Dear fellow commuters …
Jul 28th
Dear fellow commuters,
I’d like to talk to you about driving to and from work. It’s something that unites us all, whether we’re travelling from several hours away from work (like me) or from 10 minutes around the corner (like most of you). I’ve let things go for some time now, but I feel that I now need to address some serious concerns I have about your habits when you’re behind the wheel of your vehicle.
Firstly, leaving a bit of space between cars is a good thing. If I’ve learnt one thing on my commutes in and out of Sydney over the last year, it’s that you guys abhor a vacuum – there’s no space too small that it can’t be occupied by another vehicle. I like to leave a bit of room between myself and the car in front of me because they do things like braking and I like to have enough time to react to that braking without ramming them into a concrete sidewall at 100kph. But every time I hang back a bit and leave myself enough time to brake, one of you guys pulls into the space and squats there.
If I’m travelling down the freeway and I’m going less than the speed limit, it undoubtedly means that there’s someone else in front of me. I know you keep getting within six inches of my rear bumper and then doing that ‘look down the side’ manoeuvre, but no matter how close you get – the vehicle in front of me will not vanish. We are both, unfortunately, going to have to be patient for a minute or two while Captain Slow up front finds a gap to pull into.
I realise that the back of my car is one of the most amazing things in the universe, but I’d appreciate it if you’d save your close-up inspection of it for when it’s parked in a sidestreet and not when we’re both doing 110kph down the F6. We both know that when you piss me off enough to make me pull over, you’ll inevitably proceed down the road at exactly the same speed I was going – and if you were particularly annoying, I’m highly likely to return the bumper-hugging favour.
Personally speaking I like to drive at or slightly above the speed limit. I appreciate the fact that not everybody shares my driving outlook and that some of you prefer to travel everywhere at exactly 15kph below whatever the speed limit is – unless we’re in a built up area with kids running around when you inevitably speed. However while I do appreciate the fact that you like travelling at speeds well below the marked limits, not all of us do and I’d greatly appreciate it if you didn’t do your impression of a rolling roadblock during the rush hour in the outside lane on a day when your rear view mirror appears to have malfunctioned. See all those people streaming past you on the inside lane? They’re travelling at the speed limit and are obeying that road sign that says ‘Keep left unless overtaking’.
Foglights are designed to be used when it’s foggy. I know it’s a tricky concept, so let me repeat it for you in a slightly different way. When it’s not foggy, you don’t need to turn your foglights on. I realise that you feel empowered at the wheel of your vehicle and that you love playing with all the buttons and switches on the dashboard, but having fogs on when it’s not foggy is not only dangerous, it’s also illegal.
When the freeway is moving okay and you’re sat on the inside lane minding your own business, please check that wing mirror before deciding that the time is right to overtake the car in front of you. I’m the bloke in the blue Kluger driving at or slightly above the speed limit in the outside lane who is now intimately acquainted with your Baby-on-board sticker.
Not every car with lights on its roof and some kind of decal on the bodywork, is the old bill. You do not need to slam your anchors on because there’s a Sydney Water van in front of us.
Finally, please reserve your intense nose-picking session for those moments when we’re not alongside each other at the traffic lights. I know I’ll probably never see you again and that we’re both in our own cars, but there’s something about watching a bald 40 year old man excavating his nostril that puts me right off my morning cheese and ham croissant.
With kind regards,
The bloke in the blue Kluger
The long dark teatime of the soul …
Jul 24th
I have a large JD and coke in front of me, a most superb mix playing in my headphones (Euphoria: Return to Ibiza if you’re interested), the house is otherwise quiet and I have resolved to update my flipping blog. Here’s hoping I manage to string together a few paragraphs this time, because every other time I’ve tried to update my blog in the last few months apathy grips me within minutes and before you know it I’m browsing Reddit yet again.
Holiday in the sunshine ….
We’re not known for our holidaying prowess, our family. (How fucking good is Hallelujah by the Happy Mondays? Jeez this takes me right back). Whether it’s my latent Aspergers, a total and complete lack of funds, the time constraints forced on us by the fact that I’m a wage slave and Liz runs her own business or just plain old fashioned apathy, we rarely go on holidays these days. In fact the last time we had a proper go-somewhere-more-than-50km-from-your-house holiday was ermmm, about seven years ago. But by some strange conjunction of the planets we not only booked some flights somewhere else, but I reserved the holiday time and Liz let her clients know that they wouldn’t be able to phone us at 3:00am and expect an answer. Our destination? Cairns.
Yes, on account of the fact that my kid brother and his girlfriend live up there and on account of the fact that they probably won’t be doing so for much longer and on account of the fact that it’s a bit shit that we’ve been living in this country for four years and have never strayed outside the state of New South Wales – we booked flights to Cairns. Jim’s a mind-bogglingly experienced diving instructor (the most experienced in the diving-mad state of Queensland in fact) and the plan was to have him show us around some choice spots in sunny far north Queensland.
We flew up on a Tuesday on account of the fact that Virgin Blue’s airfares for Tuesdays are the lowest you’ll see all week. We left 16 degrees and rain and arrived in Cairns at night to 26 degrees. Within 30 minutes of arriving at my brother’s house the sprog had managed to (accidentally) kick the hinge off my brother’s girlfriend’s Dell laptop. Needless to say everyone was thrilled to bits by this sensational beginning to the holiday. We spent the next day touring computer shops getting quotes for laptop repairs and followed that up with a mooch around Cairns while easing back into shorts and thongs mode. Liz and the sprog went swimming in the pleasingly situated Lagoon swimming pool (sweet jesus there’s some fit fucking birds hanging around that place) and I got a tour of the marina and esplanade by my brother.
On the Thursday we decided to sample the delights of the Skyrail, Karunda and the Kuranda scenic railway. The Skyrail was probably the highlight of that trip – it goes for bloody miles, over the tops of pristine rain forest. It was worth going on if only to watch Liz jump every time the cabin went over a pylon and the whole thing rattled. Karunda was, ermm, pretty shite actually – a tourist trap in the worst sense – one shark tooth necklace shop after another. The railway was alright, but like many scenic railway journeys – too long. It goes through amazingly scenic countryside, but by the time the train rolled into Freshwater station we were well and truly over it.
Day 14 of the train journey and with the delights of Travel Scrabble exhausted, boredom starts to set in.
On the Thursday we took a trip out to the reef. Yes, that reef – the Great Barrier one. There had been much uhming and ahhing over which dive company we’d go out with, but in the end we settled on SunLover because they seemed to offer a balanced family oriented range of activities. We travelled out to the reef first thing in the morning and after an hour had arrived at the pontoon from which you go snorkelling. The whole thing was extremely well organised from start to finish – superb friendly staff, great facilities and bloody good value for money – I have no hesitation in recommending this company.
Sunlover's pontoon - located on Mason's Reef towards the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef
Without doubt the coolest thing that happened during our day on the reef was the ‘outside’ tour with the on-board naturalist. For just $35 a head you get to go outside the roped off snorkelling area and venture out into the wider reef. Liz, who refuses to wear a pair of goggles at our local beach in case she sees a fish, was very brave and ventured out with us, only panicking when the 1m reef dropped off to 10m. We got to see pretty much the entire cast of finding nemo with the exceptions of the sharks and the bus driver. It was a terrific day all things considered and one that I’d happily repeat if given the chance.
The author with the shy star of Finding Nemo - Crush the sea turtle. Noggin!
The next day we picked up some picnic supplies and did a tour of the Copperlode Dam and other pleasing (Far out, how good is the bassline in Starlight by Supermen Lovers) locations up in the hills above Cairns. We had a tasty picnic lunch at Lake Morris, which is the dam from which the good people of Cairns get their fresh water. Unlike many reservoirs and lakes you’re not allowed to boat, fish or otherwise use in a recreational capacity the pristine waters. Seemed a bit of a shame to me, since it’s a stunning spot, but the closest you can get is a walkway out to a pumping complex.
(Oooohh – Born Slippy by Underworld). Day four of our trip to FNQ was spent in the Daintree. We drove the 100km up from Cairns and went first on a croc cruise during which we saw crocs small and large. Then we headed further into the rain forest, heading for Cape Tribulation – named by a certain James Cook in 1770 when he ran aground on a reef there. Amazing landscape, but sweet jesus there’s a lot of backpackers there – kind of ruins the ambiance a bit when you’re taking in the views only to have your eye drawn to the flappy baps of Tracey from Solihull sunning herself under the palm trees. Highlight of that day’s trip though was the spectacularly shite restaurant we had lunch in. The servings were hilariously small (portion of fish the size of a chicken nugget, seven (no literally, seven) anaemic chips), awful food (my steak sandwich was actually an over-cooked piece of steak on toast) and every single dish (no matter what it was) was inexplicably accompanied by a slice of pineapple. On the way out the proprietor was giving a riveting talk on tropical foot – “This is a tangella,” he said, holding aloft said fruit. Fucking hell I’m sorry I missed the whole talk. (Choon! Wizards of the Sonic by Westbam).
Down at the wharf in Port Douglas
On our last day, we headed up to Port Douglas. I have to say I really like Port Douglas – bit on the posh side sure, but a really chilled out ambiance to the place which I felt very at home in from the moment we arrived. We had a good look around the posh shops and then had a meal at the Salsa Bar and Grill. The food was fucking sensational – I had this superb cajun chicken dish that I suspect I’ll be hard pressed to improve on. Really great restaurant in every way – real colonial feel to it. After eating we headed down to this joint called the Groper Bar where they feed these massive gropers at the same time every day. The place was heaving though and there was plenty of cases of grown men and women nudging little kids out of the way so they could get a better view, which sucked. Big shoulder shrug from me that one – can’t say I’d recommend bothering with that one.
Grown men and women nudge children aside in order to view a large fish eating another fish - note the kids behind bars!
And that brought our action-packed holiday to an end. I enjoyed my time in FNQ a lot, partly because it was 10 degrees warmed than down here, partly because it was great to catch up with my brother and his partner and partly because it’s on of those ‘must do’ locations. Same some amazing stuff, had some amazing food enjoyed some amazing times – hope to return there before I die.
The PM from Barry Island
Jun 27th
So, as you may have seen on your local news broadcasts, there’s been a small change in the big office in government here. The fair-haired Milky Way Kid otherwise known as Kevin Rudd has been ejected unceremoniously from office and his replacement is a Welsh lady with ginger hair and a vaguely impressive rack.
Can’t say I’m overwhelmed with interest of the politics of it, though I did feel that Kevin always came across like a big drip – I think it’s pretty clear that Julia has bigger balls than him. The media have of course gone to town on the subject, with the left-leaning news outlets proclaiming her as the saviour of the Labour Party and the right-leaning outlets casting aspersions on the fact she’s childless.
Meanwhile, the Barry and District News is of course making a big deal of the origins of Miss Gillard and, keen not to miss out on things, Wales Online carries a story titled, ‘Gillard used to play in my back garden‘. Elsewhere there’s been coverage about her hair colour and quality.
I thought the coverage could best be typified by the screenshot left, which I took on my iPhone the day that Gillard came to power. You’ll note that the headline is the fact that the Socceroos were knocked out of the world cup and the fact that the PM had stepped down to be replaced by the country’s first female premiere comes in second. Nice.
Politics seems to be very volatile in this country. I think it’s a combination of the fact that you’ve got a federal government elected via proportional representation and state governments with wide-ranging powers and it’s all based on a small population. It means that even the most insignificant of political parties can make an impact on the political scene, as evidenced by the presence of Stephen Fielding, a far right wing politico and representative for the ‘Family First’ organisation.
We’re due a general election some time this year and it remains to be seen whether or not Gillard and the left-leaning Labour party or Tony Abbot and the right wing Liberal party will come to power. Abbot’s another god-bothering far-right wing nutso and there’s no way on earth I’d ever vote for him, but the problem is that Labour seem to be intent on bringing in the Internet filter and I find that to be abhorrent. Who knows, maybe it’s time to give the Greens a go.
Whale of a time
It’s whale season at the moment and the few humpbacks and wrights whales that have managed to slip past the wanker Japanese boats plundering the Antarctic marine whale sanctuary are currently making their way up the east cost of Australia to warmer waters for winter. We regularly go up to Blackhead down the beach from us to see if we can spot any whales. No joy there so far, but I’ve seen plenty up in Bondi. Anyway, there was a superb sunset up at Blackhead yesterday, which I captured as best I could on the 3megapixel camera in my iPhone.
Farcebook …
Jun 26th
OK, so what is your criteria for adding someone as a friend on Facebook? Seems to me that the most popular website on the planet has stretched the concept of ‘friend’ to stretching point and beyond. In fact it’s fair to say that Facebook have crept up behind ‘Friend’ grabbed its knickers from behind, hoisted the elastic skywards and given it a wedgie the like of which its plums are unlikely to ever recover from.
My definition of ‘friend’ goes like this: are you someone who I know, do I see you fairly often or (and this one’s pretty crucial) do I like you. Those are the questions I ask myself when someone’s name pops up on Facebook and I’m asked to ‘Confirm’ or ‘Ignore’ them. I’m not being the least bit snobby about this, but the fact remains that the only people I want to read about on Facebook are people who I know and like and therefore care what they’re up to. I’m sure as shit not one of these ‘friend’ collectors who seems to rate their personal worth in terms of how many friend blips they’ve got on Facebook.
I had a bit of a weed out of my friends list the other day and I am left with 31 names. That includes family of course – even my old dad is on Facebook these days. With a few notable exceptions I also only keep people on the list who bother to interact with me occasionally. I’ve got a few people from the surf club in my list but I refuse to have the younger club members on there because I like to swear. Occasionally. Also, people who only ever get in touch with you because they want something – they can piss off too.
Some people live in a bit of a Facebook shadowland as far as my account goes. I still want them as friends, but I don’t want to read every status update. This is particularly true of a couple of my FBFs – they recently hooked up with each and every other status update is some sickly love note or another. So, knowing that I was bound to give in to temptation eventually and say something which offended them, I’ve hidden them. If and when they get married I can of course unhide them because as we all know, all talk of love and romance goes right out the window shortly after ‘I do’.
Club of the Year
I have successfully completed my first year as Club Captain at my surf club. It’s a job I completely underestimated when I agreed to take it on at the AGM in July 2009. The Club Captain is basically in charge of all the patrols on the beach – the rostering, the manning of the patrols, the equipment and of course any issues that patrol people are having. Due to the fact that we’re a very under-supported club and because the buck stops with me, I completed 138 hours of patrol time in the 2009/2010 season – by way of contrast most other club members clocked up about 60-70 hours. And in a busy club an active patrol person only has to do 30 hours to get ’100%’ for the season.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it. I was shit at time, like when I’d planned to do something else of a weekend and we had a no-show at the beach for patrol. It was also really good at times, like when the Tsunami alert happened and we got to speed up and down the beach in the IRB advising beach-goers of the (supposed) impending arrival of a tidal wave. And the day when 60 juvenile Hammerhead sharks showed up and decided to swim between the flags. And the day we timed the run from our beach to Black Head in both the duck and the IRB. There have been way more good times than bad, but it’s a draining job and I’m hoping to get a bit more help in the coming season.
Our surf club is part of the South Coast Branch which comprises nine clubs, stretching from this side of Wollongong to Mollymook – about 100Km of superb coastline. We had our branch presentation night at the bowling club here in town (we’re in the middle of the branch so everyone comes to us) and the club was awarded ‘Club of the Year’. We were given this award because we’ve managed to reverse the club’s fortunes in a fairly short period of time. There’s still a lot of work to do, but we were close to closing our doors in 2008, but now we have a bouyant nippers program, growing patrol numbers and a blooming associates membership.
The sprog
This week the sprog competed in a public speaking competition at his school. He was put forward for the finals by his teacher. He did two minutes on ‘The Three Richest Men at the Turn of the Century’, in front of his entire class. Very impressive he was too – about the only thing I could do in front of an entire school at the age of 8 would be to pick my nose.
Jervis Bay blues …
May 16th
Had a cracking day down at Jervis Bay on Saturday. We drove down with some friends of ours to have a bit of R&R and had a very enjoyable day. Lunch at the Weedy Seadragon, followed by a swim at the Bay and Basin Leisure Centre. Kids all enjoyed the water slide at the pool – I would have too, but for the fact that I inadvertently wore the least-slidey shorts in the world and had to literally walk down the water slide. Twice.
Being an easily bored gadfly I left everyone else to it at the leisure centre and drove the short distance to Huskisson to see what the surf was up to. This weekend a big swell event was promised and it certainly lived up to expectations. Conditions were fairly mammoth with three and a half metre waves breaking on the rock reefs and beaches of the Bay.
Big day at Huskisson Beach in Jervis Bay. Most other beaches were unsurfable, but the bay is protected and only comes to life on days like this. Waves on the break pictured in this photo were three metres plus.
There must have been over 150 surfers in the water at points. Proceedings took a surreal turn when I noticed a wedding reception in full swing near the beach. Over a 100 guests, tables with velvet coverings, champagne glasses, a DJ and a photographer working the crowd. And all the time an endless succession of surfers trudging along the rock shelf and into the water to enjoy the near perfect conditions.
After everyone else got bored at the leisure centre, we all met up again and drove to the beach so the kids could have a bit of a run around and a play before we left. Then, with the sun heading down behind the hills, we headed for home, stopping en route for Noodles.
Turdkickers
They’ve started putting this show on the telly here and I must say how amazed I am that someone’s managed to create a show worse than NCIS Los Angeles. Both the misuss and I sat and watched the first show which was so awful she vowed never to watch it again. However I’m a sucker for punishment and wondered if the next episode would be as bad. Amazingly, it was worse still. The show was filmed in Bath (where I lived for 10 years and know pretty well) and was staged in and around the Roman Baths. The plot (for want of a better word) was that Boadicea was buried in a hidden shrine under the baths.
There were so many hilariously awful moments that it’s hard to recap them all, but I do have a couple of favourites. When the archeologists first show up on the scene they’re met by a single smash-hat wearing council engineer who tells them they can’t possibly go down there because it’s dangerous and full of gas and they’ll die. Then, instead of marching them off the premises, he just walks off and leaves them to it! Then there’s the bit where the warrior queen’s body has, instead of rotting to teeth, transformed into glittery stone. Oh man it’s a load of pants this show – hammy beyond belief, the most tepid of plotlines and less budget than Blue Peter. I will of course be watching next week.
The bearable lightness of being …
May 10th
And so summer’s ticked over into autumn and the temperatures are slowly but surely moving south down the thermometer. We’ve had a bit of an indian summer which has been greatly appreciated. Typical summer days here are in the high ’20s, hotter spells in the mid-30s, but in autumn it sits around a near-perfect 23-24c. Not too hot that you work up a sweat walking to the fridge to get a beer, not too cold that you feel the urge to rush out and buy a solid fuel heater.
All the ‘winter’ sporting activities are starting to kick off now. Liz and the sprog will begin their cross country runs any day now with the local running club, the touch footy season will begin and surf lifesaving will slumber for a few months. We wound up the surf lifesaving season on Anzacs Day when all patrolling members traditionally show up and do the last day. It was a jolly long season, during which I clocked up a rather tasty 136 hours of patrols. Not everyone appreciates it though, I was approached by this bloke on that last patrol day when I’m in full surf lifesaver uniform and he asks me about on-going patrols. I tell him that it was the last of the season. He says to me, “You’re English aren’t you.” So I reply in the affirmative and he says, “Couldn’t they get any Australians?” Cheeky fucker. I told him no, they were all down the bowlo playing the pokies. Hey ho.
In other news we are planning a holiday. Doesn’t happen very often, particularly not for longer than a weekend, so it’s a source of much excitement. We’re planning to fly up to Cairns in July and stay with my brother James and his partner Shawna. None of us have ever been that far up the country and we’re looking forward to seeing the Barrier Reef and all the other amazing touristy things you can do up there. Since it’ll be mid-winter down here we’ll also enjoy a cheap week of winter sunshine since Cairns rarely drops much below 25c.
This Sunday gone we descended on my parents for Mothers Day. Liz made some amazing lasagne which went down extremely well with the folks and my sister and BIL who came down from Robertson for the day. My sister contributed a $65(!!!) chocolate cake from the Gumnut Patisserie. It was very tasty but I’m not convinced any chocolate cake can ever be worth that much wonga.
Ain't no cure for the …
Apr 21st
One of the side effects of the increasing number of free-to-air digital terrestrial channels here in Oz is that there’s more ‘niche’ shows on the air. The broadcasters have all this digital bandwidth to fill up and there’s only so many netball matches they can put on so they have to buy some programmes from around the world. One of the marketplaces they score those shows from is the UK, where they can probably purchase the cheap-as-chips daytime flog-it, move-it, cook-it, rebuild-it or makeover-it shows for like six dollars and fourty two cents. Including GST.
So anyway, imagine my delight when I flick over to the 7Two channel and Escape to the Country is on. I’ve always found this TV show disturbing on a grand scale and most of that has to do with the presenter – Catherine Gee. I have no idea where they found this woman or what skillset they thought she was bringing to the show but she’s a failure on a quite spectacular level and it makes for strangely compelling telly as a result.
One of the main problems Catherine seems to have is that she looks like she hates children. Whenever some kids appear with the prospective house-hunting family she views them as she might a steaming dog turd in the middle of her silk pillow. She can’t ever wait to send them off on some errand that hinges on her rather dubious view of what children want. For instance she might tell a 14 year old skateboarding hoodie kid to run along and check out the duck pond because it’s full of ducks. Or she’ll suggest some ivory white emo girl might like to have a look at the pony in the paddock while the grown-ups check out the housey-wousey. If she has any nieces and nephews I’m pretty sure that presents they receive from would be things like Mr Men Scribble Pads and a jumbo box of chunky crayons – even if said relatives are in their teens.
The other major problem with the show is that she’s monumentally shite at her job. I mean here’s a woman that has been hired to hunt houses for people. So presumably she has some history in real estate and wasn’t a child catcher in Vulgaria previously. Given that it’s a property show it would have been nice if she’d brought some kind of property related know-how to the table instead of merely a penchant for nasty pudding bowl haircuts.
Has she ever successfully found a home for the people she’s house hunting for? It never happens in the episodes I watch. She goes through the motions, the couple who are looking to buy pretend to watch footage on her Macbook while we all note that they’ve simply superimposed the images on the screen in an editing suite, they pick the two least repellent houses to view, they get 15 minutes on their own to view them without her ‘helpful’ asides and then the credits roll with the following voiceover, “Vivian and Nigel didn’t put an offer in on any of the houses, but are still house-hunting and hoping to move to the country some time this year.” Yea, no thanks to you love. No thanks to you.
Let me explain where Catherine’s going wrong. Rather than actually listening to the requirements of her house-hunters, she picks three properties at random from the back pages of Country Life magazine. Then she attempts to shoe-horn their requirements into whichever property we’re viewing. So you get amazing advice like, “Now I know our family wanted a swimming pool and I think I’ve found just the thing. Behind the house, you’ll find this quaint swamp which, with a couple of retaining walls and some tiles could, I’m sure, be a swimming pool in no time.” No Catherine, it bloody couldn’t, why didn’t you (bear with me, I know this is a bit of a leap for you) find them a house with a swimming pool?
So the poor house-hunters go out to view the two least worst houses Catherine found for them and this is followed by a cosy chat around the kitchen table in which the house-hunters let her down gently. It’s awful television and yet strangely compelling at the same time.
Some things I've said that have lead to me not getting a bonk …
Mar 26th
1) I won’t be long
2) Nobody can see us
3) Are you awake?
4) The bigger the cushion, the sweet the pushin’
5) But there is no difference between ‘having a shag’ and ‘making love’
6) Have you ever considered shaving your minge?
7) Is your period over yet?
8 ) I’ll settle for a hand-shandy
9) There’s something so debauched about morning breath.
10) Can I come on your tits?
From all this I have learned one irrefutable truth – women can hold out without any hanky panky for a fuck sight longer than blokes can.
Any they say that romance is dead, eh fellas! Pffft.
Rush hour …
Mar 23rd
Money, as per usual, is pretty tight in this household. And it doesn’t help that it costs me $45 in petrol costs every time I have to travel up to Sydney. Actually that’s $45 when petrol’s around the $1.20 mark – at the moment it’s nearer $1.28 and so my commute works out at an even $50. So I was trying to think of ways of bringing that cost down, as you would. The government are offering rebates on most of the installation costs of getting your car converted to LPG. So that’s an option. Another option is to sell the Kluger. We bought it at a time when the furthest I had to commute was Broughton, 10km down the road, but now I have to travel 130km into Sydney and back and the Klug’s turned into a bottomless pit for cash. I did look at traveling by train, but there isn’t a massive difference in the cost and it takes about two hours longer each way – so bugger that for a game of soldiers.
The third option, which is the one I’ve settled on for now, is to drive Liz’s car. She’s got a little white Mazda Astina (that’s a 323 folks) with a little 1.6 engine and a far more frugal appetite for non-renewable fossil fuels. Now thus far I’ve resisted this option because I really hate being down low in a car and your arse practically scrapes the tarmac in an Astina. Also its engine is literally half the size of the Kluger’s and I do like cars with a bit of poke. But needs must when the devil shits in your kettle, so a couple of weeks ago I did an experiment. I filled it up and then did my usual commute to Sydney. The next morning I went to my usual petrol station and filled it up again to get a proper comparison of costs. Instead of costing me $50, it cost me $34. That’s some saving. $50 a week or nearly $2500 a year. So now I commute to the city and back in the Astina. It’s a very uncomfortable car compared to the Kluger, it has no cup holders, the stereo is shit, the brakes aren’t terrific and pretty much every car on the road feels they can bully you – but you can’t argue with annual savings of $2500, so there you go.
I am, it must be said, at ease with my commute now. I know where the slow bits are, I know which lane to be in at which moments, I know which rat-runs actually work and I know that the difference between driving like an escaped convict and driving like Miss Daisy is about 20 minutes. So I don’t stress too much these days and traveling is far more enjoyable when you’re not stressed. I tend to listen to the Danny Baker show on BBC Radio London during my commute – it gets recorded by a Mac application called Radioshift. There is, however, something surreal about the traffic reports for inner London when you’re driving through Botany Bay towards the airport tunnel that goes underneath the main runway at Sydney airport. Listening to the weather reports always raises a chuckle too.
In order to keep some more of our hard-earned cash out of the hands of the government I have installed an app called Trapster on my iPhone. Very good it is too. It’s basically a wide area police surveillance network that leverages the power of the mobile phone network, the iPhone and the eyes of thousands of commuters to keep tabs on all the police traps. It overlays live information about the police, red light cameras, static cameras, congested areas, tricky corners and school zones on a Google Map. As you travel it’s constantly updated by other Trapster users who have logged a checkpoint ahead of you. I’ve logged a few traps myself on my journey.
Out with the old
Mar 11th
How are we all? Excellent, that’s excellent. Over here we’re lurching like the drunken slobs we are into autumn. In dramatic fashion the weather changed dramatically on the very day that summertime officially ended. It was almost as if someone had cued up the next record and faded it in rather too quickly. So we went from mid-30s one week to low-20s the next. It was warmed up a bit since then, but the lows are getting lower and the highs not so high.
The Sprog …
Lord only knows the sprog has come out with some funny shit over the years, but he came out with an absolute cracker today. He’s sitting at the breakfast bar and we’re T-Minus 10 minutes leaving to catch the school bus. As usual, and as I suspect it is in most families at about that time, things are fairly chaotic. So Liz says to the sprog, “Do you know where your trainers are?” The sprog looks Liz in the eye and says in a very grown-up fashion, “As a matter of fact, yes.” Liz and I look at each other in surprise, but before we’ve had chance to draw breath, he says, “But if they’re not where I think they are, then no.” Fucking genius.
Anyway, the big news for Jack is that he was elected onto the student council by his classmates. Now Jack didn’t go looking for this role, didn’t volunteer for it or anything, so I reckon it’s pretty darn cool that his peers decided that they wanted him to represent them on the council. Jack attended the first meeting last week and got a very cool badge to where. They also had a team building exercise which didn’t sound terribly dissimilar from the one I did in Bondi last year. Jack thoroughly enjoyed himself – I told him to make the most of it, because it got very old after your 10th time building bridges across ‘rivers’ with office chairs, a plank of wood and some rope.
Work …
Well yea, work’s fairly shit at the moment thanks for asking. Not much enjoying travelling up three times a week and my boss has been behaving like a bigger cunt than usual. Which is saying something believe me. I take some solace from the fact he’s pissing off on holiday in a week for nearly six weeks away from the organisation which is his life. So look out Europe, the UK and Ireland – there’s a chain-smoking slaphead wanker heading your way who has all the good grace and social manners of a rabid doberman.
Now you know why I anonymised the blog.
Some footage …
Put together some of my photos in a slideshow using iPhoto and have uploaded it to YouTube. Nothing too flash, just a bit of local colour.