Shopping Frenzy

A busy day today. Went to Brizzle to do the christmas shopping. That's Bristol to the rest of you.

I never thought I'd say it but It's a really nice place to go now. Lovely shops, cool market stalls and plenty of places to eat. It's changed a bit since I was a kid when it was pretty grim. I guess that's what you call gentrification, but Bristol seems to have done it with out the gay boys and girls being involved.

The new centrepiece of the city centre is a place called Cabot Centre which is a massive new shopping mall. The difference between this one and the ones in Oz is that Cabot is mostly outside so you don't feel like you are in a completely fake environment. There's loads of cool shops too as well as the usual high street suspects. When we got there it was really quiet and I thought it was going to be great but by 11 am it was absolutely heaving with people. However not as bad as it should be only 3 days before Christmas. I think the GFC has really had a huge influence here. There may be lots of people in town but there are no queues at the checkouts in the shops. My theory for this is that we are all completely brainwashed into shopping as a leisure activity and still go to the shops even if we've got no money to spend. It's a bit weird but there you go. So even though I was ready to kill everyone when walking in the street, when I went in the shops it was relatively quiet.

The christmas decorations in the city were pretty cool too:

GIANT REINDEER! How cool is that, they were pretty substantial steel things too so I'd be interested if they get their moneys worth and use then again next year.

I did actually get all my xmas shopping done too. In one day! I think I deserve an award for that. I saw loads of really nice stuff I want to buy for myself too, but I'll go back down in after Xmas when it's all cheaper in the sales.

So a successful day and worth the drive down the motorway in snow, ice and fog so thick I couldn't see the car in front. Three things amaze me about driving here. One is how fast everyone drives, the speed limit of 70 mph seems to be purely a suggestion and the cops don't seem to stop anyone unless they are driving like complete idiots. The second is how polite and considerate all the other drivers are. They let you pull out, change lanes to let you overtake slow moving trucks and generally seem much more aware of what is going on around them. It'll be a shock to go back to Perth drivers. The third thing is how unbelievably dirty your car gets. I've had the hire car for two days and you can barely tell that it's a Corsa what with all the salt, dirt and grime on it. But seeing as it's a hire car I never have to worry about the dirt on it.

I'm off now to watch a BBC4 Documentary about Oliver Postgate. The man was a god. Well to a certain generation of British people at least. If you don't know who he was then you need a kicking (or are foreign in some way) but he was responsible for The Clangers, Bag Puss, Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog to name a few. A true god of my childhood.

I'll let you know what it's like.

Deep and Crisp

Ahh, jet-lag. Been awake since 4am and I'll tell you now there is not much to watch on the TV at that time of the day. Even with Sky and it's 500 channels it still just shows pretty much ads and reality television shows. It has given me chance to catch up on the ads and realise that it is so much cheaper here than Oz at the moment. Every shop is offering at least 50% off stuff in the run up to Christmas. Just bonkers.

So I got back at 3 yesterday after a fairly uneventful flight from Singapore, apart from the fact that it was 14 hours instead of 12 because of the winter jet stream. And that is a long time in a plane, even in the front end. And especially when you get on and there is a three month old baby sitting in the seats across the aisle. I had visions of 14 hours of screaming but he was absolutely beautiful, not one grizzle the entire way. He did however affect the service on the flight as all the cabin crew were totally smitten with him and were fighting to take him off his parents hands while they ate. It seems to be a Singapore Airlines thing that they love babies. That might be something to consider for all my friends who are currently squeezing/squeezed out sprogs.

The food was pretty good and will be shown for your delectation (except the stuff I forgot to get pics of due to time zone and sleep deprivation caused confusion):

Granola

Huge suspicious sausage (I think they should have put the tomato the other way up to lessen the suspiciousness)

Wagyu beef

Créme brulée

Not bad all in all but it's still just really airline food, but with better cutlery. Even metal knives now for some reason. Obviously we no longer need to be afraid of international terrorists wielding butter knives on planes.

Got back to Heathrow and was pleasantly surprised to see that T3 has had a face lift, no longer are the lights hanging from the ceiling. You got to be careful which immigration queue you choose though. Just cause it says British citizens it doesn't mean they will be able to read the signs or speak enough English to communicate with the Immigration Officer. At least I got through quicker than all the poor "Other Nationalities" queue. That was a nightmare. If you ever travel through UK airports with a non-EU citizen make sure you got a book to read while they stand in their queue.

I managed to stay conscious till about 9pm then had to crash but I slept pretty well and woke up to this outside the window:

It's not deep, but it is crisp and even. Actually it's incredibly slippery. I'd sort of forgotten that ice is so treacherous. Looks like I'm going to have to relearn about driving in the snow pretty quick when I get the hire car today.

Better buy the extra insurance.

Arrival

I'm here. I'm knackered. I'm dehydrated. I'm cold.

More tomorrow.

Half way Henry

First leg done, a mere 5 hours. Now for the fun bit - 14 hours on a plane. Good job there's lots to watch on the entertainment system thingy. I think I'll start with Public Enemies, then maybe UP then the original Time Machine. That's at least 5 hours out the way.

Sitting in Changi now (the airport not the prison) listening to the appalling sub-Kenny G sax heavy Christmas music. There's no need.

Right, off for some more security screening and a very long sit down.

Told you I'd be bored

That didn't take long did it. Already bored at an airport. And what an airport to be bored at.

Perth International... the correct superlative escapes me. Most lame perhaps? Most like an international airport you'd expect to find in a little hick town in the middle of nowhere? I think that's the one.

Sorry I should be kinder but it's just a bit sad when you get to the airport and the check in desks aren't yet open, half the shops are shut and the duty free section seems to sell mostly canned abalone and Australian flag coated neck pillows.

I can however say that all the staff I've been in contact with this evening have been really lovely. Polite, friendly and helpful. Amazing. I can't say the same about the check-in chick at the next counter though, she was spitting venom at some poor Japanese business man.

I always wonder why there are passport and immigration checks when you are leaving a country. What are they for? Surely if you're leaving it's not really a problem for the country you're leaving? Do they stop illegal immigrants at the border and say "sorry but you have to stay now until we decide to deport you"? It's all a bit weird. I suppose if you're on the lookout for a Great Train Robber then you can nab 'em at the border but surely it would be easier to let them leave and have another country deal with the problem when they try to enter? Just a suggestion. It'd save a fortune on border agents and retractable queuing guides.

So I'm now in the fancy-schmantzy lounge waiting for the flight. Actually as this is Perth, not that fancy or schmantzy. If there was a contest for most impossibly uncomfortable chairs then this place is in with a chance. I think they are left over from some CIA experiment in torture. See what I mean?

I have also had the most disgusting cup of machine made coffee of my entire life. And I remember MaxPak. It was sort of thick and gritty. Like it was made with powdered milk that they forgot to mix with enough water. Very strange. Still mustn't grumble at least there's no Christmas music playing in here.

I'll just sit here for the next two hours watching Sky News with the sound three seconds out of sync with the pictures.

Tune in for an update from Singapore. With airline food pictures just for Tim.

Off We Go Again

So I'm packed and ready to go. Back to the old country for Christmas. Almost certainly a white one too at this rate, just hoping that I don't get stuck at Heathrow in the snow.

Anyway this is just to say the blog will reactivate now I'm off and got things to talk about.

Check back later, when I'm bored at an airport.

Didn't we have a lovely time...

I would advise that if you need to go to Sydney for the weekend you should try and avoid the red-eye flight from Perth. It's hell. You get on at midnight WA time and get off at 7 am Sydney time after a four hour flight. If you could sleep it would probably be OK, but on Virgin Blue the seats recline by about two inches and you are packed in like sardines. And you can't even get a pillow. Not even if you pay. Suffice to say it was hideous.

Why was I going to Sydney anyway? Well it was my friend Doug's birthday (one with a zero) and we thought it would be a good idea. In fact we didn't really think about it at all. We got an email from Charms seeing if we wanted to go and just sort of said yes. It was only when we were at the airport at midnight that we realised it was a pretty daft idea. Work all day Friday, fly overnight, party and catch up all day Saturday and then fly back Sunday.

However it was worth every moment of discomfort. The party was great. Charms had arranged a whole Scottish thing as Doug thinks he's Scottish. Well he sort of is, in that very English way of wanting to wear a kilt when one of your parents is partially from the end of the high road. She was stressing out but it all went off beautifully. All the neighbours brought stuff and there were even a couple of Australians there. I think they live in one of those little Britain suburbs like we have here in Perth so Aussies are a rarity.

The evening was slightly marred when a haggis was brought out, but people recovered pretty quickly and it all went off with a bang. however I'm afraid I can't report on the wildness after 11 pm as I was dead to the world. My brain just sort of stopped functioning. All I can say is that there were hangovers in evidence on Sunday morning. All in all it was a great night and brilliant to see my friends again and to see the kids getting bigger and bigger. Pity they are so far away really.

Anyhow on Sunday I went into Sydney and again realised how lame Perth can actually be. There are shops and cafes and people and best of all an American apparel with 20% off everything. I've always been a bit anti-Sydney but after this weekend it's started to grow on me a bit. I don't know what's changed but there you go.

Apart from this not much has been happening. The film is pretty much done, the fine-cut looks really good and now just need the music which we have some local musicians writing. I've got to organise all the thank you presents and a final wrap party for all the people who've helped. I just hope to god that the Town of Vincent who gave us the money are happy. What amazes me is that Adam even has special effects in it. What used to take George Lucas weeks on end and millions of dollars can now be done on an ancient eMac in your bedroom!

So that's it. I still have things to post about Taiwan but it's probably a bit late by now. Never mind. I'll see what mood I'm in tomorrow.

Taiwan Photos

Just uploaded my holiday pictures over

here at flickr

Take a look if you want. I've got a final blog about the trip to do but I'm just too lazy at the moment.

Plane Plane Go Away

Well yesterday was a surreal kind of day. I left Taipei at about 2pm in the pouring rain with winds howling and storms all around. It may have been a very bad idea to watch Cast Away the night before. Although I did get some great survival tips from Tom Hanks. I actually had a really bad feeling about the flight yesterday, just a sense of unease not helped by the dozens of life insurace company agents at Taipei airport. In the end it was OK, just a bit bumpy, and we did have to go the long way round to avoid the storms.

Aiports are very weird places I've realised. I mean why are they all full of such highend shops? Do people really buy Prada and Gucci on a two hour stop over? Actually no they don't as all of the shops at TPE were completely empty, the only queues were for Burger King. Another thing about these luxury brands is how they are all going off product. The weirdest being Mont Blanc (a pen manufacturer) making hand bags, I mean really? Then there is Dunhill. they used to make fags and lighters, now they make suits. What is going on here? Affluenza I think it's called. Actually that is much in evidence in the booze shops too. For example who pays AU$ 250 for Johnny Walker Blue Whisky? To me JW will always be the cheapo stuff dad used to get for christmas from people at work.

The rest of yesterday was surreal as I spent the night at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Changi Airport. Beautiful but a weird experience to be on holiday in a deserted airport, especially one with Michael Jackson performing in the departure hall. Also odd to see 747s taxing outside the bathroom window. The food was great though with a buffet with all these little desserts to have. Needless to say the diet starts when I get back. I also wonder why an airport hotel would have the National Geographic channel on it's cable as every time I turn it on it's showing Air Crash Investigation. Why do I watch these things?

So now i am waiting for the last flight to Perth and watching all the Indian travellers tying up bags and boxes with string.

I hope they realise it's one piece of hand luggage only.

St Swithen Lives

Well I made it back to Taipei ahead of the typhoon. Actually that's not true the typhoon just decided to head south after dumping about 35cms of rain on me while sight seeing this morning. My shoes were soaked and I was in danger of getting trench foot. Nowthe other typhoon is now causing torrential rain in the north of the island. What's more exciting is that I need to fly somewhere between both of them tomorrow afternoon. i am expecting a very bumpy flight and I forgot to bring my drugs.

Pity you can't travel on the train back to Australia. the trip bck from Khaosiung today was fantastic. I managed to change my ticket from the normal express to the high speed train. It's actually a shinkansen bullet train from Japan and boy is it quick. About 350 km/h according to my calculations. The 400 odd kms from the south to north took just under 90 minutes, including all the stops at stations on the way. Bloody amazing. The trip that took me three hours on saturday took 26 minutes today! Every country should have one, imagine Kalgoorlie to Perth in 2 hours with no bloody airport to deal with.

There is a lot of Japanese influence here actually, as it was a colony of their's until 1945. so that means lots of japanese food, japanese department stores, japanese cars and lots of japanese style tv shows. That last one is not such a good thing though believe me. I can normally identify what sort of show I am watching even in a foreign country but here it's impossible. It could be a chat show, a talent show or the antiques roadshow for all you can tell from the chaos in the studio.

The Taiwanese have also got a soft spot for those totally bizzare japanese boy bands, the ones that give new meaning to "non-threatening boys". Actually their taste in music is pretty atrocious, every taxi has been playing either boyz2men, kenny G or celine dion. and worse is they all have tvs in the dash so you have to watch the horse faced canadian as well as listen to her. I suggest you bring ear-plugs.

So last night in Taiwan and I am off to find some food. to be honest I am in the mood for a burger as there is nly so much stinky tofu I can cope with. I'll try and update tomorrow from singapore otherwise see you all back in Perth (All? like there is more than just one person reading this!)

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

OK so I'm back on line, thanks to the Kaohsiung Hotel Garden City. OK firstloy apologies for the spelling, I am typing on a Chinese keyboard. What's been happening so far then. I'll take it thing by thing I reckon as I've been all over the place.

Taipei:

One of the major sites in Taiwan is the National Palace Museum, and it's huge. it's where all the best bits from the emporer's collection ended up when the Nationalists fled the mainland in 1949. Actually it's a bit more complicated than that as the whole collection has been moved round China and Taiwan to save it from the Japanese and then save it from the Communists. It's didn't get this permanent home until the 80's (which makes sense when you think that CKS and all thought Taiwan was just a temporary stop on the way back to power).

It's a massive collection, full of Ming and Tang porcelain, bronze age bronzes, neolithic tools (which I have to note are much more advanced than European ones of the same antiquity) paintings, illuminated manuscripts and a surprizing amount of precious stones carved into the shape of vegetables. Chinese cabbage from jade being one of the places most famous and valuable pieces. Why the chinese emporers were so obsessed with food is beyond me but the carvings are spectacularly realistic. To be honest unless you love porcelain and chinese art it's a bit dull, but impressive all the same, and apparently really pisses off the goverment in Beijing as they got lesft with all the crappy stuff for their museum, and then managed to destroy quite a bit of it during the cultural revolution. I did come to a couple of revelations while I was there though. firstly it seems that religion has at least one use and that is providing the incentive to create beautiful art and literature. The other is that all this porcelain is in a way responsible for the rise of European Empires, as all the Dutch and English really wanted a nice teapot and it was easier to come here an nick a bit of the country to make them than work out how to do it at home.

The Museum was also full of huge tour groups from Japan and the PRC which was a bit of a nightmare, even though the museum guards had little signs to hold up saying "Silence" and "No
Photo" they were fighting a loosing battle. I eventually retired to the tea house and had a pot of oolong tea in the tiniest cup I've ever seen, I thought it was the place to put the tea leave till I saw the bloke next to me drinking out of it.

One last thing I learned ad that is the colour of the original Ming dynasty porcelain is EXACTLY the same shade of green as government issue tea cups in the UK.

The Tour:

On Friday I started my tour from Taiwan to the South. It all started well with me and a couple from New Zealand (which is required by international law) and a girl from India all on the minibus. I tehn discovered that it was just me doing 4 days and the rest only 2, I'd be sent on ahead by train, more of which later.

Tours and tourism here are obviously still in thier infancy and they try to cram in so much in a short space of time. For example our first stop was Sun Moon Lake, which is a short 3 hour drive from Taipei. That was sarcasm as it took ages because of the traffic. Driving here is a complete nightmare. If I may expound one more sterotype: there are 15 million drivers here and they are all asian. However no matter how many scooters seem to speed in front of you I've yet to see an accident. I think everyone is driving too slow to collide.

The drive was interesting though I couldn't work out why there were so many power stations. It took me about an hour to realise they are all factories! I dont think I've ever seen one before. Or at least not since the eighties. Weird that they still make stuff here. There are also loads of elevated freeways, roads, rail lines and lots of tunnels. Which I would have thought was not ideal in a place famous for it's typhoons and earthquakes. It does make it look a bit Logan's Run though which is pretty cool.

We finally got to the lake and it was buzzing with people. Apparently it's a must see on the tourist trail here. To be honest it's quite pretty but nothing to worry Switzerland or Norway. There were also loads of people because it was the Full Moon Festival and they were setting up a music stage witrh the biggest speakers I've ever seen. Hear it on the moon I would imagine. Everyone eats moon cakes too which i can reprt are like giang fig biscuits.

There are loads of temples to look at around the lake and by the end of the day my fellow travellers and I were suffering a bit of Temple fatigue. Ther was an interesting Pagoda built here though by Mr Chiang Kai Shek himself in memory of his mother. Well actually he built it with tax payers money and they weren't allowed to come here as it was a closed compound for him and his fellowe politicians but you get the idea. Now it's a democracy so that's ok. There are also loads of indeginous Taiwanese here, and they were singing and dancing down by the lake. It never ceases to amaze me that the Maori, Native Americans and noe Native Taiwanes all have the same sort of dances, similar traditional music and these guys even had moko on thier faces. All I can say is it's a bloody long way from Taiwan to NZ in a canoe so they must have been amazingly good sailors. I'm not making that up by the way, they really do have common ancestery with the Pacific peoples.

So eventually i get pu on the train and it's a bit of a nightmare, 4 hours and no leg room and I think I could have walked faster. Also the air con was busted. If you ever come to Taiwan, which you should, pay more and catch the high spped train, which I what I intend to do to get back from Kaohsiung. It takes 90 minutes instead of 5 hours! I am still in Kaohsiung in the south and it's verry interesing. But my god it's hot and humid. About 99% at the moment and 33 degrees C. This part of the trip has been slightly influenced by the fact that is not one, but two typhoons off the coast at the moment and today you could tell as it piddled down the entire day. So much so that most of my sight seeing was done from the back seat of the car. There is a significant chace I'll get stuck here for a day or two, and the locals are noticabley on edge as it's only 6 weeks a go that the last cyclone washed havf the county away. In fact you could see th damage today with huge sections of the freeway washed away on the way back to town and sand bags still in place. Obviously the government is taking no chances this time with police and army units everywhere.

I've made this post sound like a bit of a whinge but I'm really enjoying it here, the people are lovely (and in the south noticable more gorgeous looking than in Taipei for some reason) the food is good and cheap the cities are interesting and it's quite nice to be somewhere where you are still welcomed as a visitor instead of seen as a quick buck.

OK i need to go as there is a queue for this computer. I'll update when I get back to Taipei or look out for me on the weather channel.

Big and Tall

I went to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial today. Blimey, they must have liked him. He was the General who with Dr Sun Yat Sen, founded the Republic, unified China and got rid of the last Emperor (thereby allowing an extravagant Hollywood movie). Now he was the president of ROC until the seventies and after he died Taiwan put up his memorial.

Now it's a cross between a temple and the sort of thing a megalomaniac would build for themselves ( think Mussolini if he'd not been found hanging around that lampost). It's a massive traditional chinese structure in the middle of a massive parade ground with a massive statue of the man himself smiling beatifically down on his flock. I think they were going for the Lincoln Memorial kind of thing but overshot somewhat. It's full of his old belongings and all his honours, mostly from South American dictators and the odd Order of the Bath from Blighty. There are also his bullet proof cadillacs (gifts from the grateful people of Taiwan. Although how grateful if they need to be bullet proof?) and some pictures and old artifacts. What is amusing to me is the vast amount of stuff about his great leadership up to about 1945, then a bit of a gap until about 1950. Can you guess what happened during that time? Something to do with a balding bloke called Mao I believe. All a bit hillarious really. It's as though the KuoMingtan always planned to decamp to Formosa in 1949. Which for all I know they might have.

There is also a permanent honour guard at the Memorial too and they have the most complicated changing of the guard I have ever seen. It's so amazingly well choreographed with goose stepping, step ball changes, gun twirling and box steps. I'll say this, if ever the PRC invades the ROC and asks for a dance off then the Taiwanese Army is in with a chance.

I also went to Taipei 101 today. This is/was the tallest building in the world, depending on when you read this. That's the trouble with the TBITW race, someone is always going to beat you and make your building merely very tall. At least this one still has the fastest lifts in the world: 60 kph, 90 floors in 26 seconds. I should mention this makes your ears pop like a champagne opening contest. The view from the top was spectacular but really I don't know why I get sucked into the tall building tourist thing. I've done it in Seattle, Vancouver, Paris, London and New York and really you just go up to see where you've been. This might be cool in Paris and NYC but in Taipei you just get to see the top of semiconductor plants.

There's also a shopping mall funnily enough. And another on across the road. And another next to that. All full of very high end shops. Really how many Chanels does one city need. Suffice to say all the shops were completely empty. You have to go to the electronics malls to see people buying stuff. Me included (8GB CF card for $28 Australian!).

Now for some more observations. There seems to be an inordinate amount of lesbians here. Unless, at the risk of perpetuating a stereotype, I can't tell pretty asian boys from pretty asian girls. I can bust one stereotype though. The Taiwanese are tall. Nearly everyone is as tall as me. People must still be evolving or they are eating a lot more Maccas and Starbucks.

That's enough as I'm in the lobby and trying to type this on a mac, running windoze, with some sort of prophylactic covering the keyboard.

It's a weird sensation on so many levels.

ROC

So heres a few impressions after my first day in the Republic of China (No 'Peoples' please note):

It's very friendly: everyone so far has been lovely, even if I can't understand them and they can't understand me.

It's cheap:the beer in my hotel fridge is AU$2.80 each. That has to be a record for a minibar. And a 4GB compact flash card is AU$17. Mind you they are just made up the road.

They love scooters.

Pedestrian crossings are merely a suggestion, which combined with the 8 lane wide roads makes every trip somewhat of an adventure.

I have never seen so many roadside, mobile food stalls in my entire life.

A white face is still enough of a novelty that you get stared at by little kids on the subway.

I have never seen so much unidentifiable food on aforementioned stalls. Dining out here is for the very brave.

They really love scooters.

It's hot.

Even though I have been the only white person I've seen today, all the official signs on roads and stations are in English, which is very considerate.

It's the year 98 here. Not 2098 0r 1998. Just 98.

So far it's great.

Apple Fail

I'm in Singapore and off to Taipei tomorrow. However my carefully laid plan of hotels with WiFi so I could tweet and blog has died on it's ass. My iPhone has chosen this moment to shit itself. It no longer recognises any wifi signals so I cant connect and international data roaming is too expensive to use.

So no blogs I'm afraid unless I can find more internet cafes like this, how quaint. Now looking forward to the inevitable battle with Apple for a new phone when I get back to Oz.

Maybe I should have bought that Nokia after all.

Perth Airport (again...)

Well here I am again. At Perth "International" Airport at an ungodly
hour. Why do I book these early flights. Oh yeah because that's all
that's available. 0730 sounds untill you add on the two hour check-in
and queue extravaganza that PIA seems to love.

In fact it's a bit tragic here. I don't know where all the resources
income in WA has been spent but it's pretty obvious it's not on the
airport. This morning for example I got the very last parking space in
the long term carpark. At 5 am. What you are supposed to do if your
flight leaves at a sane time is beyond me. Oh that's right you park in
the short term which costs twice as much.

Oh well I'm off to kill two hours with an amazingly over priced
departure lounge breakfast.

Wedding

Here's some photos of Lauren and Dave's wedding.

Fat Cat

Just took the cat to the vet for a weight check. Wish I hadn't.

I got into trouble for having a fatso kitty. Apparently he's meant to weigh about 4.5 kg but actually weighs 6 kg. I didn't think he looked that fat but I'm obviously turning onto one of those people who loves their pets to death and can't see what I'm doing. So now it's off the kitten food and onto weight control food.

Which brings me to another fascinating new fact. It seems Loki isn't 10 months old but possibly 18 months old! This is a bit weird as when I got him in April I took him to the vet and was told that he was about 7 months old. By the vet. Now only 5 months later he is apparently 11 months older. According to the vet nurse. Who to believe? Dunno. But they did have another silver tabby kitten who is 10 months old at the vet and he was about half the size of Loki. So they really grow up fast nowadays.

I was obviously asked to adopt the other kitten there, and it would probably be a good idea to keep nut-case company. However I learned yet another thing. Apparently silver tabby cats are not like normal cats. Ok I've worked that bit out before but according to the vet chick they are very different to other cats. Much more feisty, more inquisitive and much more dog like. And that's sort of true as Loki follows me round all the time, is obsessed with food (hence the fatso-ness) and fetches his mouse. If only you could train them like a dog too.

Anyway I'll let you know how the diet goes. I foresee trouble ahead.

Crocked and Roll

Roll on the holidays. Just two weeks now and then I am off for two weeks. I can't wait, especially as I am getting progressively more and more crippled by work at the moment.

It's pretty much a given that in my job you end up with a bad back but at the moment I am not getting better. I really need to take a couple of weeks off work to recuperate but it's just too busy. Every time I move now my spine cracks and my neck burns. Hey ho, hopefully I'll get better over my holiday. Actually if I do and then get worse again when I get back to work I'm thinking of trying for workers compo. Not a road I really want to go down, but it's costing me a fortune in physio and drugs. Actually it could probably be all resolved if I just got a more acceptable chair to put the patients on.

Still I am looking forward to the holiday. I went and got the foreign currency the other day. Well I tried to. Obviously getting Taiwan Dollars in Perth is a considerable challenge. If you want US dollars or British Pounds or New Zealand Dollars then no problem. Obviously only English speaking currencies available in this town.

I understand that the little exchange booths don't have Taiwanese dollars on hand, but the fact that the ANZ bank doesn't have it, and can't even order it, it ridiculous. I mean they are a bank for god sake. Aren't they meant to handle money? Eventually I got it from a little Travelex booth in Karrinyup shopping centre. They were both helpful and polite, which was a pleasant change. Mind you I have no Idea if I actually have Taiwanese money as it's all written in Chinese. They could have given me anything. Luckily the numbers are in arabic script so I know how much each note is worth.

I've also had a few Mandarin lessons from Selene at work. I now know how to say "hello", "thank you", "excuse me", "no thank you" and "I am allergic to prawns". Well I say I know how. I might need to practice as it's a tonal language and that makes it really tricky for an English speaker, especially one like me who is hopeless at foreign languages. Thank goodness the iPhone now has a voice recorder on it. I shall be sitting on the plane practising my Chinese for 8 hours.

I am expecting some very funny looks.

Bored

Why is nobody turning up for their appointments at the moment? I am bored out of my mind at work.

Mind you that's being made up for by after work. Not only am I doing the short film, I've now been asked to do the sound for one of the local theatre groups. That would be ok but they seem to think it's ok to hand all the discs to me at the dress rehearsal. Are these people idiots? Actually I know they are because Joy has told me a bit about the whole rehearsal period. No one better ever tell me that the GRC is disorganized and unfriendly EVER AGAIN.

At least it is just this week. It's a pity that the plays are all pretty full on. All raping, shouting and killing. Not my idea of a good night out but there is no accounting for taste I suppose.

And the Dramafest judges love that kind of thing.

Outdoor Dunny

I'm outside supervising a cat, can you believe that? I decided he needs to go outside occasionally and my backyard is (almost) cat escape proof, but all the cat books say they need supervision so I am currently watching Loki enjoy digging in the dirt and peeing. What an exotic life I lead.

As you may remember he is a bit of a Psychokitty, what with all the running around and unprovoked attacks on me (mainly) and Beck. So I thought I'd consult the experts and get some books from the library to see what to do. Funnily enough he wasn't so keen:

So apologies to Stirling Libraries for the tooth marks in the Psycho Kitty book. Yes, that is it's actual title. I have to say the advice is a bit crap anyway, it seems to be that the solution to everything is "play with kitty and give him lots to do, but ignore him when he's naughty". So far this does not work. I've got the scars to prove it.

I also noticed the other day that he is the same colour as the carpet, grey and stripy, which gives him a significant advantage in the pouncing stakes. Just brought him back inside and now there is total craziness. I hope to god he grows out of all this. Still there's always lethal injection I suppose.

I joke...or do I?

Anyway what else is happening. Well the pre-production for the short film is in progress. I have no idea if I mentioned it here but we're making a short film with the Council's money. It's great but when Adam and I were doing the proposal (mostly Adam) we divvied up the jobs, with me as producer. NEVER DO THIS. I've since discovered that my name is on all the legal documents, the money is my responsibility, all the contracts are in my name and I have to do most of the organising for permissions. It's a bit of a nightmare. On the other hand I do now have the rights and control handed to me after Will and Adam both signed their agreements. The power seems infinite. Pity we'll never make any money from it otherwise it would be great (I get 40% and the writer/director get 30% each). We did have a bit of a Hollywood moment today, signing contracts in a coffee shop. OK not very Hollywood but cool in it's own small way. I've also had to write to four different councils for permissions to film as "Perth" isn't really "Perth" at all: It's the City of Perth and Town of Vincent and City of Stirling and Town of Cottesloe and Town of Cambridge. Too many councils in one place. And not one of them has an easily navigable website.

I've also finally managed to modify the hideous fireplace that was in this place when I moved in. From this:

To This:

With the help of some MDF, a laser cutting company, some paint and a lantern from the Swedish mothership. I think it looks better even if it is much more flammable. But who's likely to have an open fire in this day and age anyway?

Hopefully not the next people who live here or they're in for a shock.

Apple Store Perth

Looks like we might be getting one...

Festival Time

So it's been the Perth Film Festival here (called Revolution for some unexplained reason, usually Perth events have to have WA incorporated somehow, e.g. WAnimate for the animation group, WASO for the orchestra) and I went to see a few movies. In particular I wanted to go as it was held at the Astor down the road, the place I was looking forward to going to when I moved to Perth, which shut down about 2 months before I moved in. I t was beautiful inside though, just like you'd hope an art deco cinema would be.

I have to say you get a very different clientele from the local googolplex; its not often you see lesbians with mohawks eating choc-tops. Or strange men dressed all in black with dark sunglasses on even during a film. Obviously not dark enough in a cinema for some people. There seemed to be a requirement for some kind of hat to be worn at all times too, anything from the standard black beanie, the 'artistic' beret or the knackered Akubra to the woman wearing the pink teddy bear bonnet. It looked like she was wearing the flayed skin of a Care-bear as a hat.

The thing that amazed me most were the people who still arrived late, even to a festival screening, I mean I'd expect that in Perth at a showing of the latest bold-red-Helvetica movie but not here. Even more annoying was all the rustling and talking going on. I mean for gods' sake this is not the Greater Union!

Anyway I saw a couple of documentaries. One was American Swing about Plato's Retreat in New York in the 70s. It was totally brilliant and hilarious as the club was a swingers club and all the reminiscing was being done by the people who were there, namely lots of ageing baby boomers. Is there anything finer than somebody's granny remembering her time in the orgy room? Well as long as it's not your own granny I suppose.

I also went to see Welcome To North Korea about a group of Czech tourist visiting the aforementioned Stalinist Paradise. This was totally fascinating as it's a place I'd love to go to and it was exactly as I imagined, all big empty roads and giant statues of the glorious proletariat. Not that many of them looked that glorious, you couldn't feel anything but sympathy for the poor buggers who have to live in such a 'paradise'. Seeing all the kids doing a perfectly drilled performance for the tour group was really chilling. I don't want to imagine what would happen to them if they got a dance move wrong. It was made more interesting as the tourists were from the Czech Republic and had all lived through their own totalitarian nightmare, they could totally relate to the situation and obviously felt a strong connection with the people they met.

Sadly the movie was a bit spoiled by the guy behind me reading the subtitles out loud and laughing at the most inappropriate moments. Every time I go to the movies I swear it'll be the last because of the other people but I keep caving.

Adam and I also went to a couple of talks given by some of the low budget filmmakers who were in town from the US to see if we could pick up any tips. We discovered that mostly we were doing what they did. That is made things with no money and still had to have real jobs.

Looks like it'll be a while until Sony Pictures is knocking the door down.

A Little MJ Reality

If you are a bit sick of the media coverage of the death of the gifted, child-like musical genius you should read this.

It adds a bit of balance to the scales of remembrance which I am very much in agreement with:

Michael Jackson: Bad! And very dangerous - The Independent

Monthly

So it looks like I've gone to monthly postings. I suppose that indicates how boring my life is at the moment.

Had my last ever trip to Kalgoorlie for work last week. They have finally found a person to replace me, he's called Mick, he's Irish and he's seventy years old. Long term prospect there then. Still as long as I don't have to go anymore it's fine by me. From now on I only have to visit there when I want to not when I'm told to. In fact I didn't want to go this time, I mean no one ever took me there on my first trip and showed me round. I was just given the car, directions and sent off to the red dirt. I thought I'd get out of it as I had no one to cat sit but rather unbelievably the boss said they work would pay for the cat hotel! That one's going to confound the auditors I'm sure.

I have come back again with health issues though. It must be Kalgoorlie. This time I've got a buggered shoulder and an even more buggered neck. I woke up yesterday with the tiniest twinge in my left sternocleidomastoid (look it up). By the time I got to the freeway entry I couldn't look over my right shoulder. Not that this is a major problem in Perth as you just randomly pull into the oncoming traffic without looking anyway. However after three patients at work I realised that there was no way I could continue with the screaming pain in my neck.

So once again I had the pleasure of the Physio ($59) the Doctor ($63) the pharmacy ($33) the Medicare office ($32.50 refund) all to still be in pain 24 hours later. Health care here is pretty expensive when you think about it. If I was still in the UK all that would have cost me was the price of a script: £7.20. Remember that when you hear people moaning about the poor old NHS.

I'm taking temazepam which is completely zonking me out. I daren't get in the car in case I end up in a tree somewhere. And I have another physio appointment this afternoon. I'm not sure they really do anything. Are they medical professionals or in league with the chiropractors? Who knows. If it doesn't make any difference today then I'm not going again. It is however about the only way I ever get money back from my health insurance fund.

I hate being home sick, especially when I'm not actually bed bound, just not able to work. I would go into town, but would feel like a total skiver. And the fact that its absolutely piddling down is a bit of a de-motivator too. Especially as I'd have to catch public transport as I definitely can't drive.

Did I already say that? I think the drugs are kicking in......

Slack slack slack

I've just realised how long it is since I've posted here. It's really slack to leave it almost a month between posts and it's not as though nothing has happened, I'm just idle.

OK so what has happened. A couple weeks a go I was involved in the 48Hours film festival. This was my mate Adam's idea and is a competition to make a movie in 48 hours from scratch. It's actually a New Zealand competition but it was still a good idea. You are given a genre, prop to use, character name and trait and a line to include at the beginning of the competition at 3pm WA time and away you go. Ours was a real time movie which meant we had to make a 6 minute moive that actually lasted 6 minutes. Sounds easy I hear you say but it really isn't. We managed to write the script by about midnight and started filming at 7 am on Saturday morning. Luckily I know a few actors and they knew a few more actors and we got it cast and ready to go.

This was the first time I'd been involved in actually making a film and was amazed how many times each thing had to be done and how many different shots had to be thought of. Luckily we had Adam who knew what he was doing, the rest of us generally stood around and got in the way or tried to keep track of which take of which shot we were up to. The filming wrapped at about 6 pm and we went back to get the editing done. This is the exact moment the computers decided they would shit themselves and stop working. Cue a bit of panic. Luckily Andrew was around to get things going again. We all left at about 1 am but Adam was up all night (including another 3 hours tech meltdown) editing the thing together. You would have thought that between the 6 Macs available in the house at any one point we would have been ok but with that many bits of electronics something is bound to go wrong.

To cut a long story short (too late) we managed to get the thing finished and uploaded to You Tube as required with about 6 minutes to spare. Never has a upload progress bar taken so long or been so closely monitored. Sadly you cant see the finished product yet as it has to be judged and finalised in NZ. I hope we do OK, just have to wait and see. To be honest it was fun but I don't want to have to do it again in a hurry.

What else? Well the cat is slowly settling in, in between destroying my lampshades. A word of advise: IKEA paper lamps are not kitten proof. Luckily they are very cheap so it's not a total disaster but suffice to say it's been replaced with something a bit less papery and Loki tempting. He had to have his last immunisation the other week so it was back to the vet again. It was there that I realised how enormous he actually seems to be. There was a couple in the waiting room with their 5 month old kitten and it was about a third the size of my 6 month old kitten. Even the vet was a bit taken aback. If he keeps growing he'll be the size of a great dane. I'm also using and emptying the Dyson a lot more, who knew they dropped so much hair everywhere. Don't ever get a silver tabby either. You get black hair on your white clothes and white hair on your black clothes. Let's just say there are days where I look like a 'cat person' covered in fluff and scratch marks.

I went back to Kalgoorlie the other week too, it was a bit weird as I really felt no connection with the place at all this time. I caught up with a few friends but even most of them are either moving/moved/hoping to move to Perth. I think the next trip will be the last as they have finally managed to find someone to replace me. I have to go with him next time to orient him. This pissed me off a bit as no-one ever did that for me. So never again will I need to go to Kal unless I really want to, and I'm sure I will but it's finally the end of that chapter in my life. Bit weird really.

When I got back this time I was as sick as a dog with the 'flu. And it was real, not the man version. The dr. signed me off for three days but I'm so committed that I was back at work after two. What an idiot. It was that horrible achy, hot and cold sort of feeling. Worst thing was it started on the Saturday I got back from Kal and meant I had to go and vote on daylight saving (No by the way), go shopping for food and take the cat to the vet. It was probably all the running around that almost finished me off.

Anyway I'm all better now and deciding what to do this afternoon seeing as it's such a beautiful day after lots of terrible weather. Any suggestions?

Less Crazy

Ok an explanation of yesterday's post.

Loki is bonkers. Or at least he was last night. When I got home from work he was in lovely Snuggle Mode, all cuddly and purring. Within an hour he had switched to Kill Mode, scratching, biting, actually drawing blood. Ok that's a lie but he was off his head. We had to resort to tiring him out by throwing a mouse round the room for about an hour. Eventually he settled down, but I really thought I had bitten off more than I could cope with. However it seems that this is pretty normal kitten behaviour. Oh my god. How long for?

Actually he's being pretty normal today, I think yesterday was just revenge for leaving him at home alone all day for the first time. At the moment he is sitting on the top of the stairs watching us while Neighbours is on. To be honest that's probably very wise, to be shielded from most of the horror of Ramsey Street.

So slowly he's becoming part of the family. But if you ever hear me call myself "Daddy", or introduce you to him as "Uncle" or "Auntie" then just shoot me. Seriously.

Uh Oh

I think I've adopted a nutcase.

Meet the New Lodger

OK, I was going to say new member of the family, but, as many of you know, that sort of thing just makes me roll my eyes. It's an animal, not a person.

Anyway here he is:

He looks a bit mad but he is in a horrible animal shelter at the moment. Actually it's lovely there, the Cat Haven, they do a great job trying to re-home all those poor moggies that get dumped. Give them some money.

His name is Lucky, but as that is the lamest rescue cat name ever thought of I've decided to change it to Loki, Norse god of mischief, deception, murder (and air for some reason). Pretty appropriate for a cat I think. He came with all his equipment too, which was a bit sad. Obviously his last owners just couldn't keep him and surrendered him and his basket, litter tray and favourite cat toy. If he ever gets on Australian Idol he'll have a great back story.

I have to go pick him up tomorrow after he's been...well, you know, best not mentioned really. So from now on I have responsibilities, and need cat sitters, and vet bills, and faeces removal apparatus.

The joy of parenthood...damn! I did it already.

Låt den rätte komma in

Just been to see Let the right one in, the brilliant Swedish, pre-pubescent vampire movie.

The film was was great but once again the rest of the audience needed a slap. Arriving late, talking, rustling, chewing, talking some more.

God other people shit me.

DIY or GSETDI

I've been painting the house over the last few days and decided that it really is better to not Do It Yourself but Get Someone else To Do It. I don't mean to imply that I am bad at DIY, or even that I am too lazy to do it myself, it's more about standards. I am pretty fussy about detail and finish on things and when you have a tradesman painting or building then you can say to them if it's not up to scratch. However when you do it yourself, and it looks a bit shit, then you only have yourself to blame.

For example I had some new doors put on. I did try to do this myself, but after three hours of trimming the width and height, measuring and rebating the hinges and rebating the latch I managed to cut the hole for the handle in the wrong place and thereby ruin the whole bloody thing. That was the end of that: the door and my enthusiasm for doing it again. So I got a chippy in to put on some doors, which was expensive but worth it as at least they fit and all the holes are in the right place.

Anyway all I had to do was paint these doors. Now this is not particularly hard you'd think, just slap on a bit of gloss. But no matter how I do it, with a foam roller, with a mohair roller, with a brush, it just looks bloody awful. All streaky and drippy. Just not up to my standards, but I have no-one to blame sadly. So I've decided to just give up and try not to look at them. Hopefully I'll be motivated to have another go at some point in the future. Or better still get my dad to do them when he visits next. It's the same with the walls, getting the edges right is a nightmare. To be honest I am a bit better at this, but trying to cut in the walls at the top of the stairwell was just impossible, I've had to do it with a paint pad on a really long pole as I have no scaffolding. Again it just looks terrible and I can only blame myself. Or possibly the architect in this situation.

Hey ho. All part of the fun of being a home owner I suppose. At the moment I'm having a break from paint and brushes. This is to give me time to find all the splatters and wipe them up/sand them off the floors and walls. What fun.

I'm back

So I'm not dead. Just had some major internet issues. I was off line for almost three weeks and it was awful! Well intermittently off-line, then on-line, then off-line. Then slow. Then fast. Then not working at all.

OK so it might not be the end of the world but it's amazing how you miss the web access when you don't have it. I mean I couldn't even check the TV schedules. I was reliant on the old iPhone which was fine except I can't get 3G in the house so it was a bit slow.

The process of getting it fixed was a nightmare. First I had dozens of calls to the help desk at Amcom who were great but insisted that there was nothing wrong. Then they suggested that my modem might be on the blink and could I drop it in for "testing" and repair. What is this the 30s? Are they going to change a valve or something? Anyway I took it in and they said it was all ok. So I got it home and it didn't work. So I took it back and they gave me a new modem, got it home and it didn't work.

At this point I was getting really annoyed. I also noticed that the phone line was really crackling. Ahhaa! Maybe it's Telstra's fault. So I called them and indeed I did have a fault on my line. An open circuit apparently. Whatever that is. So they arranged for the Telstra man to come to the house and check it out.

He came and it was all working, then he left and it wasn't.

So now I'm really annoyed, so I call Telstra again and they tell me that the engineer has checked from the exchange to my MDB (apparently if you are in a block of units there is only one line in and Telstra's responsibility only goes to this, after that they charge you, how kind) and everything is OK. Even though it isn't. So I arrange for a new visit from the Telstra man. I have to be in from 1 to 5 pm. Beck waited in and he arrived at 12.45. It turns out there was a dodgy solder in the MBD which was causing the issues. So much for the first idiot who turned up.

So at last I got the thing working. I can't believe it took three weeks just to fix an internet connection and all it was was a bad solder. Talk about for the want of a nail the shoe was lost.

Maybe the new fibre-optic national broadband network will be more reliable. Even if it is going to be filtered almost to a standstill.

Anyway I'm back now, and I've got a few things to rant about in the next week or so.