tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44987406138001458122012-02-17T00:59:38.940ZAimless wanderings around Australia & Hong Kong...Plans for yesterday?http://www.blogger.com/profile/09006303043255804748noreply@blogger.comBlogger361100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4498740613800145812.post-1043698880359986962007-11-04T16:21:00.000Z2007-11-04T16:24:56.089Z

We've mothballed this blog so it just relates to the trip down under.If you want to know what we're up to these days, find us at www.plansforyesterday.comSo long and thanks for looking...

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So, about this time last year we were holidaying up in the Lake District and the gearbox in my car (a '98 Ford Scorpio Ultima) decided to let go. We had no reverse and only 2 forward gears but somehow managed to coax the old girl home. A suitable replacement 'box was located and installed by the wonderful team at Auto-Mo-Beel who also installed a new exhaust system and performed various other

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So posting resumes somewhat sooner that anticipated. I am one fucking livid boy this morning. Just catching up on yesterday's newspaper and stunned to read a report in The Times about a 31-year old woman smoker who was unable to purchase cigarettes at her local store in Cambridge because the shop assistant was Muslim and it was against her religion to sell tobacco.W H Smith, you are truly

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Okay, Okay. I know I've been away for two months (and one day). I know I've spent far too much money (but we've had a bloody good time on it). I know that I've not always been the best boy in the world in the past. But surely nothing I've done wrong deserves the reception we've received back home - gale force winds, sideways rain and surface water absolutely fu*king everywhere?Like the man said

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I see that Friday the 13th fell on a Saturday this month. How very rude.Time is flying by at an extremely rapid rate. We spent a fairly decent last couple of days in Sydney - the trip up into the Blue Mountains was excellent - we visited Leura, went in the skyway cable car and descended into the rain forest on the scenic railway - the world's steepest railway, at one point being a 52 degree

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Just a couple of days left in Sydney (& Australia) now, so it's been time to sort out matters administrative - laundry, money, shopping, packing etc. prior to Hong Kong.Aside from that, we've not done much the last couple of days -- we ventured out to Bondi Beach for a few hours yesterday -- nice to get a tick on the form (and a couple of photos of lovely ladies), but to be honest it's pretty

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How the hell it can be the 7th of January already I have no idea. We've been in Sydney for over a week now and time's flown by. Not that we've actually *done* that much since we've been here, but the seemingly never-ending social commitments have conspired not only to keep us active but also to steal many morning hours. This time next week we'll be having our second breakfast in Hong Kong and two

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Got a text message from Virgin yesterday suggesting that my credit card had shown some 'unusual' spending and could I please get in touch. I did so and it would appear that some sneaky bastard fuck of an Australian has, at some point, cloned the thing. Fortunately, the amounts involved are not huge (~200 quid) and I have zero liability for the fraudulent transactions. Apparently, I purchased some

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"I feel like a c*nt" were Hoopy's first words to me yesterday. Whether this was a statement of mental situation or a physical desire I'm not quite sure, though I suspect the former as the words were uttered with regard to the fact that he'd missed the first day's cricket at Sydney by being asleep. Mind you, that was understandable given that the dirty stopout didn't get in until about 2 hours

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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

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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

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Happy 40th Birthday Hoopy!

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 (

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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

Plans for yesterday?http://www.blogger.com/profile/09006303043255804748noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4498740613800145812.post-38928722710026671302006-12-11T00:51:00.000Z2006-12-11T01:42:18.304Z

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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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 (

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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... 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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