Oz VIII - Week in Sydney

Last week there was heavy rain in Sydney. Rain in Sydney is not that unusual. Heavy rain however seems to produce the same collapse in society as snow does in Southern England. There were floods, car accidents, the traffic system ground to a halt. Yet Australians still refused to wear rain coats. It seems to be unacceptable for an Australian to wear a rain coat. At work all the ex-pats turned up looking suave in their macs the Australians strolled in wet.

As ever lots of things going on in Sydney this week. Last weekend I worked at the Good vibrations festival, it is a big annual dance music festival. I was working on one of the bars with friends of mine from work. It was manic. Nine hours passed in the blink of an eye, the only real break coming when Snoop Dogg was let off the leash. I must have made hundreds of vodka and red bulls. They gave everyone tea spoons to open the cans with. I thought this was slow and wimpy so used my fingers, after half an hour I had cut open both my thumbs and realised why we had been given spoons. The next day I went to Tropfest which is another annual event in the Domain, a short film festival, the biggest in the world. On Tuesday QM2 and QE2 came to town. Sydneysiders love any excuse to hang around the harbour in the sun and the biggest Queen in the world was more than enough reason. As with any event in Sydney this was followed by a spectacular firework display. I had a few days off work so went up to Taronga Zoo. It is a great setting in bushland with view of the harbour and the city. They have a couple of enclosures in the Zoo which you walk through with the animals around you, an Emu is a lot more intimidating without bars.

I continued my soap opera odyssey getting the bus to Palm Beach aka Summer Bay. It is a picturesque spot, far more beautiful then it appears to be on TV. Unfortunately there were no film crews to compliment this beauty or Home & Away stars to stalk. They reckon that the peninsula where Palm Beach sits will eventually be eroded away in 80 years time, so get here quick.

I have continued performing with Scared Scriptless. They are a good bunch of people and get decent audiences to watch. A couple of weeks ago I performed with an apparent legend of Australian TV. She meant nothing to me. She was a presenter of playschool and my friends from work who came to watch were star struck.

Spider watch - after 3 months of living in Australia I finally came across a big spider. The size of my palm. A huntsmen sitting on the ceiling of the bathroom. I decided to leave it alone, someone else decided to kill it after a couple of days. I went to the Australia Museum and they had a giant Funnel Web Spider (the size of a Mini) that moved. I wouldn't fancy coming across a life sized Funnel Web let alone one that was bigger than me. The Palm Beach area was covered in Orb Spiders. Back before Xmas a friend of mine was bitten by a red back spider and rushed to hospital. She was in and out of consciousness and at one point awoke to find 3 doctors trying to inject her with anti-venom at the same time. She said that before she was bitten she was scared of spiders, now she is terrified.

Oz VII - 2 -0 to the Eng-ger-land

Last night was superb. England again outplayed Australia and deservedly won the one-day series. Unlike the previous match I watched at the SCG England could only manage 4 an over run rate and until Collingwood and Flintoff steadied the ship it looked like they might struggle to get to 200. The rain delays seemed to play their part. It was bizarre sitting their under the blazing sun whilst at the same time being rained on.

The crowd was as entertaining as usual. The Australian fans were really giving their own new players stick. In our part of the stand a stand-off emerged over a blow-up Kangaroo with a section of Aussie fans chanting 'chuck the roo', it climaxed in a fight with a meat pie and one guy getting escorted out by the police. The police presence was again very high, it seemed to work as there was only one Mexican wave. I can see the headlines now. I managed to get some satisfaction out of the Loye run out. The run out was not a great moment but the Australian sitting next to me jumped up to cheer and sat down still cheering forgetting his seat had folded up leading to him falling down with his pint all over him, comedy gold. Later on an old woman opened her umbrella when it started to rain for the 6th time and nearly managed to take her husband's eye out, he wasn't impressed.

The Australian innings started well with Gilchrist and Hayden knocking Plunkett and Mahmood round the ground. Yet the wickets started to tumble again. It was great to see the Aussie fans around get quieter and quieter as they realised what happened in the past two matches could be happening again. England looked like they were going to win and the only thing to stop them would be the weather. After a couple of delays it got to the 17th over and it again started to rain. To win the Australian innings had to reach 20 overs. The English players were doing their best to ignore the downpour.

After that England were able to come out after a stunning catch by Dalrymple finished off any lingering Aussie hopes. Me and Jack had moved down next to the boundary rope by this stage and the platoon of the Barmy Army were in full swing with Jimmy Saville leading them. Rain forced the players off again at the 27th over and then after 20 mintues of waiting England were declared the winners of the match and the series. At which point chants of 2-0 started ringing out, the few Australians left followed it up with 5-0. Admittedly they did thrash us in the Ashes, but everyone expected them to win the one-day series easily. They haven't lost a home one-day series in a decade and England haven't won one in Australia since 1987. Currently England are ranked 7th in the world for one-day teams and Australia are 1st. It is a big achievement to win and to win convincingly. Not only that but Ponting and Buchanan have been giving the English team stick for not putting up a strong enough test.

At the end the players came out and celebrated with us in the rain. We were all chanting and you could see how pleased the players were. We were of course surrounded by police because pf the danger that we posed, there was a risk of a Mexican wave or two. Flintoff again bowed down to the Barmy Army as he did at the end of the Ashes and Nixon climbed up the advertising hoardings into the fans. Nixon hung around as the other players drifted off obviously enjoying his moment with England in the limelight.

Super Fred's, Barmy Army, Super Fred's, Barmy Army...now for the World Cup...

Oz VI - Melbourne, Tennis, Neighbours and Cricket

I have been a bit absent minded in updating the blog. I am still a Sydneysider. My work want to keep me on for a while, so I am not sure when I will be moving on from Sydney. I have stopped the second job at the Call Centre because I had enough of abuse from Australians at the cricket let alone having to aggravate people by phoning. I have taken up swimming. There is a pool next to where I work. I have upgraded from the 'Recreation Lane' to the 'Slow Lane'. A one armed guy swam past me the other day. I am not going to be challenging the Thorpedo. The pool is next to the Harbour Bridge and with blue skies above you it is a nice way to relax after work.

The past couple of weeks have been pretty busy. I went to Melbourne to watch the Australian Tennis Open and went to Ramsay Street. I also went to watch the Cricket in Sydney where England finally beat Australia! It was amazing. The England innings was their best this series, ticking along at 5 an over. However, you couldn't help but feel that Australia would steam roller through and get the 291 runs. The one-day crowd is quite different to the Test crowd. There were a lot more drunk loud Australians. They were reminding the England fans of the tour so far and as an England fan there were no comebacks. There weren't really any problems. Although the police were really strict. Mexican waves and beer snakes were banned. Mexican waves were apparently used to throw things so they have been banned. This meant that whenever a drunk bloke jumped up to start a wave it would be followed by a troupe of policeman surrounding that row and dragging them out. A beer snake involves collecting all the empty plastic beer cups and putting them together. Once it has reached a desired length it is held aloft and the crowd cheers. The police then chuck them out. During the Australian innings the beer snakes grew more frequent and it was impressive to see how long people could get them, it takes some organisation. There was a 20 minute period where people stopped watching the cricket and kept cheering giant beer snakes appearing around them. The reason they are banned is that as soon as they are shown to the crowd everyone in the vicinity throws their empties to make the snake even bigger. The Australian innings was brilliant to watch. It was amazing to see Gilchrist go first ball and then Hodge to join him shortly afterwards. Slowly but surely the Aussies got less cocky and the English got louder. The wickets were being smashed to pieces and for once it was great to be an England fan. Afterwards we went to the Captain Cook, popular pub among fans, which got pretty rowdy with England and Australian fans singing. England have even made it into the Tri-Series finals by beating New Zealand. I have a bad feeling that the Australians will exact revenge, Ponting doesn't like to lose.

I was in Melbourne for the last week of the Australian Open. I had tickets to the day session at the Vodafone Arena. I was sitting up in the Gods and got chatting to a random woman. It turned out that her kids were sitting in the first row and there were spare seats so I ended up sitting in the first row for the rest of the day. I headed over to the Rod Laver Arena to see if I could get tickets for the Murray Nadal match. I haven't met so many Scots since Edinburgh. It was impossible to get tickets so I went to watch the first evening match on the big screen with one of the Scottish guys. After the Sharapova match we went back to the Rod Laver Arena and were asking people leaving for their tickets. We got tickets and got to watch the Murray match for free. It was a superb match that last 4 hours and was hugely entertaining. Murray dominated the match and would have won if he could have maintained his intensity. The crowd really got into the contest. The next day I queued for tickets for the Federer Robredo match. I had tickets for the day session in the Rod Laver arena and got to see Sharapova, Hingis, Clijsters and Haas Davedenko. I also queued for the Federer Roddick semi final. It was completely one-sided which was disappointing. It was quite something seeing Federer dismantle Roddick though. The crowd really got on Roddick's side but it didn't make a blind bit of difference.

Melbourne is very different to Sydney. It is doesn't have the same iconic features that Sydney has. I couldn't picture Melbourne before I arrived. It feels much more European than Sydney. The architecture is a mixture of Victorian, modern glass skyscrapers and random crazy stuff. The people look studenty, in Sydney people dress to be beautiful, in Melbourne they dress to be trendy and cool. I decided to do the 12 hour overnight bus from Sydney to Melbourne. I wouldn't recommend it. You leave at 8pm and just as you are getting to sleep you arrive in Canberra. Then as you are getting to sleep again there is a 30minute meal break at 3am in the middle of nowhere. An American guy sat next to me and was a bit over-friendly. When we arrived in Melbourne he took his bags off then started serenading some Japanese girls with his Clarinet. The next evening on the way home from the Tennis I wandered passed him in Fed Square again with his Clarinet out.

Arguably the most exciting thing I did in Melbourne was going to Ramsay Street. It was Australia Day and I tried to think of the most Australian thing I could do. My credentials as a Neighbours fan are damaged by the fact that I haven't watched it since leaving the UK. I have seen two adverts for it on TV which have characters I don't recognise. There is a Neighbours office in Melbourne where they pick you up. There you meet a star, our star was Libby (Kim Valentine). I tried to be cool and asked her about her 'music'. She looked at me strangely and asked what music, I said I thought she was in a band. She said oh no I stopped that ages ago. A wonderful star anecdote some might say, an indication don't try to be down with it. Most people got their photos taken with her, there were others who were completely star struck by the occasion and hung back taking photos from afar as if they were in a zoo. We then boarded the Neighbours bus (it was covered in Neighbours logos) and drove to Erinsborough. They put an old episode on the TV. Our first stop was Erinsborough High. There were a couple of Australian teenagers trying to be too cool for school about it all. I committed to the naffness very easily. I wandered around Erinsborough wide-eyed and got my picture taken with the sign. We then drove passed the studios to Ramsay St. Ramsay St is much smaller than you imagine it to be. It is weird to walk around it because having seen it so much on TV you feel like you know it. I made sure I got my pictures with the Ramsay St sign. When I got back from Melbourne I went to the Neighbours night in Sydney. The Neighbours night involves 3 stars answering questions then wandering round the crowd getting their photos taken. It was packed with over 200 backpackers. The stars for the night were Toadie, Boyd, Janae and Lana. When you enter they ask you to write down questions for the stars. I made the school boy error of asking a serious question for Janae (were you intimidated when you joined the cast), all the other questions were who would you kill, who would you sleep with, why are you fat. For some reason they choose to ask my question as well. The stars toured the tables and we got our photos taken. Janae was first round. Lana was their because they are friends and she was hovering around the bar seemingly embarrassed that no one was having their photo taken with her, so I dived in. Boyd was next and it turns out he is 19 and a short-arse. He is possibly 4ft 6. He seemed to be a very nice guy. The final one round was Toadie who was the hit of the night. The rest of the night consists of dodgy Club 18-30 style games and a lacklustre trivia quiz.

There was a 'special' guy wandering around the crowd. He was wearing a Neighbours t-shirt and had a photo album. We assumed that he was one of the organisers. He introduced himself to our table and it turned out this was his 38th consecutive Neighbours night. He has pictures with all the stars in his album and photos when he has gone to Ramsay St. The pictures document his decline. He looks quite normal at the start. By the end he has dodgy bleached hair (and bleached eyebrows). Apparently he gets in each night for free. I wonder whether the organisers do this to warn people of the dangers of Neighbours addiction. A warning I took to heart. Although if Dr Karl or Paul Robinson come to town then I will be there with bells on. I did randomly bump into a girl from the year above me at 6th form, turns out she works with the weirdo.