much sightseeing (and in Hoopy's case at least, shagging) as possible.

ACTUALLY, we're toddling off very innocently to watch the Ashes (Americans and other non-colonials can look it up here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ashes) and do a few other things besides - two of which I'm particularly looking forward to as either could leave me a very rich man indeed - Ali intends to go on a massive roller coaster and do a parachute jump. Where's that insurance policy...?

As I'll probably forget to put anything so remotely useful as place names in posts, we'll be going to these places:

Nov 18th - 28th : Brisbane, Queensland
Nov 29th - Dec 11th : Adelaide, South Australia
Dec 12th - 19th : Perth, Western Australia
Dec 20th - 29th : Melbourne, Victoria
Dec 30th - Jan 11th : Sydney, New South Wales (hawk... spit...)
Jan 12th - 16th : Hong Kong Island, Kong Kong
Jan 17th - Back in Blighty. Sigh.

ANYONE wishing to meet up for beer (or ladies/officers of the constabulary requiring Hoopy's cellphone number) is more than welcome to drop their contact details into a comments, which may or may not illicit a response...

WHY a blog and not simply photographs and memories like normal people, you ask? Well, for a start my memory doesn't work very well any more and many of the photographs I intend taking will, I hope, cause extreme embarrassment to the human subjects (Hoopy) concerned and should therefore be shared with as wider audience as possible, especially those he has previously regarded as friends back home in UKLand. Additionally, of course, it's a really cheap and lazy alternative to personal emails and postcards.

OH YES, about the name. Last Saturday, a day which will forever remain in the memories of those in attendance or unlucky enough to have overheard the antics, 12 of us went out for the quintessential pre-trip piss-up, of which the magnificent 7 ended up in Chandler's hot tub [bollock naked, obviously], eventually managing to stagger home (in various articles of undone/borrowed/wet/other clothing) sometime after 05:30; and it had been his idea during a conversation earlier in the night to keep a blog on the trip. So here it is.

MY NAME is Mat Lemmings, NOT Ian Chandler.

AND that's all for now.