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?