Na Zdravi

Well, my flight was cancelled. Fortunately though I managed to get on the next one out which was only two and a half hours later; which is about how long it took me to go through security. I was at terminal 4 which was probably a lot less busy than the other ones, but I generally thought it was quite well handled. People were patient and the airport was relatively well organised. I managed to call BA and have my flight changed, I felt for the people who were queuing for the ticket desk which was out the door, around the corner, and then fed by two further queues set up in marquees in the car park!

So I got to Vienna only a little later and met Rob who had been waiting patiently for me. We went to our hotel, which was cleverly selected for its proximity to Schnitzelwirt, dropped our gear and headed out for lunch. We went to Schnitzelwirt when we were travelling around Europe 5 years ago, they have the most amazing schnitzel there and we have been raving about it ever since; Vienna (a city of immense culture and history) was chosen so we could go back and eat these schnitzels again. I had already joked that with the foiled terrorist plot causing problems in getting there; Allah was conspiring to prevent me from eating pork. We joked further on the way to the restaurant that wouldn’t it be funny if it was closed.

It was!

Closed for the holidays between July 24 and August 20.

Oh well, the irony of it all. We still found a couple of other places for schnitzel, including a really good Austrian beer hall which brewed its own beer. We managed to stuff ourselves silly and loosen our belts by a couple of notches.

The next day we took the short train trip to Brno, the capital of Moravia in the Czech Republic. We met our friend Roman who drove us to Trebic where we had lunch (more schnitzel) and then to the tiny village of Horni Vilemovice. There we spent the afternoon at a farm-house - chatting, playing games, drinking and enjoying a Czech-style-BBQ. Suitably feed and boozed, at 10:30pm it was time to hike through the forest to the neighbouring village where a rock cover-band were putting on a show. When we started throwing back shots of a spirit named after Boozy-Boris the former Russian president - we knew things could only go down hill from there. Rocking to some classic Czech rock music in a random hall in the Moravian countryside, was not something that most Australians would find themselves doing; but we did it well. Needless to say the trek back home through the pitch dark at 3.30am was an event, one that included Rob falling into a ditch. Pure gold. It was really fun night and boy did I suffer the next day; without a doubt the worse hangover I have had in a long time meant that the trip back to London was not much fun.

We made it back though without any hitches, in fact our flight landed 15 minutes ahead of schedule as the chief flight attendant so gleefully announced. It was another top weekend with Rob, we always seem to make the most of things together. We always know exactly what we are thinking and I am sure that eventually we will be able to communicate telepathically since we usually know what the other is going to say before it has been said. I’ll miss him a lot when he’s gone, but there’ll never be any goodbyes, just see you later.

Petitions won't matter

My Sarah forwarded me an email asking me to sign a petition, to stop the bloodshed in the middle east; specifically the current Israel - Lebanon conflict. So I did. Though I don't think it will make any difference at all. It really wont matter how many people sign the petition. We could get the whole nation to sign it and it still wont affect anything. 2 million democratic citizens of this country marched through the streets of London in protest against the war in Iraq, did it make a difference? No!

Both sides of the conflict are showing a flagrant disregard for international law; many innocent civilians are being killed. It has already developed into a 'tit for tat' conflict, where each side claims their attacks are in retaliation against the other.

Hizbollah are a guerilla group, they have limited means in acheiving their objectives, they are not a nation in themselves, they do not have a proper military and they do not have a representative in the UN. Israel do. Israel are in a greater position to end this conflict, they can be the bigger party, they can choose not to retaliate and they can choose not to use more and more force to resolve this. But they won't. Israel think they can get away with doing whatever the hell they want, with impunity. Do you know what? They can, because the US lets them. They are just as much terrorists as the people they label as such.

This conflict will end if the US tells Israel to stop, simple as that, they have the power and they are the only ones who have the power to stop it. So petitions and protests and UN calls for ceasefires are going to do nothing until the US acts against Israel. I really think that is the cold hard truth of the matter

Keeping my fingers crossed

MI5 have uncovered a plot to blow up a number of planes flying between the UK and USA, pretty much all airports in the UK are at a standstill. Aircraft, unless already airborne, will not be allowed to land at Heathrow. People lucky enough to get on their flight, can not take any hand luggage on board. This is f**ked!

I’m supposed to be flying to Vienna tomorrow morning out of Heathrow. Something tells me I might not make my flight. Even if I do I won’t be able to take my PSP on board! But I suppose that’s not too much of a tragedy. Rob and I are supposed to be making a pilgrimage to Schnitzelwirt in Vienna this weekend; he is heading back to Australia in a month’s time so this will be our last little trip together. Fortunately for Rob he is already on the continent and shouldn’t have too much trouble getting to Vienna from Frankfurt. I will be very angry if I am unable to join him there.

I will not however be angry specifically with the so called terrorists who were going to blow up the planes. Although I certainly don’t sympathise with them at all, and in fact think they are pathetic and cowardly little worms; I blame Tony Blair and George Bush, the democratically elected leaders of our nations.

They are as neanderthalistic as the people they dub terrorists. Attacking Iraq is one of the major causes of people wanting to blow up airplanes in the UK and USA. How on earth is it a good idea to ‘fight terrorism’ by going and starting another war? Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed in Iraq since we invaded the place and it’s not getting any better. Sure; there were probably plenty of people out there who didn’t like our country, but that’s life! By invading Iraq all we have done is given organisations, which our leaders like to call terrorists, further motivation to come and attack us. It must be so much easier for these people to recruit people to their cause now, all they have to point at the absolute carnage we have caused in Iraq; they must have potential recruits lining up around the block! Sure, there are plenty of people out there who will hate the West no matter what, but some of these guys are probably just fighting back. They’re pissed off that we went and started blowing up Iraq and so they figured they should blow us up as well. They don’t have the same kind of means as our multi billion dollar armies, so they use what they have to make the most impact. Yet this makes them terrorists! They are no more terrorists than the armies of the UK and USA, and no matter how many times they are successful in bombing us and no matter how many civilians they kill; it will still not be as many as the number of innocent people who have been killed by our armies!

This whole incident will very conveniently move the Israel – Lebanon conflict from the front page of the newspaper. We won’t be talking about them for a little while and both sides can continue to show scant regard for international law, and kill more innocent men, women and children. The unwavering support that the US has shown for Israel in spite of many countless UN attempts to condemn its actions is another reason why the US is so hated. Again this time, the US will oppose any attempt to censor Israel and the conflict will continue, and it will continue further back in our newspapers, to join the reports of another 50 civilians dead each day in Iraq, on page 12 or 13.

Let me stress that in no way to I condone the actions of the people who mean to blow us up, I despise them, but the blood of every person they kill is on the hands of our leaders. They are no more terrorists than our government are. However having said all this it would appear that all those arrested are in fact British born. Which doesn't make them crusaders for their cause, fighting for their brothers in Iraq; it just makes them dickheads.

All short Haul flights in and out of Heathrow have now been cancelled for today. I really hope I get on my flight tomorrow; as I check flight information, I can see it has already been delayed by 90 minutes. That however is not necessarily a bad thing as it was supposed to be a 7.30am flight which meant I was going to have to fork out 27 quid to get to Heathrow on time. At least now I can get there on public transport. So I suppose every cloud has a silver lining. I hope my silver lining stays and I can get to Vienna in time to see my best mate and the best schnitzel that I have been waiting more than 5 years to taste again.

ROFLMAO

My mate Rob is all class. This is an email he's written to our housemates, it wont make any sense to anyone who doesn't live with me, but I just want to put it here for posterity purposes.

Josie,

I have half a carrot in the fridge. I think it is about to go bad [You know how carrots go limp and languid after a time] - so if you want it, you should eat it.

I hate to waste food! There are so many starving people in this world. Once, when I was travelling the world for 11 years - looking for ancient Persian artifacts, exotic Sir Lanka spices, and loose women - I came across a young child who was so hungry that he was eating his brother's forearm, recently amputated of course. I later consulted a guru about this who informed me that on the 3rd Sunday of every month it is acceptable to masticate on one's family's appendages, in the absence of carrots.

Oh yes, I named the carrot Ravi. And before you dine on Ravi, or any vegetables for that matter, I usually find it appropriate to give thanks to Jesus. And then write a book about him. And then eat the carrot.

God bless,

Robi

Open Letter to Greg Growden

Yesterday I typed up an email to send to Greg Growden, I'm not much of a fan of Growden, and I think there are a few others who feel the same. I have just sent it to him, I am sure I will not hear another thing about it, in the mean time though, Rugby Heaven have two more articles on the topic. It would seem Spiro Zavos has caught the anti Gregan bug from Growden, and even Eddie Jones reckons Giteau should have a number 9 on his back! There must be something in the water down at Fairfax.

Anyway, I'll let you read it yourself. Any comments are welcome. Not that anyone actually reads this blog.

Greg Growden, this week’s Monday Maul began with you mentioning SANZAR officials had agreed that there was much in the game that stank; I assume you attended some of these meetings as a ‘self important rugby type.’ I suggest to you Greg Growden that the most putrid stink in Rugby at the moment is your journalistic coverage and opinions on the game.

You offer absolutely no constructive or thoughtful analysis of any matches, merely using your position as a soap box to whinge, complain and criticise. As chief rugby correspondent, your consistent negativity is a stain on Australian rugby in general and I hope that those involved with the Wallabies who do read the Sydney Morning Herald, simply regard your commentating as the childish rambling that it is. Before the tri nations started, you commented that the Wallabies would perhaps have a chance to win this year, not through their ability to improve their own game and show the potential that they certainly have, but because the All Blacks might rotate their squad and not have their best 15 players on the pitch. Besides the point that you have been proven wrong, your comments seem to highlight the general disdain you have for the national team. This week’s Monday Maul also saw you make reference to the fact there must be “many Wallabies sycophants who accept being number 2“; it would seem to me that you also subscribe to this school of thought.

Your incessant personal crusade against George Gregan is a disgrace. I am not sure what kind of personal vendetta you have against him, but you have been the chief antagonist in the constant criticism that has been largely unfairly levelled at him. In your so called post match analysis on Saturday’s game you again placed the blame for Australia’s poor performance squarely on Gregan’s shoulders. You again used your soap box to suggest his axing from the team, and you failed entirely, again, to recognise the positive impact Gregan had on the game. In a match that was nothing short of forgettable, Gregan was noticeably one of the better players for the Wallabies. You have criticised Gregan in the past for not running enough with the ball in hand, yet on Saturday he made a number of positive attacking runs and line breaks. You consistently fail to acknowledge the leadership and experience that Gregan brings, he has now deservedly become the man to captain the Wallabies the most number of times, and he continues to do so with aplomb. It seems as though there is nothing that Gregan can do to redeem himself in your eyes.

Sam Cordingly has certainly performed well enough this year to suggest that he could be considered at scrum half and deserves his place in the Wallaby squad; but he has not proved to be vastly technically superior to Gregan and obviously does not have the leadership and experience of the longest serving Wallaby captain. You praised Cordingly’s contribution on the weekend however often any fresh player who comes on with only 10 minutes remaining is likely to make an impact. Cordingly’s performances however are merely a convenience for you as you have consistently called for Gregan’s sacking, regardless of the quality of a potential replacement. In this week’s Monday Maul you made what could possibly be regarded as the most outrageous claim made by someone who calls himself a ‘rugby expert.’ The suggestion that you should drop George Gregan and replace him with Matt Giteau is beyond ludicrous. Have you asked Giteau whether he wishes to play at number 9? Giteau is a magnificent talent and I’m sure he could play in any number of positions, but how many times has he played professional rugby in a number 9 shirt? How can you possibly suggest that he would be a better scrum half than the world’s most capped test rugby player ever! Giteau was outstanding at number 12 (his preferred position) when he returned form injury in the first test against South Africa; the Wallabies are by far a superior side with him at number 12. Taking the world’s most expensive rugby talent out of his preferred position to take the place of the captain at scrum half will ensure that not only do you weaken your side, but you don’t get the best out of your best player.

Your suggestion to replace Gregan with Giteau suggest that you know absolutely nothing about rugby whatsoever; though given that your position as a rugby journalist, this is probably not true. So the only thing that your comments have done is highlighted that you clearly have some kind of personal vendetta against George Gregan, which seems uninfluenced by what happens on the rugby field.

It is sad for Australian rugby that you are in any way involved with our magnificent game. Your opinions are childish, arrogant, biased and often impertinent. It is unfortunate that while you are entitled to your opinions, you also have a platform for which to share them. You have used your column to wage a personal crusade against George Gregan, which is why I have little qualms in expressing my opinions to you, in a way that is much more vehement that merely disagreeing with you.

I long for the day when the Sydney Morning Herald’s chief rugby correspondent, is a person who actually wants to write about rugby.

Eating Putrified Shark Meat

This last weekend saw us embark on our last ‘boys’ weekend with Rob before he heads back to Australia. With Rob being the chief organiser of these weekends, we might not be travelling on so many more of them in the future. I enjoyed the trip and was fascinated by the place so much that I wanted to write about it. Although I realise that this might read a little bit like a brochure for the place.

Given that we are generally quite well travelled to places within only a few hours of London; the list of possible destinations was not as long as it might seem. So wanting to experience something new and different, our destination this time was the northernmost capital city in the world; at 64 degrees above the equator, Reykjavík the capital of Iceland.

Iceland is certainly like no other place I have been. With two thirds of the country’s 250,000 population living in the capital, Reykjavík does not at all feel like a capital city. There are no tall buildings, the population density is low as far as European cities go, and there is a real small community feel about the place. The locals are very friendly and their spoken English is better than many native English speakers can manage. This should not really be of much surprise given that, with such a small number of people speaking Icelandic, they would be significantly more isolated from the rest of the world, were they not able to speak in another tongue. Icelandic however appears rather difficult to pronounce, so the fact that the locals had the ability and eagerness to use English was appreciated.

We arrived late on Thursday night, and even though it was after 11pm, the sun had not yet set behind the horizon. Iceland’s geographical position just below the Arctic Circle means that the country basks in more than 20 hours of sunlight per day in the summer months. This can wreak havoc with the body clocks of those of us used to latitudes closer to the equator, and we experienced this when attempting to find a restaurant for dinner the following night. Venturing out for a meal at 10pm, feeling like it was a few hours earlier than that, we were unable to find a restaurant still serving food, apart from the local Chinese. So our first sit down meal in Iceland was not traditional Icelandic cuisine, but sweet and sour prawns and kung pow chicken, (though it was actually quite nice.)

Traditional Icelandic cuisine however, isn’t really something to get enthusiastic about. Given that food sources have not been plentiful or readily available throughout the centuries, Icelanders have had to make the most of what was. This generally means that every part of the animal is used. Sheep heads, rams’ testicles, dried fish, and various sea birds including puffin, are all available to eat. Modern Icelanders however tend to eat these kinds of things as thorramatur (food of the Thorri) during the traditional Nordic month of Thorri (Jan/Feb) and less so at other times of year. We were not however, going to escape the place without trying something particularly disgusting, and this came in the form of Hakarl. Hakarl is putrified sharks meat. Shark meat contains high quantities of uric acid and is poisonous when raw. Now the sensible thing to do in this case is to cook it, but you have to do that straight away, and of course fridges are only a new invention and so food was not so easliy kept for any length of time. And so to get around this, Icelanders would bury the shark meat in the ground for a period of up to six months. The decomposed meat is then somewhat dried and picked and eventually served up in small cubes. We found ourself chatting to a young local chap on the bus on Saturday and he was more than happy to get some for us, though later he did say he was hoping that it would make us sick. We all managed to have a bite, and despite gagging a couple of times, I ate quite a bit. It has the texture of pickled fish, with a strong smell of a combination of amonia and urine, which stays on one’s fingers like garlic does for days! It was probably the single most disgusting thing I have ever eaten, though I am glad I did, and glad I had my old friend Jack Daniels on hand to help me wash it down.

Apart from consuming rotten shark meat, we spent much of our Friday at the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is a hot spring where the blue coloured water is heated geothermally – and nothign to do with a movie staring Brooke Shields. A small complex has been build around the spring to create a spa environment where people can enjoy relaxing in the lagoon. The water contains forms of algae, minerals and silica mud, which are supposed to have positive and healing effects on the skin and body. The lagoon however is not natural and was in fact created by run off from the nearby power plant which pumps up geothermally heated water from a mile below the surface. The water is used to generate heat and electricity and then the totally clean excess is ejected into the lagoon. Clever boffins decided to turn the area into a spa and a range of ludicrously expensive skin care products. Regardless however, spending time in the lagoons 40 degree water was extremely relaxing.

Hot springs are to be found all over Iceland; the landscape is dotted with clouds of steam rising from the ground where water has been boiled by magma from within the earth and has escaped the earth’s crust. In fact, when the first settlers arrived in Iceland, they initially thought these clouds of steam were smoke, thus Reykjavík actually means Smoky Bay. We experienced some more examples of this kind of activity on Saturday when we took a tour out to see some of Iceland’s natural beauty. We visited the Haukadalur valley where we saw Geysir, the oldest and one of the world’s most impressive geysers; as well as it’s little brother Strokkur. Although Geysir does not erupt particularly frequently, Strokkur was more reliable, erupting every 5 minutes or so, spewing boiling water 20 metres into the air; an impressive reminder of the earth’s power. Our trip to the Haukadalur valley also took us to the impressive waterfall Gullfoss, and from a distance, two of Iceland’s glaciers.

Geologically, Iceland is absolutely fascinating. The Island is only 16 million years old, which is geological terms is a very short time indeed. Formed entirely of volcanic rock, the earth’s crust is only one third as thick under Iceland as it is in most of the rest of the world. Eruptions in the area have continued through time; the Island of Surtsey, off the coast of Iceland was born in only a few days through volcanic eruptions in 1963. Iceland is situated right on top of the rift between the North American and European continental plates, literally, part of the country is located on the continent of North America, and the other part belongs to Europe. Our tour took us to the area known as “Allthing” or “Parliament” where the rift between the two places is about 5km wide. The land in between is in neither America nor Europe and is ‘pure Iceland.’ Further along the rift in different part of the island the plates are much closer together and you can actually stand with one foot in America and one in Europe!

On Saturday night we remembered not to leave it too late to go out for dinner and went to a local fish restaurant which had come highly recommended. However, while I did not actually eat any fish there, because as we all know I’m sure, whale is not a fish, but a mammal. Now, before anyone says I shouldn’t be eating that as a moral issue and that we should save the whales and all that crap; whales are killed legally in Iceland for scientific research, and instead of just wasting their meat, it is eaten. In any case, I didn’t ask where the meat came from and to be honest I didn’t really care; whale is not an uncommon dish in Iceland and considering it was probably going to be the only time I would ever eat it, I was keen to give it a try. I was glad I did, it was very tasty indeed. It is a red meat that was served as a steak with a pepper sauce, very succulent and tender and certainly a different taste to regular red meat, delicious. Prior to that we had all enjoyed smoked puffin; a pelagic sea bird which was also quite nice.

The entire young population of Reykjavik descends on the centre of town on Friday and Saturday nights. We had a big night out on Saturday night at a couple of clubs, everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and there didn’t seem to be any levels of aggression from the locals that one can sometimes encounter when out drinking. Beer had been banned in Iceland up until 1989 and Icelanders are not known for being solid drinkers. Add that to the fact that beers will set you back £6 a pint and it is no wonder that locals were drunk early on in the evening; this can be the only explanation for the fact that they were dancing to the cheesiest music that is usually reserved for when everyone is well and truly hammered, quite early in the night. Though I must stress that the night doesn’t really start until midnight.

So the following morning we found a place that with English breakfasts and nursed our hangovers; while also nursing our wallets which had been severely damaged after a weekend in the most expensive place I have ever been. Despite that I very much recommend a visit to Iceland, it is a place like no other I have visited before. It really was an enjoyable time, made all the more possible by spending it with great friends, Duncan, James Mike, and Rob.

Cheers Guys and Cheers Iceland

I should be a columnist

This is pretty much exactly what I was saying in my rant yesterday, except without the swearing. It is written by Wigan manager Paul Jewel. I should seriously be a football columnist!

http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2006/comment/story/0,,1811958,00.html

You suck Sven

The referee was never going to even book Rooney for the stamp. He had blown the whistle for the free kick to Portugal, even though he should have blown it earlier and awarded the foul to England, he made no attempt at all to reach into his pocket to show Rooney a card at that point. If you watch the footage, you will see that he stood there for some time signalling the free kick. It was only after Rooney pushed that little faggot Ronaldo, that the referee decided to show Rooney a red card. After the match, the ref has reviewed the footage, realised that there was no grounds to send Rooney off for the push, but conveniently Rooney has stamped on Carvalho and so claimed to have given the red card for that, even though he didn’t even see it in the first place.

But it wasn’t Rooney’s fault. England had a s**t manager who took the wrong squad and played the wrong players. If England had a decent manager with a bit of bottle then they would probably be still in the tournament. Why wasn’t Aaron Lennon played more and Beckham less? Why was Frank Lampard played at all when he couldn’t hit a f**king barn door with an England shirt on? Why oh f**king why, would you take a player who has never played in the premiership before, as one of only 4 strikers when you should have taken 5, then not even play the guy when you should be putting strikers on the pitch. Where was Darren Bent? Where was Jermaine Defoe? They were on holidays when they should have been helping England win the world cup. Why the f**k would you take the most prodigious talent the nation has seen in a generation, and ask him to play by himself up front, when that isn’t going to get the best out of your player? If you’ve got a player like Rooney, then surely you do everything you can to get the best out of him! So play another bloody striker alongside him so he can drop back, get the ball and start creating attacking moves, instead of just hoofing long balls up to him and expecting him to do the rest.

You suck Sven! You couldn’t successfully manage a children’s birthday party, let alone a potential world cup winning squad of footballers. Somehow though you conned the FA into letting you manage England and you shafted them out of twenty five million quid, AFTER TAX!!! And what do you have to show for it? Sweet F A. Well I bet there’s a pretty bitter FA right now. Still I should probably give you credit for that, I mean, we’ve all lied a bit on our CVs but you’ve managed the scam of the century. I should give you credit, but I wont. I won’t, because you’re a limp wristed, spineless wimp, with no balls or bottle. And you’re bald! And you look like Mr Burns. You suck! I can’t wait for you to come and manage Arsenal so you can get them relegated! Until then though, piss off!

Disgusted

In the last round of the Premiership season there is basically nothing left to play for. The Champions have already been decided and so have all the teams that will be relegated. The only thing left is whether Man U or Liverpool finish second, the team that finishes third will have to play in the 3rd qualifying round for next season's champions leage; invariably against a crap team from Eastern Europe in as much as either of these teams can consider themselves qualified. THE ONLY thing else to play for is the battle for 4th spot and the final champions league qualifying position between bitter rivals Tottenham and Arsenal. This has been talked about for months and months now. Sky Sports are showing the Arsenal match, which is entirely fair enough as it is the final game ever at Highbury. The other obvious choice would be to show the most important game in Tottenham's history, against long standing rivals and FA Cup finalists West Ham; which would be assured to be a cracker of a game anyway, regardless of how much was at stake. But so much is at stake and this is the crux of what people what been talking about for months. But Sky Sports are going to show Man United vs Charlton. What absolute fucking nonsense, without doubt the stupidest descision in the history of the world. I am disgusted to the point that I have sent them what is clearly a pointless email that will fall on deaf ears / blind eyes. None the less I feel slightly better, or have I just worked myself up even more, yes I think I have.

Myself and a large number of my friends and colleagues, both suporters and neutrals, are absolutely disgusted that you have chosen to screen the Manchester United vs Charlton game on Sunday, instead of West Ham vs Tottenham. The West Ham v Spurs game is obviously the most important tie of the round; the battle for 4th spot has been significant in the Premiership for some time now, it is virtually the only thing left to play for with the champions and relegation teams already decided. The consequences of Man United's result utterly pales in comparisson to the outcome of the West Ham v Spurs game, and let's face it, who the hell really wants to watch Charlton anyway? I am absolutely stunned that you should think any other tie of the round should be shown instead of what is clearly the most important game in Tottenham's history, made even more intense by the fact that it is against their bitter London rivals and FA Cup finalists. This WILL be the tie of the round and this IS the game that real football fans want to watch. You have shown to everyone that you do NOT care about football. I look forward to the day when you no longer have a monopoly over the game.

Some very suspicious people

We went to Moscow over the easter weekend, it really was an interesting visit. There were 8 of us all together, including some of my mates and my Sarah. As usual Rob has written a pretty good email about it so I will post that instead of writing one of my own.

With the Easter break providing a window of 4-days, we departed London early on Good Friday. The time difference meant that we lost 3 hours, and then the phenomenon known as Moscow traffic meant that we lost another 2, so after checking into our hotel, we had little time to do more on our first day than find a restaurant for dinner and plan our next days' excurisons.

Before getting on to the trip details, one of the highlights for me was our hotel - Hotel Ukraina. Built by the river, the 30-storey building is one of 7 built by Stalin in the style of "Soviet classicism". It certainly was a classic soviet-style experience - each room had period furniture from the 1960s, the marbled lobby included a ceiling mural of workers, farmers and soldiers waving red banners and, with over 1,000 rooms to administer, the staff seemed to be made up of communist-era public servants......... The hotel even had its own observation deck with wonderful 360 degree views of the city and came complete with its own secret service cronie to prevent you from taking photos of various important government buildings dotted along the cityscape.

On a rainy and cold Saturday we were met by our university student guides who took us on a tour through the city. We walked around the gardens and chapels of the Kremlin, past Red Square to St. Basil's Cathedral. In the evening we trekked out to the suburbs to watch the Moscow State Circus which was a very impressive show. It included some very talented trapeze and rope artists, acrobats and jugglers, animal acts, Cossack daredevil horsemen and, at one stage, the floor was even recessed to give way to an ice-rink with acrobatic skaters........

On Sunday we queued at Red Square to see the embalmed body of "Grandfather" Lenin and view the tombs of various other communist leaders buried outside the Kremlin walls. We then went on a walk through Moscow's inner city suburbs, up the main shopping street to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. On Monday, we had the good fortune of stepping out the front door of our hotel to see a speeding motorcade taking President [Boot Scootin'] Putin to work - again, this came complete with secret service cronies ensuring that no bystanders were snapping away photos which may breach security protocol. With the day turning out to be particularly nice and sunny, we ventured back to Red Square and St. Basil's to take some brighter pictures. After a lunch of yummy borshch, vareniki and pelmeni, it was time to collect our luggage and make our way out to the airport.

The trip to the airport must be one of the cheapest excursions to any airport anywhere in the world! A remnant of Soviet pride is the massive Moscow Metro system. Each station is designed in grand Soviet style with statues, murals and mosaics of happy workers and soldiers being greeted by important figures such as Lenin and Stalin and bas reliefs still depicting the hammer and sickle. But with trains arriving each minute on a network combining more than 260km of track, this is the largest mass transit system in the world - It carries more passengers per day than the London Tube, Paris Metro and NY Subway put together! Meaning that the airport, in remote woodland some 40km outside of the city, can be reached efficiently for a fare of just £0.35......

Churchill once described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". To me, I did not find it that strange - it seemed very much like a large industrialised city slowly emerging from its communist past. The way of life still seemed very regimented and basic, with unnecessary levels of security and administration. The city itself was generally dirty and emotionless and, humorously, the people's fashion and grooming senses seemed very much rooted in the 80s. But overall it was a great experience and a very interesting destination. Travel was not easy and I must say a special thank you to JC, whose mastery of the Cyrillic alphabet meant that we always got where we were trying to get to and remained well fed. Having seen the massive development and flood of tourists to former-Eastern Bloc countries like Czech Republic and Hungary, I was pleased to experience a city which seemed to have drawn the Iron Curtains, but had only just begun to open the window to allow capitalist culture to waft in.

Farcenal Part Deux

I don't know whether I want the Arse to beat Juve tonight. I do admit to being glad they beat Madrid, but I still hate them. Obviously I don't want them to win the competition, as the FA have already said that if they do and finish outside the top 4 then they will qualify for next year at the expense of the fourth place team, which I am hoping will be Spurs (but will in all likelyhood be Arsenal anyway)

There is something inside me that says I should support the only remaining English team, but fuck that, they aren't even an English team. The only thing about them that makes them English is that they play their games in England. There hasn't been an English player in the team for ages. I play for Kiwi FC, the team is entirely made up of New Zealand born players, we play our games in England - we are not an English team. There are more English players playing for Real Madrid than there are playing for Arsenal.

Fuck em - Go Juve

Back into the swing

Well it’s all back to normal in London town, it’s hard to get straight back into it after having had 3 fabulous weeks off – which is why I am writing this and not working at the moment.

Sydney was brilliant, it was so wonderful to see my family again, they are certainly living in a fantastic place. Was great to introduce Sarah to everyone and show her around my home town; did loads of things together that I just wouldn’t have done if I was there alone. Oportos just isn’t what it used to be, although I still ate plenty of it, we have a great zoo, and everyone should do the Bridge Climb – tourist or not. I have fallen in love with my city again.

Had a good few days in Hong Kong on the way back – the place smells of dried fish, urine, pollution and sweat. I had a great time pissing off electronics sellers buy suggesting ridiculously low prices for their goods, and every night I felt like I was in the movie Blade Runner.

So it’s back into the swing of things here, I am still slightly on Hong Kong time. I’ve got a mountain of work to get through but the hardest thing is getting back up to date and working out what has been going on while I was away. I haven’t caught up with many people just yet because they were all watching the boat race which I regard as the most over-hyped and pointless sporting event on the British calendar, and as such I avoided it.

Once the workload dies down a little I will do my best to blog regularly but for now I will make a parting comment with regards to that old Sydney v Melbourne thing that Melbournites like to call a rivalry. The calibre of the two cities can be summed up as such:

Melbourne: Commonwealth Games

Sydney: Olympic Games

Par Avion

This evening in about 4 hours, Sarah and I will be boarding a plane that will eventually take us to Sydney. Hooray. 24 hours in zoo class on a plane doesn't particularly appeal, but the end justifies the means. Sarah and I will be able to keep each other company until we start getting on each others nerves, and then my old friends Jack Daniels and Nytol will help me out.

So here's to the next 3 weeks in the greatest city on earth.

In the mean time, here's a really cool German word I learnt recently

Scheissenbedauer – The feeling of disappointment you get when things don’t go as badly as you had hoped.

The final card in the deck

As things continue to go from bad to worse in Iraq, Tony Blair has finally scraped the bottom of the barrel and used his last possible excuse for invading Iraq. It is continually becoming apparent to almost everyone who didn't realise at the time, that invading Iraq was a bad idea. Throughout all of this, Tony Blair has continually backed himself and made what has turned out to be rather spurious attempts to justify his actions in going to war. Finally, with nothing else to turn to he has used the last possible excuse, the one that he believes cannot be rebutted: God told me to do it!

"If you have faith about these things," he said, "then you realise that judgment is made by other people. If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."

His pal George Dubya has made this claim before, fortunately for him, this kind of nonsense is actually swallowed by the voting public in America. There is a different kind of attitude to religion in America, especially amongst those who vote for Dubya in the middle and southern states. I really don't think this kind of claim is going to be accepted in Britain. Surely now even the most ardent pro war supporters must see that not only was attacking Iraq a poor idea, but the people at the top in this country realise this as well.

To admit fault would be political suicide, it would see the end of Tony Blair and would have considerable damage to the Labour party. With the rise in popularity of David Cameron's conservatives, it would be disastrous indeed. So Blair cannot admit his wrong doing. Surely given everything that is happening there, he still cannot believe he was right? In public yes, in private, no. So Blair has to continue to excuse and justify his actions, but it does not work, there is too much turmoil; physical evidence in Iraq that says; what happened was wrong. Blair's only alternative is to invoke the Almighty. In a largely secular nation, a flimsy excuse indeed. The absolute last available option to him, the desperate words of a desperate man.

SU O MI , SU O MI, SU O MI

Ok well I was going to post a commentary on our weekend trip to Finland, but my mate Rob has written a bloody damn good email about it. I am not going to be able to write it any better without plagiarising large parts of it. So I'll just post his commentary instead. I will also add though that they have blackjack and roulette tables in nightclubs in Finland. I will also add that I am not very good at blackjack.

What do you do when you arrive at Helsinki airport at midnight with the temperature gauge at minus 5 degrees Celsius and nothing to wear but the jeans and jumper you already have on? Well, that was the prospect facing our Mikey when he was informed that BA had decided that his backpack with all his warm clothing was better off remaining in London..........

Thankfully, that was the only hiccup during our foray to Finland. And, in fact, Mike dealt with it surprisingly well. After arriving and transferring to our hotel we decided to relax with a pint in the hotel bar. We then discovered that our hotel also had a night club and, lured by the prospect of free entry, we were given some insight in the Finnish culture.......which was something else all together........ The night club was beyond tragic with the floors, walls and seating completely cover in 1970s velvet wallpaper with a floral motif, and even a fish bowl window looking onto the dance room which was painted blood red. The place was so retro that it managed to by-pass cool by such a distance that it made you think they were actually trying to make the place look like a brothel...... What's worse is that there was hardly anyone there. We were just about to leave when we were presented with some entertainment options as some really drunk people started to hit the dancefloor. We ended up sticking around to watch the circus which ensued, but decided that it was time to pull the pin when we bought some shooters of local alcohol - They looked like mud, had the consistency of porridge and tasted like dencorub. Given that the time difference had stripped us of 2 hours and it was by then 4am, it is still debateable whether we had stayed for one drink too many?.......

As we always do, we rallied in the morning, taking an early bus out to the quaint town of Lahti. After checking in to the hotel, and each donating a piece of clothing to Mike, we rugged up and had a pleasant stroll through the town which was newly covered with pristine light snow. We eventually reached our destination which was the Lahti Salpausselan Kisat the scene of the 2006 ski-jumping competition. For those who don't know, ski jumping is a sport where competitors launch themselves [at speeds just under 90km/h] off a massive jump and try to "fly" as far as possible - In this instance the winning distance was 129m. As we arrived during the (ironically named) "warm-ups", with the temperature still hovering around the minus 5 degree mark, we took the opportunity of doing some warming up of our own by staking a toasty piece of real estate in the beer tent. It was a fair while before our be ercoats had generated enough layers to allow us to venture outside, but we made sporadic trips to watch various jumper compete in this crazy sport.

Unfortunately in the evening the temperature dropped significantly and when my feet were still cold after having put on my "emergency" socks - the 3rd pair I was then wearing - we decided that, despite our genetic compulsion to watch sports, this was well beyond sane according to Australian standards so we decided to retreat to the warmth of our hotel. In fact, our hotel was actually equipped with a sauna which we decided to take advantage of. However, having been deserted by my travelling companions, I was soon joined by a Finnish sauna veteran who was obviously trying to thaw 30 winters out of his bones and turned the heat up to an unbearable level. When he was joined by his 3 naked friends and celebrated each of their arrival by turning the heat up 5 degrees each time, I took my cue to leave.........

Finally warm and fed, we decided to check out the hotel's night club which this time turned out to be more aligned to our usual tastes and, in fact, quite busy. We were also really enjoying ordering beers, with the local drop being called Koff and there being 4 of us, somehow sidling up to the bar and telling the barman "Four Koff" just seemed to get funnier....... In the night club we stuck it out through the choking fog of cigarette smoke, and the 30 minutes set of strobe lighting, but at 3.30am when "Love is in the Air" started blaring through the speakers we were again looking down the barrel of a new debate - This time whether we had stayed for one song too many?............

The next day, after a bit of a lay in, we again headed to the ski jump arena to watch some more competition. The temperature was not as bad as the minus 10 they were predicting, but we again still spent our fair share of time in the beer tent. With the Austrians taking the team title we decided that this was close enough to an Austr[al]ian victory, so we hopped on the bus for the 100km journey back to Helsinki airport. We checked-in just in time for BA to tell Mike that his bag had just arrived and ask whether he would like to check it for the flight home............ The weekend really was both unique and random, but it was altogether interesting and made even better that once again I was able to enjoy the crazy experience with my closest mates JC, Rolly and Mike in the loony way we always do. And, as an added bonus, when I got out of bed on Monday morning facing the prospect of going to work in 3 degree temperatures, suddenly I thought "Hey, this isn't so cold" - Something I never would've expected to be saying in London.......

Shrove Tuesday

I just can’t bring myself to do any proper work this afternoon. I do have plenty of work to do, but I’m procrastinating. I am going on holiday in less than 2 weeks, hooray! Heading back to my home town Sydney to visit my family, see their new place, see friends, soak up the sun etc. Really looking forward to it, have missed home a lot recently, and to be honest I really need a holiday. Taking my English girlfriend Sarah back with me, all her friends insist she will fall in love with the place and not want to come back….. yes that is the plan!

I’ve had just about enough of the cold weather in London for now. We were teased a bit a couple of weeks ago when it got rather mild and we thought that was it for winter, but it’s been freezing the last couple of weeks which adds extra incentive to get back to Sydney for a few weeks. Before that though I’ll be spending a few days in a far colder climate than London; my mates and I will be showing our commitment to doing things a little different by going to Finland this weekend. We’ll be going to the Lahti Ski Games. Current forecast for Lahti on Saturday is –7C. Am sure if we can avoid freezing our bollocks off we’ll have a good time.

But that’s still a few days away and in between now and then I will have to do the work I am procrastinating now, but not this afternoon. No once I have posted this I think I will go back to The Neurology Channel and decide which incurable neurological disorder would be the best/worst one to have. Lou Gehrig’s Disease looks pretty unfortunate, then there’s CJD, although that’s pretty mainstream now, and it’s pretty hard to look past everyone’s favourite, Tourette’s Syndrome. But for a pure ‘shit that would really suck’ feeling today I’m going to go with Huntingdon’s Disease. Huntington’s disease is a fatal hereditary disease, progressing without remission over 10-15 years, that destroys neurons in areas of the brain involved in the emotions, intellect, and movement. The course of Huntington’s is characterized by jerking uncontrollable movement of the limbs, trunk, and face (chorea); progressive loss of mental abilities; and the development of psychiatric problems….. I think I’ll pass.

I am Nostradamus

Well what a terrible result in the Champions League on Tuesday night, not only was I forced to listen to the utter bullshit that is the commentary of Peter Drury, but Thierry Henry actually won! Yes it was Real Madrid vs Henry and weren’t we constantly reminded throughout the game about how Arsenal were such underdogs and wasn’t it weird to say that, and weren’t Madrid in such a rich vein of form, how on earth were Arsenal going to win!?! I should actually point out that the last time I watched Madrid play they were ripped to pieces by Zaragoza, in a 6-1 cup thrashing. So it was really not a surprise to see Madrid play so poorly as even though they have a star studded line up, they are certainly capable to not turning up on the day. Which made the ignorant ramblings of ITV’s commentary team even more irritating.

So Arsenal and their only decent player managed to pull one over, in fairness it was a pretty good goal, but they are nothing without their funny shaped headed striker. I’m sure normal service will be resumed and Madrid will win the return fixture 4-0. That will then be the end of Arsenal’s season, they will focus their attention on claiming fourth spot in the Premiership, to which they will be beaten to by their North London rivals.

This will have disastrous consequences for the club. They could not possibly expect to retain the services of Henry, their only class player, he will off to Barcelona. With no champions league football they will be unable to attract star players and improve their squad. Their inaugural year in the new stadium will be tainted by the fact that they are no longer a top 4 club in the country. The departure of Henry will no doubt ensure the departure of other old hands at the club, do not expect to see Pires, Ljungberg, Cole or Bergkamp next year. Sol Campbell has already lost his mind, and will no doubt be selling the big issue in 6 months time. Moving to a new stadium is very expensive; they will be without the significant income that the champions league brings. This will mean that they will have to direct all their funds into payments on the new stadium, thus not having any money to spend in the transfer market, a further hindrance to improving their squad.

So 2006/07 will not turn out to be a very successful season for the Arse. A top 10 finish but no European football. Debts will start to mount; the club will need to sell its better players in order to fund its new stadium. This will further deteriorate the quality of the squad, Arsenal will continue their slide down the ladder. We have seen all this happen before, yes that’s right last time it was called Leeds United. It may not be that season, it could be the season after, but Arsenal will be relegated. Once this happens, they cannot possibly expect to afford to stay at their very expensive stadium, indeed how can a club expect to fill a 60,000-seat stadium when playing in the championship? So Arsenal will be forced to move to a cheaper, smaller stadium, however by that time Highbury will no longer be a football stadium. So where could they go? Who cares really, I’m sure they’ll find something, but in order to stay liquid they will need to lease their own stadium out to another side, that’s if it hasn’t been repossessed by the creditors. So which team would by that time be looking for a bigger stadium to seat its many loyal supporters while playing in Europe’s premier competition? Yes that’s right,

Tottenham Hotspur.

Crazy fucking insane maniacs

More utter madness.

More violence, death and destruction, all because of a few cartoons! Yes they were not in particularly good taste, but surely this has gone too far! Do the people involved in this nonsense actually even know what they are rioting about? Forgive me for being somewhat condescending, but are those in Nigeria responsible for this, really that well connected with international news? Pardon me, but I can’t help but suggest that this is a game of Chinese whispers that has gotten a little out of hand; because surely the printing of cartoons 6 months ago cannot cause people to commit terrible acts of violence! Maybe word has made its way there and the story has been twisted so now that people think that the people of Denmark constructed a large statue of the prophet Muhummad, threw all their shoes at it and then tipped the entire nations’ raw untreated sewage over it, all whilst proclaiming that Islam is the scourge of the entire world and solely responsible for cancer, AIDS, poverty, homosexuality, ingrown toenails, ginger hair and reality television. AND, somehow, the Christian population of Nigeria, colluding with McDonalds, KFC and David Hasselfhoff, are all responsible. Maybe then could you start to convince me that these violent lunatics might have something to crow about. This doesn’t even need to be about religion any more, forget about it, these people are crazy, fucking insane maniacs!!

Yet there has been so much dignified protest as a result of the cartoons that has been so sadly overshadowed by the mindless violence and destruction. There was a peaceful rally by British Muslims in Trafalgar square recently, that expressed their displeasure not only at the offence of the cartoons, but also at the aggressive reaction of so many Muslims as a result. Good on them, these people should get more publicity because they are the true voice of their religion. Sadly they will not because peaceful protest doesn’t make nearly as compelling news stories as burning buildings and murdered people.

There has been some opposition expressed at a South Park cartoon that is due to be shown in New Zealand later this year. I love South Park; I love its irreverent humour, its pointed attacks, controversial content and generally foul dialogue. If I were a Christian then I would be pretty offended by this particular episode. I am not so no doubt I will find it funny. However I cannot imagine the Christian community having the same kind of reaction that we have seen from certain parts of the Muslim community. Allahu Akhbar, God is Greatest, God is also forgiving, truly religious persons know this, regardless of faith. Those who are now rioting, ransacking and murdering cannot claim to be religious. They are a stain on their faith, petty, pathetic, disgraceful, Godless people. To hell with them.

Name Change

To go along with my attemps to breathe life back into this blog, I have changed the name and the format. Clearly if you are reading this then you already know that.

The Armed Republic of Disgruntled Citizens

Created a nation state in the East Pacific. Is quite a cool site to interact with. I plan to become rule a far right society with a corrupt and hard line government. Although the site is not complicated enough to allow me to overthrow other nations in the region.

http://www.nationstates.net/disgruntled_citizens

The Armed Republic of Disgruntled Citizens
"Please stand to the right of the escalator"
UN Category: Iron Fist Consumerists
Civil Rights:Few
Economy:Strong
Political Freedoms:Outlawed
Location: The East Pacific

The Armed Republic of Disgruntled Citizens is a tiny, pleasant nation, renowned for its compulsory military service. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 6 million are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources." The medium-sized, corrupt government is effectively ruled by the Department of Defence, with areas such as Religion & Spirituality and Social Welfare receiving almost no funds by comparison. The average income tax rate is 12%. A large private sector is led by the Trout Farming industry, followed by Woodchip Exports and Cheese Exports. Crime is moderate, and the police force struggles against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Disgruntled Citizens's national animal is the platypus and its currency is the sullen.

Soldiers are not policemen

IRAQ: What a farce. Almost 3 years we’ve been there now, and it’s still fucked up beyond recognition. A haven for insurgents and extremists, dozens of innocent people being violently killed every day. The place is an absolute mess and there really are no signs of it getting better any time soon. Would have to be thus far, the 21st century’s mother of all fuck ups.

It’s now such common place for someone to blow themselves up in a crowded part of Baghdad for Basra, killing scores of innocent people, that it barely makes the news. We have become so accustomed to seeing this death and misery that one can’t help but become desensitised to it. What has made the news this past week however, has been fresh evidence of abuse of Iraqis by British and US soldiers. New pictures have been released by SBS of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib by US soldiers. This kind of treatment of anyone is unacceptable, however I feel that those responsible are not as responsible as has been made out. The soldiers concerned have been tried and some jailed, but soldiers follow orders, and no one is going to convince me that someone high in the chain of command didn’t give the order to make prisoners feel ‘a little uncomfortable.’

A video was on news this week (with sound) that was taken by a British prisoner and showed a troop of British soldiers rounding up some Iraqi civilians who had been rioting in the streets. They dragged a few of them back into their compound and, while the Iraqis were screaming for mercy, beat the shit out of them. The whole thing was recorded with a gleeful running commentary from the cameraman.

Again this has brought outrage from Iraqi citizens and members of the international community about the behaviour of the occupying force. The US and Britain cannot afford for these kind of things to happen, it is highly damaging to their whole plan. The problem that is faced is that The US and Britain invaded Iraq on the basis of moral superiority; that Saddam was a bad man and by attacking his country, they would in fact liberating the Iraqi people from his tyranny. Even the operation was given the beguiling name ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom.’ Although perhaps it was more about freeing Iraq of its oil, and freeing it up to become another pro US outpost in the middle east, but I argued about that 3 years ago. So revelations such as these are highly damaging because they strip the moral superiority away from the coalition. Evidence such as this continues to raise questions as to whether these people were better off with Saddam there anyway. How can an army claim to be mounting an operation to free the Iraqi people from tyranny, and then end up treating them like this?

This has all happened because the coalition are still bogged down in Iraq. The US didn’t plan for any of this, all they knew they were going to do was attack the place. They had no strategy of what to do once they had ousted Saddam, no real plan on how to maintain law and order, return the country to order and get the hell out of there. I bet the administration didn’t reckon they’d still be there 3 years down the track. They probably had figured they’d be well on their way to attacking another country by now. So what happens when you get stuck like this? You ask your military to perform a job they were not trained to do. Let’s face it, they’re soldiers, not policemen.

Without trying to condone the recent actions of the aforementioned soldiers, they are being forced to police the country, when they were sent in to perform a completely different task altogether. A solder is trained to attack and disable, usually by killing its enemy. This is what is in the soldier’s head when he goes to war and this is the mentality he will hold while he serves his tour of duty. You cannot then successfully ask an army to become a police force. A soldier will want to protect his or her life and that of their comrades; while their presence may have a policing effect, any signs of trouble or potential conflict and soldiers will revert to their training. They are not police officers, they are soldiers trained to go to war and kill. This is why we keep seeing incidents of so called mistreatment and it will keep happening while ever Iraq is occupied.
None of this was ever supposed to happen, but I don’t think anyone had any idea what was supposed to happen. The longer the coalition stay there, the more they are damaging their whole campaign, and the more people will see this was a bad idea in the first place. The catch 22 is that they can’t just leave now, that would be even worse, the country would be left in turmoil; a likelihood of civil war and certainly no pro US government. There is real question whether the US and Britain can achieve their objectives and withdraw successfully; perhaps they need to compromise on some of those objectives because they need to hurry up and work out how to get out!

Further to the smugglers

I would just like to make a further note on yesterday's post. I will qualify it though by saying I do understand the sentiments of the parents involved. However let us imagine that the Bali Nine had succeeded with their plan, and now think about the consequences of an additional 8.4kg of heroin hitting the streets. This would infact end up being a lot more than 8.4kg once it had been cut so many times down the chain of supply. How many more people would become addicted to heroin because of this, and how many existing heroin users would die from injecting this heroin? Would their blood be on Scott Rush's hands? Yes. Had the Bali Nine not been caught, would they have attempted to smuggle more heroin back to Australia in the future? Possibly, Renae Lawrence had already made the trip once before! So the interception of this shipment of drugs, and the imprisonment / execution of those involved, has probably saved a small number of lives.

Whether or not the lives of heroin addicts are worth saving is another question. Perhaps heroin exists in order to weed out the undesirables from society. One less heroin junkie on the street is one more car stereo that remains unstolen.

Drugs are bad mmkay!

No one else to blame

Today saw the sentencing of Scott Rush and Renae Lawrence, members of the so called ‘Bali Nine’ to life in prison for their part in attempting to smuggle 8.4kg of heroin from Bali in April 2005. The other 7 will be sentenced this week with 5 more expecting to receive life sentenced and the 2 ringleaders expected to be sentenced to death.

What has prompted me to comment on this fact is the following quote of Rush’s parents from the Sydney Morning Herald

Rush's mother, Christine, said their "family tragedy" proved Australian citizens could not rely on their government. His father, Lee, had tipped off federal police that Scott was being recruited to smuggle drugs, in the hope they would stop him visiting Bali.

"Australia has always held as a value and a philosophy opposition to the death penalty," Mrs Rush said. "However, our laws are such that our children are exposed to the death penalty … this must not happen to any Australian again."

While we are sympathetic to the parents of those involved, and perhaps to a certain extent some of those involved as well, why is any of this the fault of the Australian Government? The Government does not exist entirely to stop its citizens from doing silly things. Simply because Lee Rush had spoken to a member of the AFP concerning his son, does not then place the onus on the AFP to prevent Scott Rush from attempting to smuggle heroin.

It is certainly a normal human trait to try and place blame on somebody else. I would perhaps suggest in this case, that Mr Rush is more desperate to lay the blame on the AFP because he knows he could have done more to prevent it. Surely a person’s father is in a better position to influence his son than almost anybody else.

It is widely known that the penalties for trafficking drugs in Asia are very harsh. Just because one is a citizen on another country, does not exempt them from the laws of the country they are visiting. These people were knowingly smuggling heroin, which, regardless of what country you are in, is illegal. They took a risk, a rather big one. Sometimes the risks we take in life pay off, sometimes they don’t. When they don’t we must accept the consequences involved. Sometimes the penalties are much harsher than might seem fair, but that still is a consequence of the risk taken, and life is not fair.

Cartoon Farce

It has been quite some time since I last made a post, I will make no reasons or excuses for not having done so. I may or may not continue to post regularly from now on, however the urge to have a rant about something has grown in me again and I am therefore posting.

Front page news at the moment is all to do with the current reaction to a series of cartoons that were published in a Danish newspaper last September. Why the protests are suddenly all coming to the fore many months later and not immediately after the event is another question; however I would suggest that it is more of a case of a number of pathetic fools who wish to jump on the 'mob mentality' bandwagon, and use it as an excuse for violence and unrest. In the same way that we saw hordes of people gathering to riot in Cronulla recently, many of these people were not that interested in the purpose of their actions, but merely looking for an excuse for a fight.

Now let me pre-empt my comments by saying that I am in no way going to tar the entire Islamic world with the same brush, the vast majority of Muslims and indeed the vast majority of people throughout the world, are honest and decent citizens. However as is often the case, it is the actions of the minority that casue problems.

Indeed it was the actions of a minority in the first place that started this whole episode. Only a small number of people were responsible for printing the cartoons, in turn a small number of people have targeted the entire western world as culprits for this, and in turn many of those in the western world will treat the Islamic world based on the reaction of the few.

What essentially this issue has now turned into though, is quite frankly the most laughable case of hypocracy I have seen in a while. There is no reason why Muslims should not find these cartoons offensive; however mild they may be, they are still insulting on a certain level to a particular faith. Let us consider though the degree to which the reaction to these cartoons has reached. Because these cartoons have been printed, those of us in the west must be killed, preferably by beheading. We are to expect more attacks such as the ones on September 11 and July 7. Let us all be clear that the punishment for these cartoons is death, and there are many people out there who are threatening to kill us. Now I'm pretty sure that it is actually illegal to make such threats in this country, where indeed much protesting has been seen. In fact, one chap decided he would dress up as a suicide bomber and suggest that people be killed as a result of this most heinous and unforgivable insult of Islam. Of course this fellow was quick to realise that his actions were indeed far worse that those responsible for the cartoons, and given the ill feeling that exists regarding the recent bombings in London, he hastily made a public apology. Unfortunately for him, he happened to have been released on parole from a five and half year gaol sentence; evidently he had broken the terms of his parole and was quickly thrown back behind bars. Silly boy.

Clearly all this hated and rage is being fuelled by extremist groups who will look for any excuse to promote their cause and try to gather troops to fight it. These are the same people who promote a constant stream of hate towards Israel and the west. There are countless anti western and anti Zionist rhetoric and literature that are spewed from these people. Promising death and destruction to all who do not follow their cause. Committing acts which many would agree are far more despicable than drawing cartoons.

So the fact that those who protest as a result of these cartoons are not innocent themselves; the fact that their protests and threats of death have made them far more offensive than those they are protesting; smacks utterly and totally of bald faced, blind eyed hypocricy. Surely there are so many people who can see how laughably ridiculous this whole thing is.

Riots that have broken out in Damascus, Beruit, Tehran and other cities in the Islamic world, have seen violence, destruction and death. Yet it is not those of us in the west who have been killed, inspite of the threats, it is the protesters themselves who seem to be killing each other; which makes this ridiculousness beyond farce.

Perhaps those who wish to attack certain factions of the Islamic world should take note; do not send your own warriors in to fight, they too may suffer casualties. Let's instead print a few cartoons that insult your enemies and let them all kill each other in the resulting outrage! Surely this is far more economical.

Random irritating rant #73

Have just been looking on a real estate agency website curious as to what kind of houses are currently available on the market. This is the first sentence from a house description

From the moment you step foot into this charming double storey Victorian terrace your invigorated with a feeling of tranquility.

Is there something wrong with me if that kind of commentary just totally pisses me off and would completely put me off using these agents because of it? I would consider the term 'invigorated with tranquility' as being a complete oxymoron, the experience of being invigorated does not leave one feeling tranquil! Apart from that though, it should obviously say you're invigorated, not your.

It goes on to make further appalling errors in spelling and syntax. Apparently the place has a stainless steal kitchen and each bedroom has there own built in robes. Due to the fact that the author has obviously never seen a comma before, apparently the balcony has a full bathroom.

It's just sloppy and it says to me that the author is an idiot, professional commentaries like this, especially ones that are trying to encourage people to spend one million dollars, should not look like they have been written by a Mongolian nomad child with learning difficulties.

If I was the vendor I would take my business elsewhere.

Have no doubt this is not an isolated case.

Claudia stood me up

I'm heart broken

It should at least be pointed out that it is an obvious credit to the Australian cricket team that England have cherished their victory over them so much. No other series win by England in recent years has caused such elation. So the very least the Australian team can take with them is that they are highly regarded by their oponents. In sport this is indeed a mantle that is earned.

My date with Claudia

At the risk of sounding bitter, which I am in no ways: the over-reaction to England's victory in the Ashes series has been excessive yet entirely predictable. England is a fickle nation in sport, although I would suggest no more so than Australia. There has only been interest in cricket this summer because England have been winning, congratulations to them, as they were certainly the better side throughout the series. However many rugby fans in this country well give testimony that this interest will wane. Those responsible for cricket in England must capture this patriotism and ensure that the country will continue to hold an interest in the game, otherwise these achievements and celebrations will be largely recrementitious.
The reason of course for celebration; is that England have triumphed over the team that has consistently the best in the world for the past decade. This calls for celebrations. But they have triumphed only once and by a considerably small margin. So these celebrations must be tempered. Yet the celebrations will be large because England have achieved something they have been trying to achieve for 16 years, and every time one fails to achieve something, it adds to the feeling of success when one finally does. It’s a little like a retarded school child finally passing his exams after being held back in class for 4 years, the celebrations will be great for him and he will feel extra special.

So well done England you have deserved your victory, surely though it will be an even greater achievement to retain them on Australian soil in 18 months time. Oh and for fuck’s sake stop singing Jerusalem!


By the way; my date with Claudia Schiffer is this Friday night.

South Africa

Recently I went on a trip to South Africa with a group of my friends. It was without a doubt the best trip I have ever been on. My mate Rob wrote a superb group email to all his friends describing our adventures. I couldn't imagine writing a better account than he has done so I will post his here instead (and quite frankly it saves me from having to write one out aswell.)
On a personal note, the red meat in South Africa is the most exquisite meat I have ever eaten. We had a great variety of succulent game meats, it was great to go out and see the animals during the day and then eat them at night. The steak that was available to us in Johannesburg however was second to none. We ate at some lovely restaurants that served the leanest, juiciest, tenderest most delicious steaks I have ever ever eaten. It is not hard to see how South Africa can make such big rugby players with meat like that around. I have found it very difficult to eat steak back here in London again after having tasted such perfection.

So here's what Rob had to say......

Well, if you haven't been jealous of my travels thus far you should definitely keep reading...............
As you know my latest safari was, well, a safari. Leaving London on Friday night with my good buddies JC, Rolly and Mike we flew south via Zurich, arriving in South Africa on Saturday morning. We were greeted at Johannesburg airport by our Sydney-based counterparts Chris, Brett, Graham and Duncan where we collected our 8-seater VW combi van and set off for the drive to Kruger National Park.
It was wonderful to see the guys again and we had a good opportunity to catch up at our overnight stop just a few hours from the park. On Sunday morning we were initiated with the "Kruger wake up" which saw us getting up and on the road before sun rise 6 days in a row! After crossing the bridge over a crocodile infested river we entered the national park and were immediately greeted by the sight of giraffes and elephants by the side of the road. Within half an hour of arriving in the park we had been treated to the sight of a huge bull elephant lumbering up to the side of the van and proceeding to walk down the road directly in front of us. This encounter was to set the tone for our week - we quickly dubbed ourselves the "Arsey Aussies".
Within the first day we had seen more rhinoceros than I knew were actually still alive, a stand off between a rhino and an elephant, and the amazing sight of a lioness drinking from a waterhole and then proceeding to walk directly across our path and off into the scrub where the circling vultures signified only one thing - a recent kill. On our second day we managed to see the "The Big 5" [elephant, rhinoceros, buffalo, lion and leopard] within the space of 10 hours!.......
Driving around the park at your own pace is a wonderful way to view the wildlife and our marathon efforts were well rewarded. The highlights were far too numerous to list, but some standouts included:-
seeing a pride of lionesses (5) laying in a dry river bed enjoying the afternoon sun whilst their cubs (12) played in the sand like big yellow kittens;
watching a hyena stalk a juvenile leopard only to be chased away by the leopard's mother;
seeing a pack of African Wild Dogs (the rarest predators in Africa) laying by the side of the road;
going for an evening walk along the fence of our camp only to discover a rhinoceros grazing just 10m away from us with nothing but a wire mesh fence between us and this spectacular specimen;
on a guided night drive, spotting a young hyena pup playing with its older sibling in a culvert by the side of the road; and
seeing a giraffe drink from a waterhole [anyone who has seen such a sight will know that it is a completely absurd spectacle].
Thanks to some brilliant organisation from Chris we also managed to spend 3 nights in our own private camp. At least 20km from the next closest camp, we were able to see things in the early morning and late evening that no other park visitors could possibly have seen given the curfew restrictions at each camp. We enjoyed total serenity in our camp and, even entertained some visitors - some Vervet monkeys who took it upon themselves to go through the rubbish in our van and an early-morning visit from an elephant who, after breaking open the gate to our camp, helped himself to a drink by snapping the metal pipe of a water tap.
Luck was not the only factor in our many and varied animal sightings - we put in the hard yards, early mornings and stints of up to 8 hours in the van - but our good fortunes really shone through on our last morning. With only a 40km drive to the gates to leave the park we commented that [despite spending the entire previous day looking for one] we had not seen a cheetah and [despite seeing more than 30 females and cubs] we had not seen a male lion. Well, no doubt you can guess what happened, but you could not have scripted how amazingly it came about. After an unscheduled and almost avoided toilet stop, a cheetah [the rarest of the big cats] simply strode across the road not 100m in front of our van and walked off into the distance. Then, merely half a kilometre down the road, some people in a car flagged us down and told us to take the next right turn and - you guessed it - 5km down the road, sitting by a waterhole were 3 juvenile male lions.
Our safari was complete and as we drove slowly out the gates of Kruger we all paused in quiet reflection, admiring the wonders we had experienced being able to see so many wild animals in their natural environment, and then someone let out a ripper..............
The bad smells emanating from a van full of 8 lads chock full on a diet of beer and red meat set the tone nicely for our last few days in South Africa spent in Johannesburg - for, so far in all my worldly travels, I have not experienced a city with a worse character than Johannesburg. It was dirty and dusty, sparse and concreted, and the poverty and plight of the black population was clearly evident and further exasperated by the incivility of the white population. I really did struggle to find a redeeming feature of this characterless metropolis. However this did not detract from our breathtaking experiences in Kruger as we were in Johannesburg for a reason - to support the Wallabies.
After decking ourselves out in full Wallaby gold we went across the road from our hotel to cheer the players onto the team bus. My concerns were somewhat heightened when Jeremy Paul the Wallaby No. 2 descended the hotel escalator and looked up, surprised at our presence, he wished us "good luck today, fellas". We begun the dangerous journey through downtown Johannesburg into the battle zone known as Ellis Park. As one of a very small handful of Wallaby fans I can honestly say that I have never felt so intimidated in my life. The Bokka fans are aggressive and boisterous and seem to take delight in taunting opposition fans, but when you are outnumbered by about 65,000 to 100 the incentives to keep your mouth shut are as large as the sea of green jerseys all around you.
Unfortunately the team played poorly and were beaten comprehensively, but that is probably a good thing because if they had have won we probably would have been beaten comprehensively......... But at least we got our mugs on television - standing proudly and belting out Advance Australia Fair - surrounded by wildlife that would have fitted in quite nicely roaming the scrub of Kruger National Park. Surely we 8 can now say that we are TRUE Wallaby fans!........
Overall it was an amazing adventure and an experience that I am so fortunate to have been able to share with 7 of my closest mates. I look forward to showing you all my hundreds of photos and regaling you with many more stories and highlights.

Oysters

I have finally been forced to succumb to what I had been refusing to accept as a matter of principle. The shellfish that has been forced at us for some time now. Gradually they have been removing the means to survive without one. They make it all sound like such a good idea, save time, save money, save a soul etc etc. They have now removed all means for me to live in this city without that damn little shellfish.
It is now no longer possible to buy weekly tube travel cards. The only way one can buy a weekly travel card is if they have an oyster card!
Oyster is the smarter, faster, easier way to travel round London. Oyster is designed to make your life easier, blah blah blah.......
Basically the London Underground are trying to cut down on the number of paper tickets used. Oyster is an electronic swipe card that carries your ticket information. You can top it up online, or at auto machines at the station. You can use pre-pay that will just subtract the amount of your journey from your balance, or you can buy weekly, monthly or annual travel cards on it. You just swipe your card on the way in and out of the tube station. It sounds like a great idea, saves time by allowing you to not have to queue up for tickets in the morning etc etc etc.
I have never bothered with one of these and have stuck to using paper weekly tickets. Gradually though they made it harder for you to do this; by not making paper weekly tickets available from the auto machine etc. As of the 25th of September, you will now no longer be able to buy paper weekly, monthly or yearly travel cards, they will only be available to Oyster card holders. So now I have an Oyster card and will be able to enjoy all the benefits associated.
Transport for London and anyone whom they may care to share the information with, will now have a record of every single public transport journey that I make. If ever the time should come when I need to claim I was in a place that I was not, there will be evidence to prove I am lying. Now, I am not ever likely to claim I was somewhere I was not, but is that really the point?
The Oyster card is indeed a convenient way of ticketing, yet in our age of ever increasing dependence on technologies, each new convenience is also as system of monitoring and control. We might be 20 years after George Orwell first predicted; but the Big Brother state is looming.
Conservatives will suggest that if one is not doing anything wrong, then one has nothing to worry about, and what does it matter if there is a record of one's whereabouts. Those who are doing wrong will be caught quicker and the precious lives of the law abiding citizens of the free world will be saved. That may be the case but where to we go from here?
Once something is routine in our lives it is easy to consciously forget about it. We are becoming nearer to a cashless society; we use our debit and credit cards with increasing frequency. Each time we make a transaction there is a record of what we bought, where, when and how much. At this stage the bank only has these records, but how long before it is decided it is acceptable for other institutions to gain access to these. Already, companies use store cards to create a psychological profile of you based on the groceries you buy, with this information they will directly market products to you that they think you will be interested in buying.
The more technology eases our lives, the more our lives are recorded. This information is not readily available to anyone at the moment, soon it could be. Knowledge is power.
It's not such a bad thing though, with advancements in cloning technology, I could create an exact DNA replica of myself, then with all the information about my life, purchases, movements and behaviours recorded, I could program this clone to behave just like me. I could then send it out to work while I lie on a beach in Thailand.
Although, with a sample of my DNA, anyone could do this! They could kill me and replace me with my replica! Maybe they already have!
The possibilities are endless.

RIP Richard Whitely

It has been a long while since my last post. During that time I have been to Croatia and South Africa. The second of these trips was certainly one of the best trips I have been on. My mate Rob wrote a pretty good email to everyone about it so instead of writing my own, I'll just copy that one in another post.
Also in that time I was offered my position at work on a permanent basis; which I accepted. Subsequently I am a rather busy man at work at the moment and so I have not had the free time to update my blog as I did in the past.
Also in that time, I met the girl of my dreams - more on her in the future.

Today however I am having a duvet day - well I was feeling a bit shit this morning and I really couldn't face up to sitting at my desk all day and so I called in for my first sick day. So today, after my biggest fan again enquired about the absence of any posting, I am making a come back (again.) I bought a laptop a couple of weeks ago, so I can now post at home, which is proberly where I will be when I do in future.

And so, to the point: A few weeks ago Richard Whitely the host of one of the longest running shows in Brtitain; countdown, died. Countdown was the show to watch on a weekday afternoon. Anyone who may spend a day at home through temporary unemployment, sick days, or duvet days will tell you that it is just not the same without countdown. They will not replace Richard and the show will likely never return, this also means that we will miss out on everyone's favourite hostess; Carol Vorderman. At this time when Countdown should be on, I feel empty, something is missing. I haven't had lunch though so that might be it, but I would more accurately suggest it is the lack of me not being able to work out words with more than 5 letters in while those on tele always seem to manage 8. Oh well, I should really be at work anyway. RIP Richard Whitely

America F**k Yeah

Team America: World Police is certainly one of my favourite movies. Similarly South Park; made by the same people, is one of my favourite TV shows.

The only real purpose of this post is to upload a couple of avatars that I might use for a while. I'll backdate it and hide it away in archives.

TBH

It has been very hot in London this week. London is not the best city in the world to be in when it is hot. It is rather unpleasant having to catch the tube when dressed in a suit in this hot weather. I should not complain, but I do anyway.
The summer solstice was on Tuesday, just thought I’d mention that.
Next week I am going to the Coldplay concert on Monday, should be pretty good, I have been listening to their stuff a lot since X&Y was released. They are due to headline at Glastonbury tomorrow; I spoke to a friend at Glastonbury this morning who was soaking wet, as was all her belongings. It had rained torrentially over night and was still raining this morning. There were minor floods and two of the stages were struck by lightning. Glad I didn’t go now. Pretty funny though how we are all hot and bothered here in London and not too far away in Somerset, they’re cold and wet.

The Lions test tomorrow should be a good game. The wet conditions predicted should suit the Lions and it will hamper the All Blacks somewhat in their ability to play their expansive game. It is a good idea to play both Wilkinson and Jones at 12 and 10 respectively; both have excellent kicking games and this is how Woodward will try to win the game. They will attempt to kick behind the All Blacks’ back three and play for territory; thus Woodward has chosen experienced veterans in the forward pack, hoping for a solid game in tight and they will try to force errors from the All Blacks. Jones’s and Wilkinson’s kicking games will have to be spot on if they hope to succeed in this game plan, as it is unwise to kick the ball to the All Black backs and let them run it back towards you. My tip is for an All Blacks victory, if the conditions are poor then the margin will not be as great as it should be, but I am still giving the Lions a 12.5 points start. So tomorrow morning until around lunch time I will be a kiwi, I have even agreed to wear my flatmate’s NZ Maori jersey since he’ll have his All Blacks one on.

No blogging next week as on Tuesday I’ll be flying to Ljubljana, from there I will be taking a bus down to Split in Croatia and meeting up with my Cousin on Hvar. I will return to London the following Monday with a tan!

Go the All Blacks

Inspite of......

Tired and cranky this afternoon. Not much sleep last night; most of the day filled with pointless meetings with morons. Bah, and now the fucking fire alarm is going off. Going home now and going to run hard around the common, will make me feel great.

Life still good though

Mildly amusing fact #935

George Foreman had 5 daughters and 5 sons. He name all his sons George! George Jnr, George III, George IV, George V and George VI

And they said boxers were stupid!

That's not acceptable behaviour from a rock star!

Music, I have been listening to a few new albums recently. The new Oasis album: ‘Don’t believe the truth’ isn’t bad. It’s got their unique sound and a couple of the songs are really catchy – can’t wait to see them at V festival.
The new Foo Fighers album: ‘In your honour’ came out yesterday, I have only listened to it a couple of times, but it fucking rocks. Dave Grohl really belts it out; it’s another top quality offering from the Foo.

Then of course there is the much anticipated third offering from Coldplay: ‘X&Y’ They spent a long time making this one right, they pushed back the release date by three months to make sure it was just as they wanted. As a result of this it meant the release was moved to the next financial year, thus EMI’s profits forecasts went down, which sent the share price down and wiped about £300m off the market value of the company. It appears to have been worth the wait; the more I listen to it, the more I like it. It was always going to be tough to follow on from their previous two, but they have done well. The album has it’s own unique flavour, it represents a step forward for the band but it still remains undoubtedly pure Coldplay. There are some great guitar riffs in it and Chris Martin is really exploring his vocal range. It has also made me play their previous two albums again; I am definitely listening to a lot of Coldplay again, although happily for me, it is under much more jovial circumstances that the last time I played them ad nauseum.
Their concert in two weeks time should be fantastic, the only gripe I have about it really is that it’s on a Monday! I know they are playing Glastonbury the weekend preceding but surely they could have found another date to kick off their UK X&Y tour!! What kind of a pussy has their concert on a Monday? Well Chris Martin obviously. I mean, thanks for the music mate but you are such an annoying, bed-wetting, pussy; and stop writing things on your fucking hand; if you need to write something down, get a notepad, and if you want to mark your skin then get a god damn tattoo.
He doesn’t drink, smoke, take drugs or fuck groupies; what kind of a rock-star is that? Since when did famous people start behaving like good role models? Thank God for Noel and Liam Gallagher.

Hey Lyla!

The Happy Mondays

Damn, it’s 5:15, I had every intention of doing a large posting today, but I got sidetracked. Anyway, it was a weekend of the highest quality. In spite of the fact that it is Monday, I have been in an exceptionally good mood today; the kind of mood that can only be the result of pulling an outstandingly gorgeous girl over the weekend. I dare say that due to the number of repeat visits that have been scheduled, this good mood may last for some time.

New flatmates moved in on Saturday, 2 girls sharing a room that I personally don’t think is big enough for two sharers unless they are a couple. I’m pretty sure they’re not Sapphic but I guess you never know with these things. In any case, they have already put my nose out of joint, ever the diplomat however I will forget about it.

So briefly, things I learnt over the weekend:
- Jenga is far more challenging and fun, when under the influence of alcohol.
- I have a very high tolerance for Sambucca
- What happened last Sunday afternoon
- Matt Dunning can play at tight head
- Wendell Sailor can play rugby
- I have well built triceps.

For the second time in a week I actually bought a CD today. Got the new Coldplay album last week and today I bought the new Foo Fighters one. I can’t remember the last time I bought a CD, I usually just copy music to my iRiver from mates’ CDs and Limewire.
I just realised I wrote Damn, it’s 5:15. I’m usually rather pleased at 5:15 because it means it’s just about time to head. Which I am doing now… more tomorrow.

I'm Back

It has been a while since my last posting, I have been a little slack but mostly it’s been very busy at work. There is of course the consideration that I often start things and then lose interest after while. In fact that usually happens with everything, however this time it is not the case (yet.) One of the factors that lead to me starting this blog was that I had plenty of free time at work in which to update it; so I think I have an excuse for being absent recently.

I went to see the Socceroos play the All-Whites last night at Craven Cottage. The Australians finally managed to turn relentless pressure into a goal in the 86th minute to win the game 1-0. Overall it was a pretty poor quality match, comparable to a match between two teams in the bottom half of the Championship. I hope the Socceroos will perform better at this month’s Confederations Cup and they certainly have a long way to go if they want to think about competing with the 5th place South American side in November for a World Cup berth. It was a pretty good atmosphere with the stadium about two-thirds full and plenty of support from the Aussies. Craven Cottage though has got to be one of the worst football stadiums I have been to. Sure it is quaint and picturesque; nestled beside the river in the gardens of Fulham Palace, but it is antiquated and falling down. Even with recent improvements, it should still be condemned; I cant’ actually believe a Premiership side plays its games there. I’m sure Roy Keane has had plenty to say about the quality of the facilities there compared to those at Old Trafford.

Still with football; there are still 64 days until the Premiership starts again. I am suffering withdrawal symptoms already. Although my attentions are mostly with rugby at the moment and I am excited about the impending international season in the southern hemisphere; I do not see rugby as a football substitute. Indeed it is an entirely separate passion altogether. No there really isn’t a substitute for the Premiership in the off season, I will just have to enjoy the nice weather and long hours of sunshine until it returns….. wait, hang on, where do I live again?

So still busy today, but have managed to find time to squeeze in this update before the weekend. Most of the end of year stuff is out of the way now so I shouldn’t be as busy as of next week, expect more frequent updates to return.

A reasonably quiet evening for me tonight, I will be proving my commitment to the Wallabies by getting up at 6am to watch the game versus Samoa. It is of course immediately followed by the Maori vs the Lions, should be a cracker. Not a bad way to start the day at all.