Oz III - Silly Season

It is only 3 days until Christmas and I feel the least Christmasy possible. For starters looking out the window I am gazing over a bright sunny day . The weather hasn't been brilliant for the past couple of weeks (and Christmas day could be overcast) but even when it rains it is still warm. I associated Christmas with dark days and cold weather. There are Christmas decorations but these are few and far between. I don't have a TV so haven't seen any Christmas specials or Christmas adverts. I haven't been inside many shopping centres. I have heard a handful of Christmas songs and as yet have not heard 'Merry Christmas Everybody' by Slade. I haven't had an advent calendar. I haven't had any mulled wine to drink. I haven't seen buildings covered in Christmas lights. I have eaten one mince pie and it wasn't what I would describe as a traditional mince pie. I haven't had to defrost my car and then watch the windscreen freeze halfway down the road. Also for some reason Australians call this time of year the 'Silly season' or the 'Holiday season'. This isn't to suggest I am having a bad time. Its just not Christmas.

I moved out of the gay impersonator's house to a converted mansion in Bondi Junction. It is very much like University living. I have a sink and fridge in my room. The bathroom and showers are communal and so is the kitchen. 35 people live in the mansion, young and old. I moved in at the weekend and have so far met lots of English and Irish backpackers. I can see the Pacific Ocean from outside my door. The area is nice with good transport links. My two jobs have ticked along to the Christmas break. The call centre job got much better after the first two weeks. I got to know alot more people there and how far you were allowed to bend the 'rules'. The 9-5 job has worked out very. The telemarketing finished last week and I have been kept on into this week entering the data from the research. I then coming back for the middle two weeks in January to do some more work towards their marketing plan. The first week of Jan I will spend watching the final Ashes test (I have managed to get a ticket for the 4th day, hopefully England last that long) and the final week of Jan I'm going to go to Melbourne and catch some of the Australian Tennis Open.

I got in contact with the Sydney Comedy Store (www.comedystore.com.au) and performed their last week. The gig went very well. The audience were in good spirits, lots of Christmas parties, and the other acts were good. I got another gig there on Tuesday night. I was a bit nervous beforehand because I didn't want to spoil my good work from the week before. The audience were much less forgiving than the week before and the acts on before me were struggling, if not dying. I managed to do an even better job than last week. I will hopefully have a couple more gigs there in January. I have also performed with the local short-form improv troupe, Scared Scriptless (scriptless.improaustralia.com.au). They are a really nice bunch of people. One of the guys remembers me from coming to watch the Imps in Oxford a couple of years ago. The show itself was a bit awkward. It was a big Christmas Micetro show with a cast of 20 and multiple hosts. It meant it didn't really work well until the end. I am looking forward to performing with them again in the New Year.

Oz II - At the Coal Face

I am not suggesting that I am a northener covered in soot working to bring a loaf of hovis up a cobbled hill with five kids all wanting their bread and dripping, and a wife who wants a new pair of stockings, but I am working hard. Today was my first day off in two whole weeks. Admittedly I haven't worked for 4 and a half months prior to that but I said I would work when I got to Sydney and true to my word I am doing that. The call centre telemarketing job has been a bit of a rollercoaster, at times I want to glass a supervisor and other times I am bored. In fairness it isn't a bad job. All you do is sit at a desk and dial numbers, if you get through to someone you give them the pitch if they don't hang up or abuse you (or sound like they are going to die) then you ask them some questions. It isn't exactly rocket science. What really grates me about the job is the rudeness of the supervisors. I hate people being rude, especially to me. I hate it when people patronise me and treat me like a child. I do childish things and I am incompetent but so is Des O'Connor and people don't patronise him. On Saturday one of the supervisors had obviously had a bad night because he was constantly dragging people into the office for appraisals. Appraisals in telemarketing call centres are warnings, you do it again you are out. I could accept this but what I find unacceptable is that the supervisor was yelling at these people. It was as if he was the teacher and we were the naughty children. Man management is appallingly poor. If they treated people with some level of respect then they might have a lower staff turnover. The other job is much better. We are treated as peers and left to our own devices. I get to pretend that I am important and they tell me I am doing a good job, plus I get to look out of the window at the Harbour bridge.

So far my living arrangements are proving to be dull. I assumed moving in with a gay female impersonator would give me stories that could fill a novel. I have got to say that for situation comedy it has proved to be non-existent. We don't really see each other that much, when we do he tells me how muich money he has earnt for an hour's work and I try and say something before he cuts me off and talks about something else. I am amazed about how difficult it is to have a conversation with him. He talks about what he wants to talk about. He leaves spaces for you to comment but doesn't react to what you have to say. I am tempted to started unleashing controversial and offensive comments at him and see if that makes him actually listen.

My boss from Rayleigh is also a Spurs fan. He took me along to Oz Spurs last night. It has a group of Spurs fan in Australia (does exactly what it says on the tin). We were in a random sports bar in town to watch the North London Derby. There were about 40 spurs fans. 

Weather update - the weather has continued to be completely random. In the past couple of weeks it has been 35C and as low as 10C. There has been thick fog, massive thunderstorms, and heavy rain, not to mention overcast chilly days. I wouldn't want to be a moaning pom, but the idea that Sydney is blue skies and barmy tempatures everyday isn't accurate. Needless to say its a hell of alot better than the UK, I get more than 7 hours sunshine a day! It doesn't feel like I am coming to the end of 2006 because normally the end of the year is marked by dark days. One of the objectives of the tour has been chasing the sun. I am going to need to find a job where I can justify living in each hemisphere across the year for long sunny days.