The view from Federation Square, or whatever it is called.

Nice one Dave!

The Telstra Dome. I don't think I needed to type that out really, did I?

Some big pointy thing that is a landmark. Apparantly.

The View towards Finders Street train station and the reporter I bumped into.

Jason came all the way to Las Vegas. I had been halfway to the other side of the World. I introduced him to my good friend, Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell. Despite all of these achievements, Jason was most impressed that I had bona fide Johnsons cotton buds, or to give them the medical name, ear pokers.
Tuesday 19th September 2006.

Having had a short (2 hours) Skype chat with my parents, sister and my brother, along with Cheryl and the kids, not forgetting Margaret, I decided that I should see how I felt the next day about what to do next. I know that Beattie (or was that the Bob Hoskins era?) said it was good to talk, but my god they rattle on. It might be 5pm in Craigavon, but it is stupid o’clock here! So..When I woke up I booked the 1pm flight to Melbourne, fancying a change from the sunshine and holiday laziness of the tropics and traveling for 3 hours to enjoy the holiday laziness that comes from city hotels instead. I booked into the Victoria hotel on Little Collins Street so that I could have internet access to keep you all up to date with what’s happening. That done just left checking out of the hotel and making my way to Cairns Airport. No problem there.

Had a Thai Red Curry at the departure lounge after being checked in by a pretty girl who kept smiling at me as if either she thought I was dead famous, or that she was. I was guessing that my infamy hadn’t spread across the antipodes, but also that a celebrity wouldn’t be moonlighting as a check in girl for Virgin Blue flights at Cairns Airport. A mystery. Then I got on board and read through the usual crappy attempt at an in-flight magazine. The wording of the magazine and the welcoming message from the captain really summed up the difference between ourselves, (Brits) and the Aussies. The pilot talked as though he was speaking to an old mate instead of a plane full of strangers. The only time I have seen this before was on a flight to Dublin where Captain O’Reilly told us to prepare for blast off. This difference was really brought home when I was watching the news where the Australian Prime Minister was describing the countries immigration policy and said that anyone wanting to live in Australia could as long as they were “fair dinkum”. That phrase has been mentioned lots of times on various serious programmes, including English Premier League football commentaries. I thought it was just Joe Mangel and Alf Stewart that used phrases like “fair dinkum”. They just seem to forego the formality, pomp and ceremony and speak as they find. I like it that way and see that it is us Brits that are the “flaming galares” for trying to make ourselves seem better than we are by fabricating and exaggerating our importance. As Roy Walker, the wise sage, repeatedly said, “Just say what you see”. Mind you he also said “Look at what Mr. Chips is doing with that banana, what does it look like?” The other language issue I have found with the Aussies is that they say “ay” after everything, ay? And they say it with a really lazy drawl, ay? Sometimes, ay, they squeeze three of four “ay’s” into one sentence, ay?

So, I was reading the in-flight magazine and saw that Richard Branson has entered a bra in a competition designed to highlight the awareness of breast cancer. I am not totally sure that Branson actually designed it, but he was mentioned in the caption with the picture of the bra being modelled by a pretty blonde girl that apparently worked for Virgin Blue. The bra itself was a life jacket complete with inflation tubes and whistle. Very nice but it was the girl who checked me in, if you hadn’t already guessed, that was once again smiling at me from the pages. I don’t know if she was expecting me to have already recognised her or knew that I would be seeing her next to naked very shortly! Does that count as a celebrity spot?

I got to the Victoria hotel and checked in. Before I book anywhere I always look on Tripadvisor.com to get the low-down. There are always general reviews stating that a place is dirty, noisy and ridden with vermin and parasites. As expected there was a couple claiming that the beds in the Victoria hotel are crawling with bedbugs. I have become accustomed to taking this with a pinch of salt by now. The hotel is massive and certainly not the Ritz, but it is quite nice. The view from my window is of clean, fresh air. It must be clean, fresh air as the brick wall I face has so many air conditioners that the air outside has to be the most conditioned air in Melbourne. To be honest, the room is fine, quite nice actually and not that expensive in comparison to the luxury I couldn’t resist in Cairns that assisted my convalescence.

There is a major problem though. The internet access in the room isn’t. In fact it is considerably out of the room. It is so far out of the room that I am going to have to get dressed to update this. Please don’t be alarmed that I am updating this while naked. I probably shouldn’t mention that I am also laid in a pool of my own vomit. The server that they use has apparently exploded so I am going to have to trust to uncle Starbuck to get online. The receptionist told me that all Starbucks have Wi-Fi so I am hoping to spend a fortune on coffee to keep you informed. That means two things. You each owe me a large latte and I am now becoming as sad as Red Watch York. Not only have I visited a fire station in Vancouver AND bought a fire station T-shirt, but now I am drinking coffee from Starbucks. Not that I have anything against coffee, but when we finished a shift on Green Watch we sometimes went for an after work cheeky beer, while Red Watch would go for a caffeine fix. At any given moment during a Red on-duty day, you could guarantee that at least one of them would be mooching round with a paper coffee cup in their hand. Now I am going to be frequenting Starbucks too. Green Watch, forgive me. By the way, has anyone mocked Pete Clark on my behalf? It also means that I won’t be Skyping for the following week unless they fix the server, which sounds unlikely.

I went to find a couple of bars last night, after a nap and a shower. Melbourne seems to be very laid back but it comes top of the “Lush’s hard to find bars guide 2006”. There are plenty of them but they all seem to be tucked down back alleys or entered through an innocuous door on a street and climbing a million stairs. Once you get into them they are quite good. It is only by my ability to appear disarming to bar staff that I leave with a badly drawn napkin map clutched in my sweaty fist. The last bar I went to (St Jerome’s I think it was called) was quite scruffy and chilled out but I liked it the best out of the 4 or 5 I visited. There was a girl called Amy in there who was very drunk and insisted on talking to me. I made a few comments about her being drunk and she said “I am not an alcoholic; I just drink all of the time.” I am glad she cleared that up. When I went to the toilet I noticed that there was loads of graffiti. Contrary to being frowned upon, I got the impression it was encouraged. Not just in the toilets, but in the bar as well (which was open air and down a dodgy looking back alley). Anyway, while in the toilets I saw a piece of graffiti that had me chuckling all night. On one side of the cubicle was a picture of a roughly drawn tennis racquet with the words “Toilet Tennis; look left”. On the opposite wall was another tennis racquet and the words “Toilet Tennis; look right.” Think about it. Sat there having a little “me” time and oscillating my head like watching Federer at Wimbledon. Just me? Oh well. Once again my conversation turns faecical. And I am certain that is not a word!

Today was the State funeral of Peter Brock, a racing driver. I has nothing to do with is death remember. There were lots of things happening in Melbourne city centre but they passed me by unnoticed. The memorial service for Steve Irwin is soon too. I had nothing to do with his death either. Honest. But I did bump into a news reporter in Federation Square (I think it was called) and interrupted her report. I then meandered into the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) and had an hour or two looking at the landmarks in Aussie broadcasting. There was an area where famous Aussies talked on four big flat screens about their favourite programmes, memories, theme tunes etc. I made myself comfy on the beanbags provided and watched a little. Stephan Dennis (Paul Robinson, from Neighbours) was one of the contributors but I couldn’t seriously watch him talking about how reality TV “stars” are stealing actors work, without remembering how he entered the charts with “Don’t It Make Ya Feel Good?” in the early nineties, effectively stealing the work of regular hard working pop “stars”. Everybody needs good neighbours eh? After a while I woke up and cleaned the drool from my shoulder and mooched on. Nice nap in a public place. I highly recommend it.

I am going to Starbucks now to see if I can post this rubbish.

Just one last thing while I am referring to multi national conglomerate chains. You remember my pointed refusal to eat at McDonalds? Well I have been mooching around Australia for a few weeks now and keep seeing shops that look exactly like Burger Kings. But they are called Hungry Jacks. I asked someone about it and it turns out that when Burger King landed in the land of the kangaroo, there was a small burger store called Burger King and the owner refused to sell the name to the American giant for reportedly huge sacks of cash. The result being that despite the mountains of cash at the disposal of the fast food Goliath, they had to either refrain from opening in Australia or change their name! Good on you Mr Aussie Burger King! Or David, as I am going to refer to you from now on.

Oh ok, just one more last word.

Quotes from Karl Pilkington, from the Ricky GervaisVideo Podcast, which are great and free from Itunes.

On eating octopus;

“I mean, I could understand it if we had run out of everything else. Alright, what’s left? Octopus? Go on then, I’ll have a leg.”

“People talk about those places where they eat dogs. They say how terrible it is. I don’t think it’s so bad. As long as it’s there own dog. If we are eating octopuses, then I don’t see why dogs should be getting away with it.”

Comedy gold! You have to get all the Gervais podcasts from Audible or Itunes. They are brilliant.

Another thing that you should get is Kevin Eldon’s podcasts called Speakers from Resonance FM, through Itunes. It should be free and there are 8 to get. Some take a bit of listening to, but there are 3 that stand out and you should listen to them to see what makes me laugh. The three best ones, in my opinion, are Space, Decree and Transmission. Get them. Do it. Now.


Bowel check = Ungainly. Ay?