Resurrected Ramblings

The last post.

2009-09-29T21:31:00.001+10:00

Don't say I didn't warn that this day was coming.

No more reposts here. From now on, this will be silent as the grave. The party's going on over here - stop by and see what you're missing......

We had set off by car just after midday. Travelling slowly, we crawled west across London, squeezing through tight roads lined with cars on each side. We were heading out of town and towards the wide open road which would take us north. The world outside was wet and grey, wipers thudding across our windscreen with hypnotic regularity to accompany the radio. The song playing was one that I liked, one that she agreed was catchy. My spirits were high that day and my optimism took me by surprise. This was a old feeling, one that I had not experienced for some time now - a newly-discovered sense of enthusiasm which was an unexpected and welcomed travelling companion. Too many times on too many trips, any optimism or positivity that had managed to stow away had been discovered; been extinguished by her illness, by her bad temper or by her general fatigue. She would insist that the radio be turned off on these journeys, that she be allowed to sleep for the duration. I had lost track of the number of journeys we had made; her asleep and me forced to switch off the radio, passing the hours with only the engine's noise for company. Not today though; today the song was one I liked and one that she thought was catchy. Despite the rain outside and our previous track record, I could not help but be excited. This journey was starting in the right way and I found myself hoping that it would change things, set things straight, make things right.

She did not notice me glancing at her; this girl sitting in the passenger seat across for me, a rare smile playing across her face as she stared out of the window at the passers-by. We had been together for two years now and the honeymoon was long over. We lived under the same roof and slept in the same bed but other than that, there was no connection, no shared dreams and no magic. We had died as a couple some time back but neither of us could not admit that yet, so we did the next best thing; we carried on blindly, in ignorance. We booked a holiday in the north of the country and decided to drive up rather than fly. Road trips were always special in Hollywood - they carried a mystery, a magic - but it always seemed that they ended one of two ways; either spectacularly well or spectacularly badly. I hoped for the right kind of mystery, a sprinkling of magic and a happy ending as we crawled through the rain, through the thick afternoon traffic.

Eventually the road opened as promised. Two clogged carriageways became three congested lanes of motorway, a river of battered, glistening tarmac winding its way north. The motorway was busy with holiday traffic, with workers trying to get home before the weather worsened and we accerated, braked, stopped, started. My travels north had been few and far between before I met her but the last two years had seen us make this journey a number of times. Normally the journeys were made to visit her family in Newcastle Upon Tyne and typically, those journeys were either defined by arguments or by stony silence. If these past years had taught me anything, it was that stony silence was the safer option. She began to drowse and as we passed Northampton, some ninety minutes into our journey and I waited for the royal command to kill the radio and plunge us into a world where noise was the enemy. This time, no such command came and the optimist hidden deep within me took it as a sign, a good omen. Yet again, I could not help myself wondering if this was the moment where things would begin to repair themselves, a moment we would look back on years from now and smile about, herald as that moment when things changed for the better. Because sometimes it was hard to remember a time when things had not been wrecked, let alone better or even bordering on salvageable. It was hard to look back to a time when we were close, when we were lovers as opposed to bed fellows. The optimist reminded me that there was still hope; that it had not always been this way - but even he would admit that it had been a long time since her and I had been anything other than beyond repair.

Once upon a time there had been dates, excitement at seeing each other again, nervous anticipation as I waited outside her office at Vauxhall to surprise her after work. There had been long kisses on packed tube trains, jokes shared with friends in North London pubs, walks beside the Thames at nightfall. Above all there had been potential; the hint of an assurance that this blaze would last, not sputter and die. Yet sputter and die it had; firstly with the loss of her job and then with her struggle to find new employment. Eventually she had no choice but to take work outside London, to accept a lengthy and tiring commute every day. Each day took more of a toll and she would arrive home tired, resentful and short tempered, stepping through the door and going straight to bed. At the time I told myself that this was a temporary setback, that she would find a job in London soon and that her energy and enthusiasm would return. I told myself that one day soon we would be able to go out again, have fun again. Above all, I told myself that one day soon our blaze would be reignited, would come back to keep us warm. I had missed its heat and I had grown accustomed to life without that blaze; grown adept at adding layer upon layer to keep the chills at bay. As we inched north on our trip, I allowed myself to listen again to the optimist within me, to share his hope that maybe these good omens would turn into a happy ending; that this would be the trip which blew on the ashes of our fire, which brought a glow to those embers and allowed them to spark once more into flame, to blaze as fiercely as they once had.

The clock on the dashboard confirmed what I already knew: that we were making poor time. What should have taken thirty minutes had so far taken ninety and I did the rudimentary maths in my head. At this rate we would be crawling towards Nottingham just as work finished, as rush hour traffic peaked. I glanced enviously at the traffic on the other side of the barrier, at cars which sped in the opposite direction, heading towards the city from which we had set out all those hours before. How I wished that we could be moving at their pace. My eyes flicked back to the traffic in front of me a split second too late, a split second after the car ahead braked hard. It did not brake hard enough though, not soon enough - and I watched as it collided with the vehicle ahead of it, its rear end rising with the force of the impact. My own foot hit the brake and I hoped wildly that I had reacted in time, all the time knowing that I had reacted a moment too late. That we would crash was inevitable - what mattered now was how hard we hit.

It turned out that we were lucky, that our impact was relatively gentle. There were no serious injuries to anyone involved and of of the four cars involved in the shunt, ours was the only one that could still be driven. We would spend an hour at the side of the motorway, swapping insurance details with the other drivers involved in our four-car crash and waiting for the police to arrive, for them to speak with everybody involved. The sky was darkening by the time they had finished and allowed us to leave. Rush hour was in full force but now I was more focused on getting to our destination alive rather than I was on arriving before any prescribed time. I pulled slowly into the traffic, accelerating gently and pulling us steadily away from the crash scene, holding my breath until the flashing lights of recovery trucks and police cars had faded away in the rear view mirror.

She reached forward and switched the radio off, closing her eyes and saying nothing. I drove us northwards in silence as the last wisp of smoke rose from the embers of our relationship, twisting and dissipating to nothing on the cold night air that surrounded us.

One of the few remaining copy and paste jobs.

2009-09-23T18:13:00.004+10:00

Not long left before I wind this up and do not syndicate postings across from the new site

By the end of this week, nothing new will appear here. You have a few days left if you want to make the switch but, for now, here's what you nearly missed:

My teenage years are best described as a Jekyll & Hyde period. In the beginning I was rolling along perfectly nicely, doing my homework and trying my hardest. I was paying attention in class and getting reasonable exam results in the end-of-year tests. Then at some point around fourteen to fifteen, it all changed. I stopped caring, stopped trying. Homework became something that sat in my bag untouched, blank pages and incomplete tasks that were handed in the next lesson without explanation or even excuse. By the time it came to sit my GCSE exams at the age of sixteen, I knew which ones I would scrape a pass in and which I would fail. The 'fail' pile was double the size of the 'pass' pile and I do not think anyone was surprised, least of all me.

As a teenager, I refused to accept any responsibility for my decisions and their consequences. It was anyone's fault but my own - either my parents didn't understand me, didn't care enough or they cared too much. Either way, it most certainly wasn't my fault. Even when that was patently untrue, it was still the easiest philosophy to adopt and I dedicated my teenage years to believing it with blinkered fervour, to making it my own personal mantra. In the years that followed, I would come to accept that those actions and decisions from my teenage years were entirely of my own making; that nobody forced me to do anything and that nobody else was responsible; that the buck started and stopped with me. In admitting this, I thought that I was being mature by admitting my faults, acknowledging my mistakes - but I realise now that it was a mistake; that far from being mature, I was actually taking blame and responsibility that belonged squarely on another person's shoulders. I will happily claim credit for the Jekyll period - that time of good was all my own work - but those bad years, the Hyde period, I had nothing to do with and no say in. I see now that somebody else was responsible for my slide, my descent.

When I first met this person I was in my early teens and, like many teenage boys, I was rather impressionable. Granted, I had already flirted with cigarettes and alcohol but I could easily have been redeemed - I wasn't too far gone by that stage. Meeting this person changed all of that, set me on a downwards path. They have gone unnamed for many years but that ends today, this very second. This is the day that I say their name out loud, call them to account for their actions and to atone for their sins, for what they did to me all those years ago.

My corrupting influence, the person who began my dark induction, the Darth Sidious to my Anakin, was none other than Huckleberry Finn.

Back in my early teens I would finish school just before 3pm and cycle the short distance home. I would let myself in, get changed, grudgingly do what homework I had been assigned - but after that I was free to watch the afternoon children's television schedule on BBC1. It was normally after 4pm by the time my homework was finished, meaning that the more juvenile cartoons catering for the little kids were finished. From 4pm, the programming was starting to cater for the more mature younger viewer. It would continue to mature with each show, right up until John Craven's Newsround arrived - the final children's show before adult programming began again. The time slot that usually interested me most was the one just before John Craven's Newsround. Typically it would be filled by a childrens drama series; stories of fictional kids my own age having fictional adventures and foiling the fictional plans of fictional malevolent adults - who now I think about it, could and should have been much more malevolent than they actually were. Those clever fictional kids always saved the day and I usually watched along with a mild degree of disinterest. These shows passed the time but they didn't captivate me. None of them did - right up until the BBC decided to air Huckleberry Finn & His Friends for the first time. At the time I thought little of it - other than to thank God that I wasn't being forced to endure a repeat showing of Gentle Ben again. I didn't realise it then but this German & Canadian TV collaboration, this show based on a combination of two Mark Twain books, would change my life.

Time looking back more on days that were slower,
When living came easy and neighbours were friends.

And so it began. The theme music was sickly sweet to the stage where it was positively vomit-inducing, perfectly supplementing the still images of sepia-tinged paddleboats, dust roads and smiling farmers in longjohns and dungarees. I watched blankly as the song rose to its folksy crescendo and the show began. I had read Mark Twain's books so I knew what to expect in terms of plot. True to the books, this annoying little runt called Tom Sawyer appeared on the screen. He had a snide expression, a smug smile and a bowl-inspired hairstyle. One look at him and you knew that he would be getting into all sorts of mischevious scrapes before too long - but despite knowing that, my first reaction was not a feeling of kinship. The very first time I saw Sammy Snyders' portrayal of Tom Sawyer, my overwhelming reaction was that I wanted to punch him - that him and I would never have been friends in real life. It wasn't that he was too dangerous - the kind of kid that my mother would have marked down as 'trouble' - and nor was it a case of him being too goody-goody; he was just plain annoying. If I'd have been at school with Sammy Snyders' Tom Sawyer, I'd have dedicated my life to making his a living misery - there was just no empathy, no connection, nothing to really like about him.

Then the scene changed, cutting to Huckleberry Finn and introducing his character for the first time - and it wasn't long before I was sitting up in my seat and watching with interest, my mind ticking over furiously. Here was a carefree young man living on his own in a rustic hut down on the river. He was free to do what he wanted to do, he didn't have to go to school and he could eat what he wanted, when he wanted. I looked down at his hand, a corncob pipe clutched between his fingers. Could it be? Could this version of Huckleberry Finn even smoke when he wanted to smoke? Without worrying that his parents would find out and ground him? That was it - that was the moment I pledged my allegiance, picked my side. Snidey Snyders Sawyer could take a running jump - from that moment onwards, I was batting for Team Huck.

Huckleberry Finn offered the validation I'd been looking for, the misguided confidence to take that final step away from school and responsibility. He was uneducated, didn't own a pair of shoes and smoked a pipe at the age of fourteen - yet everything was working out nicely for him. He seemed happy and well balanced - nobody was threatening to ground him, stop his pocket money or hand him over to social services because he was too much trouble. Nobody was dragging Huckleberry Finn along to family counselling and forcing him to talk about why he'd stopped doing so well at school, why he didn't get on with his brother or why he didn't listen to his parents more. His life was easy and he was living proof that all of my parents fears were unfounded. So what if I left school with no qualifications and only a twenty-a-day Benson & Hedges habit to show for my years of study? Huckleberry Finn proved that I didn't have to listen to my parents or their weird family counsellor who kept asking me why I did the things I did - I could just leave school, set myself up in a hut on the banks of the River Thames and cast a line for fish every day. Things would turn out just fine; Finn's Law proved that - and continued to prove it episode after episode.

I realise now that this is just part of the cycle - that this is always how it starts for me; how every little craving and addiction takes root and flourishes. You think you can control it at first - someone offers you a hit at a party and you take a toke of their joint, think nothing of it. Before you know it, joints aren't doing it for you the way they used to and you've moved on. You eventually ditch the crack pipe in favour of trying to mainline those little rocks straight into an artery - because smoking them just doesn't get you high enough quickly enough. That's how it was for me back then - the Huckleberry High quickly peaked and, after a short time, grew stale and unsatisfying. I tried to ignore my fears but once the seed was planted, it grew quickly and it was just a matter of time before I came to realise that the Finn boy, far from being a suitable role model, was actually a bit of a pussy. Sure he carried a pipe - but you very rarely saw him actually smoke it. It also became increasingly hard to justify respecting someone who spent so much time with Snidey Snyders Sawyer and didn't take the opportunity to do away with him. I felt certain that no court in the land would have convicted him if he had spent one episode bashing Tom's head in with a rock, all the time screaming 'smile about that you little fuck, smile about that' repeatedly. The fact that Tom continued to live through each episode just proved it once and for all - Huckleberry Finn was actually a try-hard and not a go-hard.

In the end I wrote poor Huck off as an embarassment. I left him sitting by the river bank and moved on with my life, switching channels and eventually turning the television off. No longer encumbered by a responsibility to do homework, I had plenty of time to set off in search of new role models, fresh antiheroes. Much to my parents dismay, I found them with great regularity. It took me many years to get my life back on track but I managed it eventually - to the stage now where I've come full circle. I've gone from defiant teen, through to apologetic young man and now to defiant adult. You think it's dumb to blame a fictional character for leading you astray? That's your call, but I'm still not taking responsibility. If you insist on blaming a real person and not a storybook character, get in touch with the Director General of the BBC. If they had chosen to air repeats of Gentle Ben all those years ago, who knows how things would have turned out?

Repost III - The Search For Spo.... ah.

2009-09-19T09:57:00.002+10:00

The third repost. I'll do two more and then leave you in peace to wander the ether unmolested.

At the risk of repeating myself, you don't have too much longer to make the switch.

Here's Friday's posting for you:

A tip for you: If you are ever in my neck of the woods and you find yourself being being pursued, be it by a knife-wielding lunatic or an angry mob intent on ripping you limb from limb, try to take a moment and revisit your escape options as you're running away. Forget everything you thought you knew about escaping those with murderous intent: the information I'm about to share with you may one day save your life.

Forget about escaping via alleyways. Don't duck in to a passage, intent on losing your attacker in that narrow maze of back streets and cut-throughs; they may be narrow and easy to hide in but surely you've seen enough films to know that it never works out well. You know how it goes the minute you run into an alleyway. There will be dogs barking, steam billowing, dumpsters lining every dirt-stained, grafitti-laden red brick wall. There will be fire escape ladders hanging tantalisingly out of reach and, inevitably, a chain link fence cordoning off the alley halfway down. You will jump for that fence, try to scale it - because it always happens that way. You will jump, desperately seeking a grip, leverage with which to pull yourself up, pull yourself over to safety. It goes without saying that you will not succeed - that nobody scales the chain link fences in these alleyways. You've seen enough films to know that nobody ever succeeds. You will fail, you will fall. Your attacker will corner you, bear down on you and your death will be both horrible and noisy. The moment you set foot in the alleyway it's a given, a sure-fire cert - because it always happens that way.

My tip is to forget about the alleyways - to run straight past them and look again at your options. Do not seek out the doorways, the buildings, the lights. Do not look for the parks, the elevators or the unlocked cars. Look instead for the rivers, the lakes, the sea. Specifically, look for the quays, the docks, the jettys. If salvation lies anywhere, it's there.

Why? Because my state's crime statistics confirm it - and everyone knows that statistics never lie, right?

Right?

Statistically speaking you are less likely to be murdered on a dock, quay or jetty than anywhere else in New South Wales. Your pursuer may not be deterred by you running on to a quayside and dragging your terrified, exhausted body to cower at the end of a pier - but the chances are lower that you'll get murdered with every step you take down that boardwalk. With that established and certain death looming, you have nothing to lose by putting this theory to the test. Granted, your attacker may follow you to the end of the pier to strangle you, gut you where you stand and wrap themselves in the warm coils of your intestines as you watch on - but the possibility is still lower than if you remained on dry land. Put your trust in me and make a break for the pier. What do you have to lose - other than your life, of course?

I found out about the life-preserving power of piers by accident some years ago. My wife and I had just bought a house opposite a park and I was pretty pleased with how things had turned out. The house we were living in was good, but it was a little crowded with three of us there. This new house would be more roomy and when our offer was accepted, it felt like the right move. Living opposite a park seemed like a step in the right direction - parks are places of peace and tranquility; somewhere for children to laugh and play, a patch of greenery and trees to break up the tarmac and brickwork when you looked out of your window. Those are the images we had, the images we were looking forward to as soon as contracts were exchanged and the purchase completed. I was feeling very successful, very grown up and very pleased with myself - right up until the moment that someone was murdered in the park opposite our new house and the death made every paper and news report within a 100km radius. All of a sudden our little place of peace and tranquility was cordoned off with police tape.

My wife was more than a little bit concerned by the unexpected arrival of a dead body on the grass opposite our home-to-be. I tried to play the incident down, reassure her that we'd not done the wrong thing by buying the house - but it's a little challenging to play down a murder. I tried my hardest, reassuring my wife that the house wasn't a mistake, that the suburb and street were still safe, that it was a one-off, isolated tragedy. When that didn't work, I turned to desperate logic. The news report and autopsy confirmed that the victim had only died in the park - he'd actually been stabbed in a nearby street. That meant that technically, the nearby street was the real danger zone, whereas the park was totally safe.

I was clutching at straws by then and I knew it. My wife was looking for reassurance, not a tenuous lession in semantics that bordered on the delusional. Her concern was very real, to the stage where she questioned whether we should put the house straight back on the market and try and find somewhere else to live. Realistically, there was no way we could afford that option so I set out to make it all good, to reassure my wife that we had not just bought into Newcastle's very own version of South Central LA. I found that fascinating statistic on quayside murders at this time but that also fell on dear ears. Then, rare for me, I was stuck by a moment of true inspiration. I got in touch with the local police.

Given that they should have been busy catching criminals, the police were very patient with me. I explained my predicament, they thought for a moment and then told me exactly what I'd been telling my wife all this time; that the park didn't have a bad reputation or a history of trouble, that the area we were moving to wasn't what they'd term a 'problem' area and that sometimes bad things just happened, often regardless of where you lived.

It was the breakthrough I'd been hoping for and I came off the phone feeling enlightened, empowered. I told my wife exactly what I'd told her before - but this time I was able to add the words 'the police say' to the start of my monologue. It didn't wipe away all of her fears overnight, but it reassured her enough, just enough for us to see the purchase through and eventually move in.

That was nearly four years ago now and the house is everything I hoped it would be. Every morning I wake up and I'm pleased to be there. My wife and I have even been know to walk across the park on occasion, too. Thankfully there have been no more incidents or murders there since. For now, the police were right; that death really was an isolated tragedy. It's a fact I'm thankful for every time I pass a real estate agency, see the price of waterfront properties in their windows.

No, really - nearly the last chance (honest, no word of a lie).

2009-09-16T22:10:00.002+10:00

A week's worth of postings is 2 postings old. Pretty soon, this will be switched off. If you've not made the switch, I invite you to click on the link above (or HERE if you'd prefer) and join me at the new place.

Here's the second repost. Consider it a carrot on a stick.....

At first appearances, it is just another bar with live music, sitting on the outskirts of town and seen as a rite of passage for those who grow up here. It is not particularly fashionable and has no chrome fittings, no polished wood floors and plush sofas. It is spacious - not in an airy sense, but in a packed like sardines on to thin, sticky carpet sense. It is one of the first buildings I noticed when I first arrived in this place and I pass it every day on my way to work, always reading the huge blackboards fixed to its walls to see who is playing tonight, who is booked for the coming weeks.

Appearances can be deceptive, especially to the uninitiated eye. This is not just another bar - it has a flip side, a secret lying hidden behind the stages, the bands, the hoardings. Stay here long enough and you will hear about that flip side; about how the bar is run by an influential ex-con, frequented by ex-cons and that the lodgings upstairs are maintained purely for newly released ex-cons. They say that this network is available to the right face, for the right price. If you have the connection, the introduction, the money then you can visit this bar when the stage is empty, long before the crowds arrive. The trade here is different when the bands are elsewhere. Someone can be found to represent you, explain your point of view, persuade someone on your behalf, to your way of thinking. The force of that persuasion depends on whether you are trusted, what you can afford. They say that $1,000 will buy you persuasion culminating in broken bones. Part with the right amount of money and people simply go away, disappear. That's what they say around this town.

They say that local race meetings are fixed; that the city syndicates take it in turns to own the finish post camera - to boost their win ratios and prize funds away from the scrutiny of the Sydney track officials. It is a widely known fact, unlike the chosen winner's name which is shared with only a select few. That name is information reserved for the inner circle, those considered most trusted, most influential. The syndicates, the significants, the identities; they will all arrive on race day and blend in with the regular racegoers, conducting their business amongst the chaos and confusion of the crowd. Money will change hands on race day, favours will be called in, jockeys and officials will be bought. Bets will be placed and winnings collected - shoulders will be rubbed, palms greased, deals done. Once you know what to look for it's surprising how easily you see it, hidden away in corners as life continues around it.

Every place has rumours, local faces and shady characters with questionable business dealings. Growing up in Reading in the mid-eighties, we talked in hushed tones of the fabled Darlow family. We saw them as our very own answer to The Krays, the Mafia - and when we spoke of them, we did so in whispers and hoped that we never came to their attention. Twenty years on from the Darlows and many miles removed from Reading, the rumours and whispers transfer to a new face with a new name. This particular new name owns many properties around town. They include bottle shops, office buildings, shopping complexes, an antique centre and the local nightclub - the place where local kids congregate every weekend. His people police the door and search the patrons as they arrive. His people confiscate pills and powder when they find it, but this is not evidence of a zero tolerance policy in force - merely a desire to elminate the competition. Those in the know will tell you that pills and powder are for sale inside, out of sight, hidden behind the alcopops and the two-for-one deals on slammers and shots. Those in the know will add that his investment in property is a front; a veneer to hide the real profit - the trade in drugs, the deals with local bike gangs. They tell you that he's not the man you thought he was, that he's not a man you would wish to cross.

Visit the town's tourist information centre and it quickly becomes obvious that this place lends itself perfectly to calendars, to picture postcards. It is after all a beachside town - caressed by the warm waters of the Tasman sea and boasting mile upon mile of golden beaches, of sand dunes that stretch northwards to the horizon. You can swim all morning, then walk the short distance to a table on the renovated quayside, sit beside the working harbour. You can dine on freshly caught seafood, wash it down with wine from the nearby vineyards, watch the ships come and go as eat.

Whether baked by an unremitting sun, shrouded in fog or battered by storms, this is a town that lends itself readily to photographs - but pictures can only show so much. The accompanying negatives are a byproduct, tied to each photo. Combined, they complete the picture and lend depth, colour and focus to each and every shot we take, every shot we experience.

Go on.... make the switch!

Nearly the last chance.

2009-09-14T18:39:00.004+10:00

Just a reminder in case you hadn't read and realised previously - I'm no longer posting here. Please feel free to stop by HERE, where you'll find me alive, kicking and very much in full-on welcoming mode.

I decided to syndicate a week's worth of postings, just to try and give everybody time to switch over. Here's today's:

The camera is handed back to us and we review the picture. I recognise the two figures on the screen immediately. She sees the same image, yet recognises only one of those figures.

"I hate it, I look old and fat. I don't really look like that, do I? Tell me the truth - you would tell me if I did, wouldn't you?"

She takes one last look at the picture on the screen in front of us.

"That's got to go - get rid of it."

The image is wiped from the memory card and we hand the camera back, ask if they wouldn't mind just taking one more picture. Maybe that will be true; maybe it will be just one more attempt - but there's also the chance that it will be many more shots, many more poses before we get a picture that she is happy with, that shows her as she wants to be seen.

She reminisces again about the late nineties - those halcyon, skinny days where every picture was a Kodak moment and not a nightmare jpg. She had just given birth to her son and photos from this time show her as radiant,content - but above all, stick-thin. She couldn't be defined as fat these days - far from it - but she's not stick-thin either. These days she has curves, she looks like a real woman. She looks healthy, vibrant, sexy. I tell her this, tell her that I think she looks much better than she did then and I mean every word of it. Sometimes I fear that she thinks it's an automatic response; some words I just trot out to placate the little woman, thus allowing me to get back to something more interesting.

It would appear that my fears are well-founded. "You always say that" she observes. I ask her what she would rather I said, to which she answers "the truth". I protest my innocence, tell her again that I think she looks great, that I always think she looks great. Eventually she will believe me, if only for a little while until the next unflattering picture is taken. She will think I'm sweet and lovely and even if she doesn't see what I see, she'll be happy that I see it.

It's not that I have a penchant for larger sized figures any more than I do size zero figures - but I see the pictures of my wife from back then and always think that she was a bit too thin, a bit too much like a head on a stick. I tell her this, hoping at least that I can raise a smile even if raising her confidence is temporarily beyond me. She blames it on the glasses she wore back then, those big round frames that were so popular in the nineties. "They made your head look bigger." she retorts. "Anyway, it was the look. You should know - I've seen pictures of you and you had them too."

Suddenly her words bring on a disturbing flashback; an image of myself in 1997, all big framed glasses, clean shaven and with a nice, respectable parting in my hair. I looked like a tax consultant who was preparing to stand in the local elections as a Conservative Party candidate. I shudder inwardly - only one of us is looking back on our appearance in the late nineties with anything resembling fondness and warmth - and it isn't me.

I tell her that she's got nothing to worry about, that she still looks hot - positively smoking in fact - and that all that's happened is that she's ten years older than she was back then. That last bit is a fact, not open to debate, so I figure I'm on safe ground. She responds by telling me that of course I have to say that because I'm married to her and of course she's right - but it's much easier to say it and mean it when you don't have to lie about it.

My wife may look at those old pictures and see an ideal, but I just see a woman I didn't know back then, a girl who wasn't part of my life when that particular shutter clicked. Give me the living breathing, more womanly current day version every time. You can touch as well as look - it's much more fun this way. Granted, I do have to deliver the occasional reassuring comment, but it's a price worth paying.

Remember - you need to click HERE from now on!

He waves his bat, salutes the crowd.

2009-09-13T18:28:00.001+10:00

I've hit the fifty follower mark - something I never thought would happen a few months ago. I have decided to mark this occasion by having a little celebration in two parts. Neither parts involve cake, both parts involve promotion and one part involves a little effort on your part. We'll start with the promotion part, I think.

Yet again, various bloggers have been kind enough to remember my name when handing out awards. Yet again, some of these go back a way and, yet again, it's time to pass them on. Yet again, I shall start with the oldest:

Kindly donated by South Africa's finest, the very readable ladytruth. You probably get the idea of this award - it acknowledges those people who take the time to comment on your postings.

There are some people who don't do awards and that's their decision, but I don't think there's a person blogging who isn't pleased to see that someone's commented on what they've written. This award makes perfect sense to me as I am always grateful for any observation that anyone leaves on my own postings. Having said that, I find myself not wishing to single any person or group of people out - so I'm going to do this one differently.

This award is passed on to everyone who has ever taken the time to comment on my writing - even those of you who don't have your own blog to display it on. It's as simple as that - I really am thankful that you take the time to connect and to say hello.

Yet again, the rather pleasant and always amusing ladytruth shoved some love in my direction - so much so that I was prepared to forgive her comparing me to Chelsea footballers John Terry and Didier Drogba as she did so.

The rules for this one go as follows: you have to make yourself a cocktail, then pick out four bloggers and tell them why you think they give good blog.

I have a bottle of water in front of me but I've compensated by adding a slice of lemon and an umbrella. That'll do, I reckon. The four people I'd like to pass this award to are:

scarlethue - I get the feeling that what you see is what you get - and I like the way she phrases things. Simple as that.

Ribbon - next time you feel the need to relax, go and spend a while on Ribbon's page. I like to think I'm pretty laid back but I always come away from reading Ribbon's postings feeling more relaxder - so much so that I'm not even going to fret that I can't think of a proper word for said feeling of relaxation.

WhisperingWriter - quite simply, Amber makes this blogging thing look effortless. Her ability to make the everyday seem compelling is one I envy immensely.

JennyMac - because giving an award back to the originator strikes me as perfect recycling. On a more serious note though, JennyMac also makes this look effortless - to the stage where I was absolutely amazed to find that her blog's only been running since January. It reads like it's been around forever, and I mean that in a good way. JennyMac is another person who never seems to run out of things to post about - another trait I envy immensely. If you're one of the 0.02% who haven't read her, do yourself a favour and click on her name.

Now, having fed and watered you, this is the part where promotion meets a request for effort.

I have been thinking for some time about moving house. There are reasons which I won't bore you with here, right now. The end result is that I have decided to do it. From here onwards, you won't find me here - but you will find me HERE. I canvassed opinion on whether to start afresh or try to merge this old blog into the new one. In the end, I decided to start afresh - merging is fraught with all sorts of problems from what I gather.

Anyway, this is definitely not a case of goodbye, merely a case of hello from new surroundings. There's a full explanation over at the new site by way of welcome - hope to see you there.

We interrupt this scheduled broadcast.

2009-09-11T16:57:00.005+10:00

Some days proceed without incident. They may be banal, may be spectacular - but they go from point A to point B in a straight, uninterrupted line. There are no blips on these days, no spikes on the chart. Some days are just planned out plain sailing, charting a course on calm waters.

These are the days that make up our lives - the days where we sit with a blank page in front of us and wonder how to write the first paragraph, let alone document the entire day. It's not that they're dull; more that they're not newsworthy. In between these days, these flat lines, are the spikes. They come out of nowhere, force us to amend plans, cancel appointments. Sometimes they change lives, other times they end them. Either way, you don't forget the spikes.

March 1987

At the formative age of fifteen, I go to sleep every night wearing a pair of my mother's old thermal tights. This is out of necessity rather than any particular peccadillo, as I have to get up early, in the cold, and dress quickly. The thermal tights save time and time is of the essence at this stage of my life. The reason for my early start is a paper round, the alarm set for 5.30am every morning to earn some pocket money cycling the streets of my home town and handing out newspapers. I enjoy the paper round - it gives me a decent amount of pocket money and allows me to save money on cigarettes and pornography by stealing them directly from my employer. The paper round is a necessary evil - a means to various ends.

I start deliveries later on Sunday but it's Saturday that really matters. I get up extra early on Saturdays, hoping to rush through my allocated streets to get me home by 9am. If all goes to plan and I'm back through the door by this time, my brother and I can sit in front of the television and watch the latest episode of Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds. At fifteen I should know better and my secret 9am fix is not something I mention to my friends - it's way too uncool to admit to, that much is certain. Despite this, I always rush back. My brother and I have little in common in 1987 - we fight more often than we are friendly - yet we can sit down and enjoy this cartoon together, go some way towards being friends. That's the main reason I rush home on Saturdays, why I aim to pedal extra fast and throw my bike down in the driveway, crash through the back door and settle in front of the television before the clock strikes nine.

This is all wrong though. What I see on the screen this Saturday isn't an animated dog, deadly with an epee and with a nose that glows red when he's angry. Instead I see live grainy video footage shot from a helicopter. Footage of a ferry - The Herald Of Free Enterprise, it transpires - lying on its side in the ocean. It is surrounded by tugboats, seagulls wheeling across the shot. The newreader's voice is sombre; explaining that the ferry set sail with its loading doors wide open at 7pm last night. Nobody realised the doors were still open until the vessel left the calm waters of Zeebrugge harbour and hit high seas one mile out as they headed towards port in Dover. Ninety seconds after this realisation, the ferry capsized. Five minutes later, it sank. The newsreader's voice warns that the number of deaths are expected to be high, but I switch off halfway through this piece. I feel cheated - I had signed up for cartoon deaths, not real life deaths. I am fifteen and, truth told, I just don't care beyond the fact that my show has been postponed.

Days later, the numbers of dead are eventually confirmed as 193 of the 563 passengers on board and twenty two years after the event, I still remember this incident - primarily because it cancelled my show for a Saturday. I fear my reasons for recollection are not ones to be proud of.

March 2002

We are driving to Bristol, our relationship as cold and grey as the air surrounding our vehicle. By this time, it is very apparent that this will not be happily ever after - in fact I will happy if we make it to our hotel room without fighting. Luckily she is relatively calm this day and there are no fights, no scenes that end with her grabbing the steering wheel and trying to run us off the road as she has done many times before. You hear of couples who are too good to be apart, yet too bad to be together. If we ever fell into this category, it was long ago. Now we're just rotten; rotten and rotting further with each diseased breath. Our relationship will drag on for another ten pointless months before it finally admits defeat and dies, yet death pays us a visit sooner than this. Driving along, listening to Manchester United play Middlesborough on a grey Saturday afternoon, the commentary ceases abruptly and the radio station cuts back to a live announcer who informs us that Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother has died.

I only knew her as an old lady, lampooned on Spitting Image, fond of a tipple and with teeth as bad as her dress sense. Her death means nothing to me - if I have any fondness for the Royal Family whatsoever, it lies with the more current members, the modern royals who will spearhead the family through my own lifetime - not with this woman whose best times came during the blitz some thirty years before I was born. In reality, I should be grateful - the Queen Mother's death gives my then-girlfriend and I plenty to talk about and concentrate on during our drive. It gives us some common ground, something to discuss - there is no time for fighting.

As we drive, listening, I remember that the television and radio schedules had been torn up for a week by Diana's death some five years previously. I remember someone had told me that the Queen Mother's passing would be even worse when it eventually came. Sitting in that car in 2002, the official voice on the radio announces that there will be ten days of official mourning and I sigh inwardly. They were right. As the years move onwards, I will forget the date of her death and how old she was when it finally came - but I will go to my own grave remembering that they pulled the Manchester United and Middlesborough game from the radio.

September 2001

I had two surveys this morning - nothing too special or too taxing. By this stage, it's not so much a job as it is a factfinding exercise. I could do this standing on my head and the ease with which I could do it merely makes me less inclined to actually do it. Despite this, I force myself to be professional. I look at my watch as I am driving home - it's just after one o'clock in the afternoon. I will work productively from home this afternoon - I will not sit in front of the computer playing around in a chatroom and promising to write up my reports another day.

The radio announcer interrupts his planned patter and my stream of thought. They are getting reports that a light aircraft has hit the World Trade Center. No big deal, but they will keep us posted.

The problem with my job is that it's no longer challenging - it's just a bad program written in 1980s ZX Spectrum basic. Answer yes to question 2, go to statement B. Answer no to question 2, go to statement C and lead in to question 4a. Can I be bothered to do anything about it, though? I could probably get another job if I cared enough but this life is comfortable, if unstimulating. I probably won't do anything just yet, just keep plodding along and try to get some more complex jobs in the coming months; jobs that challenge me and make me think more.

The radio announcer interrupts his planned patter and my stream of thought. They are getting reports that a second aircraft has hit the World Trade Center. Furthermore, the first plane was not a light aircraft but a commercial jet. This second plane is also a commercial jet. This is not an accident. Rather than keep us posted, they will change their plans, stay with this story.

I reach home and forget about writing up reports. I switch the television on, sit glued to it as the plume of smoke intensifies, drifts like a stain across the clear Manhattan sky. I watch tiny forms fall from each tower, struggling to comprehend that they are people choosing to take their chances, to end their life rather than stay trapped hundreds of feet up in the air. The stations screen amateur footage filled with cries, with screams, with shock - shock that is mirrored by the seasoned professionals anchoring the location reports and newsdesks at the stations; stations all tuned to this one event, this one day. All programming is cancelled and, unlike those times in 1987 and 2002, I understand the gravity of this moment, accept without question that scheduling will be postponed, shows removed. Some events are consigned to history and some events shape history. At the time - and all these years after the event - it is clear which category the events of September 11th 2001 fall into.

There were many outpourings at the time, many over the months that followed. For me, the one that resonated and stuck was Wendy Cope's 9/11 poem.

It wasn't you, it wasn't me,
Up there, two thousand feet above
A New York street. We're safe and free,
A little while, to live and love,
Imagining what might have been -
The phone-call from the blazing tower,
A last farewell on the machine,
While someone sleeps another hour,
Or worse, perhaps, to say goodbye
And listen to each other's pain,
Send helpless love across the sky,
Knowing we'll never meet again,
Or jump together, hand in hand,
To certain death. Spared all of this
For now, how well I understand
That love is all, is all there is.

September 2009

Today is a day where reflection comes readily. In some cases, it comes on time and in some cases, it comes many years later. Be it on time or too late, today you will be remembered.

Here's one I prepared earlier.

2009-09-06T20:48:00.002+10:00

As you know, I'm on my way south on holiday - indeed, the alarm's set for 4am tomorrow morning as our flight leaves at 6am. It's a killer of a day, but at least it guarantees us a full Monday in Melbourne - and I think a full day is definitely on the cards.

I thought I'd leave you with a reposting. I first thought about reposting this when Harry Patch died a few months ago, then again when the deaths on the Kokoda Trail occurred last month. There's no time like the present so here it is - I don't think I'm conning anyone, as the chances that it's been widely read are pretty minimal.

History came up recently in a blog I was reading. It's always been a subject that's fascinated me, particularly modern world history. It was one of the few subjects I paid attention to at school and to this day, I am still amazed at how a land battle on European soil in 1916 could last for four months, be loud enough for the guns to be heard across the English channel and end up accounting for a total of 1.5 million casualties (57,470 British casualties on the first day alone). As if this wasn't bad enough, 23 years later the Second World War broke out and the statistic which always stands out from WW2 is the 6m jews exterminated by the Nazi regime. The fact that the total number of casualities from WW2 worldwide - civilian and otherwise - stands at something close to 72 million simply defies understanding and it's almost criminal that we don't remember this number. That's a lot of bloodshed.

Both of my grandparents fought in the Second World War. I say 'fought''; they were lucky enough to escape anything remotely resembling fighting. My paternal grandfather served in the merchant navy and my maternal one was a mechanic in the RAF and stationed in Italy I think. As a child I remember asking them both if they'd killed anyone (they both said 'no') and whether they'd seen any german soldiers (they both said 'no' again, although my maternal grandfather did see an Italian POW once, I seem to remember). I remember being relatively disappointed that there were no stories of storming enemy bunkers armed only with a large knife like in the films. Still, my paternal grandfather had medals - three of the buggers. I remember being rather impressed by that, even if I never really understood what he actually did to get them.

These days of course I realise that they got away remarkably lightly. As a 12 year old, I was looking for Boys Own stories; stories of blood, guts and heroism. As young men fighting for their countries at a time when the whole world was exploding around them, they were looking to survive and get home to their loved ones in one piece. I didn't understand that enough as a young boy but if they'd not had such boring wartime experiences, it's questionable whether I'd have been sitting there to ask them about it in the first place. The numbers don't lie - that they made it through a 6 year conflict that unscathed was remarkable.

When I'm trying to get my stepson excited about history, I tell him that history is all around us every single day. Sure, it's not always big history but the things he sees on the news may well count years down the track. Things that we live through today may well be the things that our children are taught about in school and, for me, it's very easy to feel that history's not only cool but accessible. You needn't be a great brain to get it - you just have to turn up each day and pay attention. My kind of subject.

Every Armistice Day, you see the veterans marching. Mostly WW2, Vietnam, Korea and Iraq these days. Obviously the number of WW1 veterans are dwindling rapidly, to the stage where there are only 7 left alive today. Hell, World War One finished almost 91 years ago now - we're lucky to have any left, really. Anyway, I think it's fair to say that the last surviving First World War soldiers may well be dead within the next 5 years and at that stage, all we're left with are written accounts, grainy camera footage and whatever stories were passed down. I'd like to think we've learned something from WW1 and WW2 but let's face it, we're all still fighting on regardless. Without thinking too hard about it, I can remember the Falklands conflict, two Gulf wars, Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq - and I know there are plenty I've not mentioned. Is that the sign of a race that learn lessons from history and the relevance of numbers like 1.5 million, 6 million, 72 million? No, I don't think so. I'm sure that plenty of people around Srebrenica thought that Hitler was a terrible man a few years before they took a leaf from his book and turned the place into a mass grave. The fact is that reason seems to go out of the window the minute passion and nationalism get combined and that's not showing any signs of slowing up.

I guess at the end of the day, all we can do is try to remember the cost of conflict. When I see those veterans at Armistice Day or ANZAC day parades, I am always reminded of the mass loss of life that happens when reason and rational though abandons us. Before too long there won't be anyone left who fought through the First World War. Unless we've become a planet full of pacifists by then, I hope we've learned all we can from our veterans before the last one closes their eyes and disappears into history.

Hopefully the reheating didn't leave you with food poisoning. I'll be back - with a surprise - next week.

Gone in 55.

2009-09-04T19:05:00.001+10:00

If I have to die, let it be explosive.
Let me plummet earthwards in a flaming plane, disintegrate to atoms upon impact.
Next week we will be in Melbourne, gone all week on our holidays.
I always love flying, especially to Melbourne.

Ladies and gentlemen, a toast:
To fine times, absent friends and safe landings.

We have been here before.

2009-09-03T19:17:00.004+10:00

It began during the summer of 2003. Another working day was ending as I stood on the platform at South Kensington tube station, bathed in the glorious late afternoon sunlight and oblivious to the rushing crowds of commuters and tourists. My train was delayed - a fault on the District Line at Tower Hill being responsible for the congestion, for the lack of trains and the indeterminable wait. I didn't care if I was late home; didn't care how long I stood waiting for my train. Despite everything that came afterwards, I will always look back on the summer of 2003 as my carefree summer, that summer where the mercury rose to record highs and where nothing mattered but her and I.

We had been together for mere months and had thrown away the birth control after a week at best. Common sense dictated that the pace be slower, that emotions be guarded until an appropriate amount of time had passed. We had no need for common sense, for its protestations and proclamations and warnings; we had each other and the noise we generated screamed its enthusiasm at the top of its lungs, from the top of every hill. We drowned out the world, let alone its cautionary mutterings. It was all I could hear, all I needed to hear. There was no doubt that this was it, that this was game over and happily ever after rolled into one delicious future. There was no doubt that this woman would bear my first child, then my next child, then the next child after that. We would have our children, address the family situation at three, decide if we wanted more after that. Maybe we'd feel like four, five, six? Forget the no-kids lifestyle; the expensive holidays, five star restaurants and annual upgrades of the second car. That might suit some people but it wasn't what we wanted - we were going to fill a house with children instead. Years down the line, we could picture ourselves coming together as a family around a mess-strewn dining table every night, financially poor, but rich where it counted; where we wanted our riches to lie. The thought was as reassuring as the sun upon my shoulders that afternoon in the summer of 2003. This was where I was meant to be.

She was two days late - surely it was just a matter of time now. We would wait another day, maybe two, then buy a test. It was just a matter of time and, if her period arrived before then it didn't really matter - because the next one wouldn't - or the one after that. Either way, it was just a matter of time.

Just a matter of time indeed. It always comes down to time, to waiting. If I didn't know that back then, I know it for certain today. Those days of ours became weeks, grew into months and eventually became years. Six years on from that tube platform in West London, we still count the days and wait on time. We do so in another country, on the other side of the world from where we started out, where this waiting began. We are both older and wiser than the people we were in 2003, we have learned to accept things we never dreamed we would need to accept, grown in ways we weren't expecting. We're still here, still together - and we have the mess-strewn dining table we planned for; just not the family to occupy all the chairs.

In place of those children are truths: cold hard realism, facts, statistics and percentages. We have a thick file of papers; papers which document our hopes, dissect and analyse our chances. Look inside this file and you will find hospital bills, fertility tests, sperm analysis results, cell counts and mobility tests. Five attempts over three years to nudge the odds in our favour, five failures to date and, finally, one decision to stop - to move on with our lives and cease the wait for our very own tiny Godot.

It is difficult to apply reason to emotions, to apply rational decisions to feelings, instincts and cravings. We took time to come to terms with this new direction, got up every day and went about our lives. Eventually the regret dissipated to the stage where we could move onwards, try to make this life great again, despite and in spite. Our days returned to normal, but every so often we would feel an unspoken sense of guilt when we were throwing money at holidays, eating out for the third time in a month. It was very nice, very indulgent - but it wasn't what we had planned and talked about all those years ago. It nagged at us more as time passed, started to feel less resolved than we had thought. The nagging grew to a conclusion; a decision that we couldn't resign ourselves to this outcome without one last throw of the dice.

We have been here before, sitting in a counsellor's office, in an IVF clinic. These places are designed to be warm, filled with hope - a combination of scientific miracles and blind, blind faith. Their walls are welcoming; dotted with pictures, letters, thank-you notes. Upon entering these clinics for the very first time, these letters and pictures and notes are essential - they are what you want to see, stories of success and the offer of hope; tangible validation for the thousands of dollars you are about to invest. You see yourself less in those pictures and notes upon entering these clinics for the fifth time, the sixth time - and yet still you hope; you would not be here otherwise.

This time, more than likely our last time, we are using a donor. She is a woman from a nearby town who we found through advertising. She will donate her own eggs to help us, receive no monetary reward and endure treatments and procedures that are both uncomfortable and invasive. All she will receive in return is a sense of having helped, of having done something for people that, until three months ago, she did not know existed. Her selflessness gives us new hope, one more chance to buck our trend, blow those statistics away. Her selflessness moves me, reminds me yet again that, looked upon the right way, life is a joyous experience on the most beautiful of stages. I vow to hold on to that reminder, to use it as needed during the time ahead.

The counsellor asks if I have anything to say. I speak as required but we both know that there is nothing left to add to this story after six years of telling it, of living it and enduring it. Some details may alter with each telling but it always comes down to one thing: waiting. Now as much as in 2003, it is just a matter of time.

Riddle me this.

2009-09-01T15:55:00.001+10:00

Why is there a pubic hair on my keyboard?

Giveaway of the century.

2009-08-31T17:37:00.005+10:00

My last posting was based around two numbers. This one is based around three numbers; those being ten, three and one hundred.

Why? Glad you asked.

Ten. The number of facts I was invited to share about myself when being tagged by Ribbon recently. Ribbon is moving house right now and I can't afford to send a potplant to Western Australia as a housewarming present so, in the spirit of sharing (and to save sending a 'welcome to your new home' card), I'm more than happy to compromise by sharing some facts about me that you may not already know.

My parents had two children, both sons. I am the eldest by two years. My brother's name is Nathan, he's 35 and he lives in the UK along with the rest of my family. We don't really look alike - although when we briefly worked for the same firm, people said we had the same mannerisms. I like this because, even though he sometimes drives me up the wall, I'm still proud to be connected to him.
When I was little I wanted to be an airline pilot, a policeman, a journalist and then a musician. In that order.
I once registered the web address www.nomiddlename.com for my own use. It would probably have ended up as a prototype blog but I did nothing with it and my ownership eventually lapsed. I will be forty in just over two years time. If any generous reader would like to purchase it for me - or anything else, for that matter - all gifts will be gratefully accepted.
In case you didn't guess from 3 above, I have no middle name. I'm also left handed - you can have that one for free in case the middle name thing wasn't exactly a revelation.
My coffee consumption record stands at sixteen espressos in three hours. I didn't know my eyes could open quite that wide before then and I also felt exceptionally unwell for some time afterwards. It's not big and it's not clever - I know, I know....
I have been teetotal for ten years now and stopped smoking earlier this year. And yes; some days I feel exceptionally boring as a result of it.
My pride in being British only surfaced when I stopped living in Britain.
The start and end of 'Love Actually' makes me cry every time I watch it, because the shots of people embracing and greeting each other at airports always reminds me of my wife and I.
My grandfather has been dead for over twenty years now, yet I still talk to him every time I go to my local beach because I know he'd have loved it there.
My wife and I met on the internet. I took one look at her picture and knew that I had to message her. I thought there was no way on earth she should reply but had a feeling she would. She did. Turns out she replied to everybody but it sounds better if I don't mention that.

Three. The number of facts that Judearoo asked me to share. Her condition was that they be things you wouldn't or couldn't tell from my writing. I thought about posting them as a comment on her marvellous new blog but if I did that, it would deny me the opportunity to mention that she has a marvellous new blog for when she doesn't feel like updating her excellent older blog. So, as a thank-you for her continued support and kind words, here are those three things.

I can be exceptionally cynical for someone generally considered to be an optimist. Sometimes I bore myself with my cynicism and tell myself to brighten the hell up. Alright, it happens quite frequently actually.
My humour used to be very sarcastic, to the point where it made my wife cry because she didn't get it and thought I was just being cruel. Needless to say, her reasoned 'I am more likely to have sex with you if you don't make me cry' argument won out and I toned the sarcasm down. It also goes a long way towards explaining why I seem happy a lot of the time.
I don't actually have a third - but I'm hoping that the shameless publicising of Judearoo's marvellous new blog and excellent older blog will help her forgive me.

One hundred. I did the maths, then I double-did them because it involved counting upwards from the bottom and subtracting two and it was late and, well, I just wasn't sure the first time around. Maths wasn't my strong suit at school - I used to sneak out of maths classes to steal chalk from the school office so that my friends and I could eat it. The theory was that the chalk would combine with your stomach acid to give you wind and, therefore, good loud farts. I don't remember it working, in case anyone was wondering.

Anyway, the point was this: I mentioned my 100th posting last Friday and it got me thinking about which posting it was. I think, to the best of my knowledge, it turned out to be this one I wrote in July. I have a particular soft spot for this posting so if my maths is correct, I'm happy with the way it turned out.

"Turned out alright, despite all attempts to the contrary" - I'm having that on my headstone, I think.

That's August for you folks, so thanks for your company. Come back next month if you fancy - I'll save you a seat.

55 words for the 122nd time.

2009-08-28T17:55:00.006+10:00

Some people celebrate their 100th posting, make it all special.
I didn't even realise mine had come and gone. I don't even know if it was any good, that fabled hundredth posting of mine.
Maybe one day I'll go back and have a look. In the meantime, I invite you to celebrate this - my 122^nd.
(Thanks to G-Man for this challenge - I wasn't planning on posting today, but this was fun)

And now for a word from our sponsors.

2009-08-27T18:36:00.003+10:00

Remember that person you passed in the street yesterday?

No, of course you don't - you passed hundreds of people during the course of your day. You swept past them on pavements, stared at the backs of their heads in queues, cursed them silently because they failed to realise that you were in a rush, failed to get out of your way quickly enough. They were just a presence, a constant annoyance and a minor detail - how could you be expected to remember one specific person, one solitary face amongst all those bodies and all those conversations?

The fact is you couldn't. The day would pass and all those souls would blend into one, form a canvas whose detail you just couldn't focus on. Nobody would expect you to remember that one face, for it to stand out or stick in your mind. Nobody would expect you to wonder what was in that one person's head, what troubled them or stirred them, what they were passionate about, what they loved or what drove them to tears, to breaking point. Nobody would expect you to care enough to be curious.

This is your chance to defy expectations. Here is a life, a face, a living and breathing soul. It looks different but in essence, it's just like you - it has dreams, regrets, loves and loss. It has stories running in rich seams from its past, right through its present and into its future - and it's here, right here, waiting for you.

We live lives that are busy, loud and hectic. They play out in an increasingly impersonal world; one where fear is easier to find than trust, where stranger danger stalks our streets as the sun sets ominously. Years ago we could fall asleep safely with doors unlocked. Today's safety only comes when a lock is turned, a bolt is thrown; when shutters are drawn to keep the world out, to keep it at bay.

This door you see is unlocked, will swing open if you push it. Come in - step inside and put a name to one of those many faces you pass, day in and day out.

This is your chance to defy expectations.

Knowing MeMe, knowing you.

2009-08-26T17:45:00.007+10:00

Today I want to begin getting my house in order - or at least sharing the mess around a bit.

I have been lucky enough to receive three awards in the past month and I have yet to pass any of them on. It's not through lack of trying - every week I sit down and tell myself that I should pass them around, then the week evolves and escapes from me and I totally forget to deal with the awards. I find myself posting about other things, other occurrences and I tell myself that there's always tomorrow to acknowledge the people who have been kind enough to think of me and pass the positivity pipe in my direction.

That's one excuse. The other is that sometimes when I sit down and think about these awards, it's just too difficult to decide who to pass them on to. It's time to bite the bullet and hand these damn things onwards. If they stay here much longer, they'll need dusting - and one thing you should know about me right now is that I don't do dusting.

Some people love them and some people hate them. I'm a relative newcomer to the whole awards thing but so far, I find myself liking them. So, without further ado, I'm passing my oldest award on before it invokes squatters rights, takes over my blog and ends up posting stuff that's way better than mine. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to....

The Premium MeMe Award.

Kindly awarded to me an age ago by Nancy at f8hasit. This award comes at a price - apparently you have to list 7 of the personality traits exhibited by your writing. It's harder than it seems, but this is what I eventually came up with:

I would say that I tend to be relatively calm. Admittedly, the last five days have been a period of relative turmoil for me but that's another story for another day. Normal tranquil service has been resumed and all is good once again.
I spend a fair amount of time reflecting on my life and experiences. That'll explain those reflective postings, then.
Sometimes I re-read a sentence I've written and wonder if it'll ever end. I over-use and generally abuse commas and semicolons to the stage where my eyes are swimming and my brain's aching. They all seem too long to me, those sentences I write. Only one sentence was ever deliberately lengthened and the fact that I will have taken a total of seventy seven words to come to a two word conclusion says it all: I'm verbose.
Even if I'm writing about something that happened which I didn't enjoy at the time, I'm still thankful that I went through it. I'd like to think I'm appreciative of all parts of my day and all parts of my life. That's the plan, anyway - sometimes it's easier to carry off than others but yeah; appreciative. I'll claim that one.
Someone recently said that I had yet to 'find my voice' and that, at times, I was guilty of channelling other bloggers. I'm sure that person had some very valid observations, but sadly they didn't expand on the subject so I guess I'm left to carry on and see what transpires, see where I find myself. I guess I'm a touch changeable - if that's a personality trait.
Reading what I've said so far, I can't help thinking that delusional or self-congratulatory should be in the list. I'll settle on self-deprecating - it's kinder.
Finally - and I appreciate you're going to have to trust me on this one - I'm going for honest. Granted, there are times when I get all hyperbolic on your assorted asses to make a point but the stuff you read here is the stuff I experience, be it in the present or in the past. It's only my take on it, but it's as honest as I can be. At the risk of coming across all heavy, I don't see it benefits anyone unless it's done this way. Feel free to disagree by all means.

And that's seven. Wow - what a great guy I appear to be. I'd do me, for sure.

Coming up with seven traits was rather difficult. Choosing people to give this award to is even more challenging. The good thing is that I can spread the love over the coming weeks, as I have more than one award to pass on. Today, with this award, it gives me great pleasure to acknowledge.....

Judearoo - she writes in such a beautifully rich and descriptive way that I don't mind waiting weeks for her next update.
ladytruth - because nobody could accuse this woman of not having found her voice. She uses it to perfection, too.
omchelsea - for referencing dressage the very first time she commented on my blog, then writing about all sorts of other posh things that I didn't think I'd find interesting - and proving me wrong. Also for living in Melbourne, because I love it there.
JenJen - simply for making me smile with every visit.

Love your work, ladies. If I looked any good in hats, I'd be taking mine off to you.

The split.

2009-08-24T17:25:00.004+10:00

We had known that there were problems, that they were not as close as they once were. We had known that he had long since stopped trying to be friends with her son - that she had to spend time with each of them separately; her son and her boyfriend, two distinct camps under the one roof. We had known that he worked long hours, spent days away from home as he chased that innovative gap in the market, that craved-for break and those elusive, invisible millions. We had wondered if he'd ever find them - and whether it would be too late by the time he did; whether anyone would be left at home to applaud when he finally brought home his treasure.

Three years ago they had started out as so many couples do; full of potential, in a blaze of obvious compatibility and loud laughter. They merged two lives into one, two houses into one. They moved away, moved back, visited and went away again. We were always pleased to see them, enjoyed the time we spent with them. They had their troubles at times, yes, but they had each other. That was the deal, the understanding. Many have signed that pact at one time or another, myself included. You always trust in it, believe that it will work and it always does; it's just a question of how long it works for.

When she called to tell us that he had gone, that it was just her and her son again, the news was as surprising as it was expected. The signs had not been good for some time but they had seemed prepared to dig in, to bed down for this long winter, intent on coming out the other side when the snows had melted away. Instead, the blizzard had overwhelmed and the weight of the snow had buckled their roof, invaded their sanctuary and put out their fires once and for all. It became too cold, uninhabitable. Deep down, we feared that it would happen this way but the fact that they had parted was still a surprise - we had always expected that it would happen tomorrow; tomorrow after the next argument or the next setback. All of a sudden, tomorrow had arrived.

We drove down to see her, to keep her company and make sure that she had friends around her. Sitting on her balcony with her that night, she seemed to be coping. She was upset, saddened but adamant that the decision had been right; that the split had been necessary. Her mood was mixed; part of her acknowledging the inevitablility, yet still raw and saddened by it; a mix of rational and emotional. There were moments of optimism where she talked about taking time to make things right before moving her life onwards, maybe even meeting someone new one day. More than that, there were many moments of reflection; of questions without answers. The three of us talked over dinner, then drinks, then coffee. There were no revelations, no blinding flashes of inspiration; just acknowledgment and conversation and acceptance, just friends sitting around a table.

I watched our friend as the three of us talked in the darkness. I had sat in her seat many times over the years, looking for answers to the same questions she posed now. I had struggled to sleep on those nights, thoughts running through my head until I was too overwhelmed and exhausted to find the energy to close my eyes. Over time my pain would lessen, become easier to deal with. Given enough time, I would stop hurting and life would progress to the stage where I was prepared to take a chance on a new person, to open myself up and allow myself to be hurt again if it gave me even the smallest chance to love and be loved, to be accepted and to be part of something bigger; something brimming with new promise and renewed enthusiasm. I did not tell our friend this; she had a history just like I did, knew it all as well as I did. All three of us had the experience and the knowledge - and we all knew that speaking about the promise of the future was not going to take away the pain of the present. That was what time was for.

The night drew on and we carried on talking. Lights sparkled in the hills around us and the night breeze brought the ocean's scent and sound to wash over us. I looked over at my wife, sitting across from me and talking with our friend and I hoped desperately that my gut feeling was right; that this time I had bucked the trend and that there would be no healing process to endure, no sleepness nights to overcome. I knew that I could endure it again if I absolutely had to - I just hoped with all my heart that, this time, I wouldn't have to.

RRamblings does GGambling.

2009-08-21T17:41:00.009+10:00

I'm not much of a betting man. For some reason (and despite having embraced life's other vices with something resembling rabid fervour) I have always known that gambling wasn't really for me. It's not that I fear I'd be crap at it; it's more a case of knowing that I wouldn't be good enough at it. I know I could place money on the results of UK football matches and get more than the occasional lucky win. I'm pretty certain I know enough about form to get me some decent return on my money some weeks. The problem is that I know those occasional wins would give me misplaced confidence to bet on more games, more sports, more results - and I'm absolutely certain that my subsequent bets would eat away all of my winnings, then my disposable income, then my savings. The addictive gene is strong in me and if you're one of these people who never knows when to stop, sometimes it's best that you just don't start in the first place.

As a result of this, I have only ever placed one proper bet in my life. That was in 2002, on a horse called Istabraq, running in the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in the UK. It was a sentimental bet on a horse's last ever race and I didn't care if it won; I just hoped it cleared all the hurdles and didn't have to suffering the indignity of being shot behind a screen because it had fallen and broken a leg. The horse lost but survived the race and I came away having placed a bet that I didn't mind losing. I left my gambling life there and I've not been tempted back into a bookie's since.

If you wanted to be pedantic, I suppose I have gambled three more times. In 1994 I bought a ticket in the UK's first every lottery draw. I think most of the population of the UK did and, like the majority of them, I didn't win anything. I came away thinking 'okay, done that' and got on with my life. I didn't buy another lottery ticket after that or join any office lottery syndicate. That was until two months ago.

Two months ago we were approaching the end of June. Work-wise, June is always one of my most busy and stressful periods because June 30th is end of financial year in Australia. I start to get busy around mid-April and it slowly escalates to the stage where June hits and I'm running on vapours, caffeine and liberal use of a word starting with an 'f' and rhyming with 'luck'. It was during this period that Oz Lotto's unclaimed jackpot hit $90,000,000. I may not be a gambling man but I was having a pretty rancid month and the prospect of winning a share of $90,000,000 and telling my employers and customers exactly where they could stick the 'high priority' tag on their emails was looking pretty attractive. The plan put to me was simple; everyone in my office put in $20 and we bought as many variations in as many games as we could. The draw was taking place on Wednesday and we all played it cool. Of course we didn't really think we'd win the jackpot, but maybe a consolation prize, a secondary prize. In a draw where the jackpot was sitting at ninety million dollars, the consolation prizes would probably pay for a nice holiday at the very least.

The voice in my head, the rational one, reminded me of the odds. My chances of winning the jackpot sat something close to 1 in 14 million, yet I still thought that I was in with a reasonable chance. After all, someone had to win it, right? May as well be me! You always forget the odds when the potential outcome is good. Statistics said that I was far more likely to be blackmailed (1 in 57,000) or to be hit by lightning (1 in 1.6m) than I was to find myself standing at a prizewinners ceremony holding an oversized cheque, but I laughed off the significance of the odds and got back to the important task of spending my winnings. That island in the Florida Keys looked good at $18.5m and it would leave me enough to get satellite television installed too. Maybe I'd even go out on a limb and buy a new pair of jeans, seeing as I was going to be loaded. This multi-millionaire lifestyle was pretty easy to get used to - now all I had to do was wait for the draw to be made.

The Wednesday Of Destiny duly arrived and I forgot all about the 8pm Oz Lotto draw. I was sitting on the lounge watching a rubbishy hospital show when I remembered to get excited about now being rich beyond my wildest dreams. I got on the internet and clicked into the Lotto results website. It was slow going but finally the numbers came up and I scrutinised them carefully. I hadn't actually brought my copy of my winning ticket home with me, but I was sure the numbers looked like the ones printed on my ticket, so it was just a question of picking up the ticket tomorrow from work, then calling the nice people at the lottery office and arranging when to go in. I went back to the hospital show with a sense of satisfaction, happy to endure one more night of bad television now that I was officially rich. I felt sorry for all the other people who had entered and lost but they knew the chances were slim when they bought the ticket - and this was my time in the sun, not theirs. I tried to concentrate on the television but found my mind wandering. What was the time in the Florida Keys? Eight at night here.... minus eleven hours to get back to GMT.... minus five to get back to..... ah, sod it - way too difficult to be precise but it was definitely too early to call builders to get quotes for a helipad extension to my island retreat. It would have to wait until morning.

I went into the office the next morning and was surprised to find everyone looking distinctly unaltered. There were no extra wide smiles, no Ferraris parked in the basement car park and the mood was lacking anything resembling elation. It turned out that we'd not won the jackpot but we had managed to win around $200 in a minor draw. I was happy to take my share of that $200 and cut my losses. Okay, the island would have to go but I could still afford those jeans and a nice meal out somewhere. Instead I was told that my attitude was that of a quitter, that quitters were losers and winners were grinners. Did I want to be a loser or a winner? I answered that I'd settle for being a man wearing nice new jeans, but my words fell on deaf ears. We reinvested our winnings in the next lottery draw and, that very next week, won precisely nothing.

That was the day that I stepped away from gambling once and for all; the day I resigned myself to a life without islands and helipads. I'm okay with that though; I'm still good. They say that money changes some people but I'm still the same person I was before I nearly won millions.

A friendly barrage.

2009-08-19T18:26:00.003+10:00

She suggested that I meet him for the first time whilst he was asleep, explaining with a smile that it would be a more gentle introduction than when he was awake. I nodded my agreement - this was only our second date and I was finding myself agreeing readily to most things she proposed. In hindsight, I should have asked why; alarms should have rung, lights should have flashed. What sort of person suggests that you meet their child for the first time whilst said child is comatose? I should have asked all of these things and more, but like I say this was only our second date. In addition, her low-cut top was distracting me - my focus was elsewhere and I was struggling to speak when spoken to, let alone apply rational though processes to situations. That's why I just nodded, why I thought nothing more of it. We walked down the Fulham Palace Road, heading away from Hammersmith Tube and back towards her flat. The walk took ten minutes and I remember that we held hands all the way, talking as we went.

Once inside her small first floor flat, she opened the bedroom door and I looked in. I was far from an expert on all things children but I could see that there was unquestionably a small boy asleep in the bed. He looked to be around 6 or 7 years old, very docile and not difficult in the slightest. I concluded that this whole 'dating single mums' lark was a doddle - I'd never been out with one before but it was looking pretty easy so far: go for drinks, kiss a bit, ogle their cleavage and then meet their sleeping children. I don't remember what I said to her - after all, her son was asleep so there wasn't really much I could say. The trusted 'seems like a nice kid' was out of the window because I honestly couldn't tell if he was or not - and I decided against 'he looks peaceful' because that's something you say about corpses, not the child of the woman you're dating. It didn't really matter; I'd done what was asked of me - I'd officially met her son for the first time. We left him asleep in the bedroom and as we walked back to the lounge room, she asked me if I was ready to meet him a second time - but this time while he was awake. I agreed readily - short of keeping him permanently sedated throughout our relationship, it seemed the most obvious progression after all. She was pleased with my response but felt duty-bound to warn me that, when awake, he could be 'a bit chatty'. I nodded at her cleavage again and thought nothing more of it - we'd reached the lounge room by then and I had other things on my mind. It was very late by the time I finally left her flat and drove back to my place.

Two days passed and we met up as agreed. I had arranged to have dinner with her and her son at their flat. She buzzed me through the main door and met me at the top of the stairs. I remember a passionate greeting on the landing, then being ushered in to meet her no-longer asleep son. We smiled at each other. I said hello, he said hello. I said it was nice to meet him. He said it was nice to meet me. I congratulated myself on a successful meeting of the awake-son. He wasn't that bad and I didn't know why she'd felt the need to warn me - he was just like he was when I first met him - except more awake, obviously.

His initial shyness lasted all of five minutes before he began to warm to me. It turned out that he was very friendly and very chatty and, the more time passed and the more relaxed he got, the friendlier and chattier he became. It quickly reached a point where you could have placed bets on how long a sentence would last for, when you'd actually manage to hear the television again above the sound of his voice. Sometimes the sentences didn't seem to end and the more friendly and excited he got, the less chance there was that he would ever stop talking again. The sentences rolled into one another like some incessant tsunami of words and it went on through dinner and through dessert and there might have been a slight pause as he had a bath but I was exhausted by then and if there was a gap then I don't remember it and then he came back having gotten into his pyjamas and we all watched television and he talked and asked more questions and I wondered why this kid never needed to take a breath like the rest of us did because I was tired from just watching him and out of breath from just listening to him and the television show finished and the three of us played a game or two of cards and then he was going to bed and we all said goodnight and he went and brushed his teeth and we had to check that his teeth were brushed properly and they were so it was good and we all said goodnight some more and then he went off to his bedroom and she went with him to tuck him in and I was alone and Finally...The...Noise...Had...Stopped.

And it was quiet. It was quiet like no other quiet I'd ever experienced. This must have been how the soldiers in the trenches during World War One felt when the ceasefire was announced, when the guns stopped pounding. It was a moment of contemplation, of beauty. Damn, I could even hear my own heartbeat. It was as surreal as it was serene.

She came back from putting him to bed, sat down next to me and said that she thought it had gone well, that he had liked me. She asked what I thought of him and I was at a loss for words. My first impressions hadn't been bad, but I didn't know whether all kids were this tiring or whether he was a special case. I had no real experience of kids, nothing to compare him to and no idea whether he was just excited or whether it would always be this exhausting. I knew immediately that the wrong answer could well see me packed out of the door without so much as a coffee, let alone a goodnight kiss.

"He's a friendly kid" I eventually offered.

She smiled, asked if I wanted a coffee and I congratulated myself silently. I'd survived the first meeting, lived through the second meeting and survived the subsequent post-mortem discussion. No; this dating single mums thing wasn't any trouble - it was just a lot louder than I'd been expecting.

Pastblast

2009-08-17T17:52:00.003+10:00

Yesterday I was clearing through some stuff on our computer's hard drive when I came across a piece of writing. I wrote it many years ago, during a time in my life when things weren't going so well. It's a period in my life I've not really touched on before and I don't remember it with a great deal of fondness.

I look back on the paragraphs now, close to ten years after I first wrote them, and my first reaction is to go through and re-write, update, censor and sanitise. I'm like most people, in that I can throw a pretty melodramatic pity-party when I choose to - and this was obviously a doozy of a party, not to mention a pretty torrid time in my life. In the end I decided against rewriting, simplifying, expanding or doing anything whatsoever to it. This way it's a true representation, not a remaking or a retelling. This is it now, as it was back then; warts, typos and all.

Six o’clock in the evening. I’ve walked through the streets to the station and I’m cold. I sit on one of the metal benches in the dimly lit mausoleum that passes as the main concourse and watch the world go by. I need to get warm, to stop shaking. I cannot go outside again until I feel warmer, able to make my journey.

I should eat but I cannot think of a single thing I could eat which I want to taste. Today I’ve had two pieces of toast so, on the plus side, I’m not going to faint - especially not if I sit here for a moment.

People stream around me, the hubbub of life a dull murmur punctuated occasionally by the shouts of girls, of children. And station announcements, comings, goings. This is a transient place and, right now, I know all about being transient. Normally stations and airports enthuse me; so many people going to destinations that they want to reach, be it home, a meeting with friends or out for the evening. Yet tonight it feels oppressive. It’s too much. It rams home just how little stability I have and as I grow warmer, slowly, I grow more anxious. Sometimes it feels like this is my life – to drift from soulless place to soulless place, never having anywhere I can go to escape the crowds, the impersonal, cold, dark world. This is my life for the foreseeable future and whilst I know that it probably won’t always be like this, I struggle to see the day when I have somewhere warm of my own to escape when I need the comforts that familiarity and possessions bring.

Around me, executives mill and stride on their way to who knows where. Two children play near a turnstile, joking with the security guards who keep a close eye on them. They look happy, the children - all their lives ahead of them. I wish I could turn back the clock, not for the first time. Further on, a group of teenagers brag and fight, playfully probably. Yet there’s aggression in their movements and I feel on edge. I see their aggression and suddenly I cannot look anywhere without seeing someone scowl as a stranger brushes against them, hurrying to a train or to a waiting car. Every person who slows as they pass me appears as a vagrant, asking for money, for sympathy, for something. I feel wrung out. I cannot give right now. I do not know what I need, but I cannot give any more. Not now.

Six-ten. I can arrive at my destination any time I desire, yet arriving early will only leave me alone in a different place, dealing with these thoughts as I wait for people to arrive. Once I am warm I will walk into town, look round the shops and then catch a bus out of town to my meeting. Again, this is normally something that would enthuse me, yet tonight it’s just another example of how little I have available to me that will bring me comfort, solace. Tonight I could walk with a thousand people and still feel alone. I start to look for a familiar face, someone I know to say “hello” to, to say “it’s been too long, I’m sorry we lost touch – let’s rectify that”. I’ve had chances before and failed to take them but tonight, I’d do it without a second’s hesitation. So often in town I see someone I know, yet tonight everyone’s a stranger.

I cannot stay here any longer. I cannot bide my time with a coffee because I’ve had too much already - and I’m in the mood to drink a lot of coffee, to drink enough for it to alter my wellbeing and to give me a symptom for what I feel; forced proof that I am infirm. I cannot compensate with decaf and I feel raw and cheated, devoid of a joker, a get-out-of-jail-free card. I stand, ram my hands in my pockets and leave the station.

It’s warmer now, only a bit but enough. I hunch my shoulders until they ache and bury my hands deeper into my pockets. Stopping at a newsagent, I pick up a packet of tic-tacs. Hardly nutritional but sugar nonetheless. Enough to keep me moving. Waiting for a bus, three pass by which I cannot take and I quickly grow tired of queuing so I decide to walk the mile and a half to my meeting. If I’m going to be buffeted by cold and wind, I can at least be making progress to where I need to be. Hunched against the cold, hunched against and into myself, I shuffle down wide streets, light and warmth and noise flooding from the pubs which I pass. I cannot feel it, gain any benefit from it and my hair, long as I always wanted it, blows forward over my face in the cold wind which attacks me from behind. Only another 20 minutes and I’ll be in the warm but, for now, all I can do is aim myself in the direction I need to be heading and hope that I get there. The wind blows my hair into my face and eventually I tire of pushing it back into place. I peer through the strands which obscure my vision, my eyes on the ground as I stride out of town. Theatre folk would tell you that if you cannot see your audience, they cannot see you. With that in mind, I hide behind my hair so that people cannot see my face as I walk towards them, past them, out of their minds. To all intents and purposes, I am invisible.

Today, I'm glad that this time passed, that life got better and that I no longer feel this way. It's no guarantee of a blissful, trouble free future but it's a reminder to me that we can survive and endure, sometimes even when it doesn't seem likely. Whatever the winds blow in over the coming months and years, I take comfort in re-reading this account from ten years ago and knowing that I survived to see the skies brighten.

Just thought I'd share....

Intention X, result Y

2009-08-16T10:38:00.002+10:00

Today is a perfect Sunday as far as I'm concerned. The sky is clear and humming with potency, the air heating slowly as the promise of an unexpectedly early summer's day comes slowly to fruition. I am pleased to have an excuse to forget about chores, forget about going back to work tomorrow. Today I am taking myself to the beach. The water will be some 13 degrees cooler than the air but today isn't a day to be doing chores - it's the day to make excuses and leave the house to rot, all locked up and empty. To paraphrase Benjamin Braddock, this isn't half baked, it's completely baked - it's a decision I've made.

I was going to use today's posting to finally and properly acknowledge the two awards I've received over this past fortnight. I was going to pass them on in the time-honoured tradition but there's a problem there - I move in small circles at the moment. That means the people I'd think to nominate and to pass on to, they've more than likely already received these awards from somebody else already. So I'm setting myself some homework for this week and I'd like your help.

My homework for this week is to read more; to immerse myself in new words, new faces, new stories. I will be clicking on more links from links from links and trying to find new frontiers, seeking out new lifeforms and new gif files, boldly going where no virtual persona has gone before etc etc etc. If you have any recommended reading, I'd love to hear your suggestions via comment or email - it may well save me hours of clicking.

Some people have problems with blogs written by people who post about their kids, their faith, their crafts or their recipes. I'll read anything; all I ever ask is that I can hear a voice, see an identity coming through loud and clear. Simple as that. I like to think you can make anything compelling if you write it in a certain way and the blogs I follow all achieve that. They're not to everyone's tastes maybe, but they're to mine and if I comment on your blog or follow your blog, you have my heartfelt gratitude for putting yourself out there on a regular basis and entertaining me, enlightening me and more often than not, inspiring me.

Similarly, to all the people who take the time to follow the stuff I write, to post an occasional comment, I am exceptionally grateful. I've written many postings in the past where there were absolutely zero comments and after a while, it gets more than a little depressing. I can say with complete honesty that I really don't take your support for granted and I really do appreciate the time you spend reading my stuff and telling me what you think - even more so on the days when I feel it's more dud than stud.

I normally start the day intending to post about X and finish up having published something resembling Y. Today was no exception. I'll share my intended X tomorrow instead - I don't think it's one for today anyway. Today's a day for sunshine, relaxing and contentment and I'm off, bucket and spade at the ready.

Have a great Sunday.

This little piggy got naked.

2009-08-14T17:22:00.006+10:00

At the risk of sounding blasé, I'm not really concerned about swine flu. I know people who have been affected by it; who have had family members quarantined and, in some extreme cases, even hospitalised by it. You can't escape the fear right now; be it in the media or, increasingly, on the streets. I was in Sydney for a meeting on Monday and travelled down by train. All over the city's rail network I saw people scuttling about in flu masks. They looked at me - the non-mask wearing infidel - with more than a hint of suspicion, almost as though I was carrying the end of the world in the folder under my arm. Sadly I was just carrying notes for my meeting, although I half-wish I had been holding the end of the world in the folder as it would have given me a way to end the meeting early. You may think that ending the world to get out of a meeting is a touch extreme but this was a really painful meeting. Nobody could have blamed me.

No, I don't look at swine flu and think that I need to get my affairs in order. I see no need to record 'PS I Love You' style DVD messages for loved ones I'll be leaving behind and I see no need to bend over and prepare to kiss my H1NI goodbye. I'm a survivor, people; I lived through Y2K and the Millennium Bug - and we all remember how the world was scheduled to end right there and then. One of my friends was working in computing for a well known telecoms firm during the whole Y2K hysteria and he earned a sizeable bonus (between five and six figures) for making sure that civilisation as we knew it didn't grind to a halt when Big Ben ticked over from 1999 to 2000. The phrase 'money for old rope' comes to mind. From memory, one computer chip in a sea wall on the south coast of the UK was affected when the new millennium arrived. That was it - for the whole of the UK - and the sea wall even didn't fail as a result of this chip dying. Nobody was drowned, life carried on and we all thought "is that it??" "Day After Tomorrow", it most certainly wasn't - just another New Year's Day, as grey, overcast and anticlimactic as all the ones before it.

My amazing ability to survive the cataclysmic doom of Y2K aside, there's one other reason I'm not concerned about swine flu. Put simply, I know for a fact that the pigs just wouldn't do it to me. They may think about coughing over you but they wouldn't dream of infecting me. Why? Because pigdom owes me, plain and simple. I know it and they know it - and this is why:

Ten years ago I was living in the UK and working as a surveyor for a large insurance firm. My job was to visit companies and look at the risks they exposed us to. Then I had to tell them what we needed them to do to reduce those risks to a level we could tolerate. Sometimes the companies would refuse to do what I suggested and would end up shouting at me. Sometimes they'd clap me on the back, thank me for my advice and tell me to take my pick of the female staff before I left. I may be exaggerating that last point just a bit, but what's a blog posting these days without a bit of hyperbole thrown in for good measure? Anyway I digress - the fact is that most of the time my job went pretty smoothly and I was pretty happy with it. They gave me a car, a phone, an expense account and off I went; travelling around the south of England visiting companies and giving them the benefit of my wisdom.

The day in question was a bright but bitterly cold winter's day in January. I was due to drive to Wiltshire, a semi-rural county in the south-west of England. I had a 9.30am appointment at a pig farm and I had set the alarm early that morning. I had showered quickly, thrown a coffee down my throat and been in the car by 7am. I was making good time, in control, thinking ahead about what I needed to cover during the meeting. Then my mobile phone rang and I glanced at the screen. It was Sandy, my secretary back in the office I normally worked from. My first thought was that she was ringing to tell me that the client had cancelled the appointment. I was only an hour from the appointment now and cancelling it would leave me with a fruitless journey back and a long return journey at a later date. I flicked the phone on expecting the worst.

"Hi Sandy. Don't tell me - they've cancelled?"

"No, nothing like that. I just wanted to see how you were this morning - make sure you'd remembered everything." .

In the background, I thought I heard some people trying to stifle their laughter. I didn't think anything of it.

"I'm fine. I've got my phone, my laptop and my directions. I'm all set, thanks."

"What about your towel and shampoo?"

Yes; that was definitely laughter - this time with no stifling involved either Over the phone came the sound of an entire department pissing themselves at my expense. I didn't get the joke until Sandy explained it - then I got it loud and clear.

It turns out that pigs and humans share a lot of attributes and similarities in our immune systems. Diseases can very easily jump from humans to pigs or, in the case of swine flu, from pigs to humans. The pig farm I was visiting had a responsibility to make sure that everyone who entered their facility was clean and was not going to infect their stock. To that end, they needed me to strip and shower, then wear clothing they provided whilst on site. I wouldn't be allowed to wear anything I had on when I arrived - and they meant anything; not even socks. I looked out of my car window as Sandy explained this in between laughing fits. I had first noticed the snow on the ground about ten miles back - it was much thicker here and much colder here. The morning was going to be interesting, to say the least.

I arrived at the farm and signed in their visitors book, then took a seat at reception and flicked lazily through a copy of Pig International (I kid you not - google it if you don't believe me) as I waited for my contact to arrive. When he eventually turned up, the conversation we had was short and sweet and resembled the kind of conversation you could hear in any seedy motel room in any town around the country: Did I want to get undressed straight away or save it until we'd talked for a bit? I chose the former; it seemed best to get it over with. The nice man pointed me in the direction of a portakabin and explained that there were showers and a change of clothes in there. He told me to use any empty locker I could find to leave my own clothes in - and he'd meet me at the entrance to the 'controlled environment' when I was ready.

The shower itself was okay. Hot showers on cold wintery days are rarely bad - the problem was that I had to turn the water off and get out eventually and it got to the point where I couldn't delay it any longer. I turned the taps off and the warm steam dissipated all too quickly, leaving me standing and shivering in the freezing changing area. I looked at the clothing I'd been left and decided that it was fair to describe the farm's uniform policy as minimal. One pair of overalls and one pair of wellington boots - and when I say 'one pair', I mean exactly that - I don't think they could cater for more than one visitor at a time unless the second visitor brought their own uniform. The boots were only two sizes too big for me but the overalls could have doubled as a wedding marquee. I stepped out into the controlled environment feeling totally out of control and looking like some deranged rural madman. The icy wind took no time and great pleasure in cutting through my overalls and offering a painful reminder that I wasn't wearing any underwear. I stood in the snow next to my contact and began asking my questions, rattling through them as quickly as I could in a desperate attempt to hasten the walking tour of the site and get under cover. Finally we concluded the factfinding and the man told me that he'd start our tour with the breeding pen. This was music to my ears - and my now-frozen extremities were pretty happy about it too. I had already asked the man how various parts of the site were heated and I knew that the heating in the breeding pen was heavy duty infra-red. I figured that if I walked slowly enough around the breeding pen, I could easily thaw out before I had to leave and carry on with the rest of the tour.

We stepped in to the breeding pen and I nearly died on the spot. The heat would have been borderline uncomfortable under normal circumstances but I was freezing cold by now; I could cope with the heat. What I couldn't cope with was the smell. This was the breeding room and there's a reason they euphemistically refer to breeding as 'making bacon'. It stank in there - a lethal combination of perspiring porkers and some seriously sweaty porking action. I was in danger of losing my breakfast - a particularly impressive feat considering I'd not had any - so I made my excuses, clicked the camera around the building for the sake of appearances and got back outside quickly, resigning myself to gangrene and amputation of the genitals if it meant that I didn't have to take another lung-full of that hot piggy air. By now I was dejected and defeated. I'd lost the feeling in my arse a good ten minutes ago and I resigned myself to just surviving this ordeal. I gritted my teeth and struggled round the rest of the site, wading through the snow resplendent in my oversized boots and overalls. It took another hour but finally I finished and was able to end the visit. I thanked the man, gave him my card and told him that I'd be in touch. I smiled as I left and it was not forced in the slightest; I had never been so happy to leave a place as I was then. I got my clothes, said goodbye to the overalls and wellingtons and got changed, then I got in my car, stuck the heat up to maximum and drove home. It took the best part of three hours before I got any feeling back in my privates and it was the best part of a week before I could look at a rasher of bacon with anything resembling excitement.

So that's why I figure I'm safe from swine flu. Those pigs owe me big time and I figure they know better than to infect me after I went to such painful trouble to keep them safe and sterile. If they ever forget the debt they owe me, if I feel myself getting a sore throat and a temperature and I suspect the worst, I'm not above blackmail. Remember this little piggies; part of my job was to take pictures of the sites I visited. I got some inside shots of the breeding room and I'm pretty certain that at least one of those hot-lovin' pigs is now a real mover and shaker in swine society. If I were that pig, I would want to make absolutely sure that certain pictures weren't gracing the pages of Pig International any time soon. You think I'm kidding, Porky? Give me a sore throat and I promise to give you problems that will make swine flu look like hayfever. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The time between times.

2009-08-13T19:03:00.003+10:00

I woke suddenly, immediately pleased to be back in the land of the living. My sleep had been fitful, filled with dreams involving rushing and deadlines, with trains that would not be caught and calls that would go unanswered. I woke feeling more tired than I had before falling asleep and slowly allowed my eyes to adjust, to take in my surroundings. As my mind slowed to a canter, the LED of the clock was a reassuring focus in the darkness that enveloped me. Three o'clock in the morning - the uncharted time between lights going off and alarms going off, the precise half way point in my night. I found myself thrown; here in this limbo, this place that I recognised but which was not expecting me - a place that was not on my map nor my list of destinations. I was either too early or too late and I didn't know which - all I knew was that I couldn't get back sleep again, not yet.

I left the bedroom, quietly pulling the door shut behind me as I walked through the house. It took on a new perspective at this time of the night. I recognised each room, yet saw something different in those shadows and features born of the moon's low glow as it streamed through the windows. At this hour, bathed in unfamiliar moonlight, the adult in me knew that the shadows were safe - but the child in me held his hand tightly nonetheless. I whispered to the child to be brave as I moved onwards, towards the back rooms.

I had loved this house from the moment we bought it; felt safe and at home from the time I first stepped through its door . It resonated with our noise; the sounds of our lives, the din of the television and the howling of the water pipes as they fed the taps each morning. It was an old house, packed with history and character and when I walked through it by day, I could hear echoes of our conversations, our arguments, dinners we had hosted and jokes we had shared. At night, in this time, I found no echoes to disturb me. In their place were mysterious thumps, irregular creaks, the ticking of clocks. I had glanced at these clocks a thousand times before, yet I never realised we had so many until then; until it was silent and I could hear them properly. All these noises, all these shadows that I never knew were there; that spent the days hiding, biding time for nightfall, waiting for their time under the moon rather than their day in the sun. I trod quietly to the back door, aware that this may have been my house but that this was not my time; that I was just a visitor passing through these hours. The dog did not stir as I walked past her, out through the gate and into the garden.

Winter had not left yet and the night was chilled, the sky above my head a dark void punctuated only by stars. My bare feet were soaked with the night's dew by the time I passed under the grapevine and stood in the middle of the yard, surrounded by space and darkness. I looked back at the house for a long time, listening to the perpetual humming and dull crashes which the wind carried over from the nearby steelworks. Sometimes the house would creak in response and I felt like an eavesdropper, listening in on private conversations between lovers when I should have been tucked up in bed. I stayed there for some time, knowing that I would probably be tired when morning finally arrived but not caring about that. When this waking dream had started, I had not been sure if I was too early or too late. The more time I had spent in this moonlit hinterland, the more sure I became that my timing was perfect - it had just taken some time for me to realise what I was on time for.

Later - and with some reluctance - I finally went back to bed. I knew that I would sleep easily now, yet I found myself wishing I could stay longer, listen some more to the sounds that existed in these times that I didn't normally occupy. I told myself there would be other times I would wake, other nights I could invade, experience. It was this reassurance, this thought that lulled me back to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. I was awake again two hours later, summoned rudely into the next day by the chorus of my alarm. Despite my interrupted sleep, I felt wide awake and invigorated, ready to take on the world if needed. I sang along with the pipes that morning as I showered, washing the remnants of my dreams away and preparing to take my place in the sunshine. Secretly, though, I was waiting for moonlight.

Introducing Andrew.

2009-08-12T18:02:00.004+10:00

Many years ago I worked with a woman called Anne. I don't remember her surname because it didn't really matter - we all knew her as Mad Annie and it fitted so well that her surname became an irrelevance. This was the late eighties and I imagine she would have been in her late forties by then. Most days, Annie would buzz around the office wearing a check mini skirt, purple stockings and bright yellow sandals with a four inch heel. She was perpetually flushed and her hair usually alternated between purple and auburn. It was worn short at the back and long at the sides, savagely parted in the middle and hairsprayed into stiff curtains with a ferocity that only the eighties and hardcore aerosols could manage. She wore heavily-framed glasses which took the emphasis away from her piercing blue eyes and focused it on her sharp, pointy noise. She was Irish, of course. She had to be Irish: the Gods of Stereotype would have been most displeased if Mad Annie had hailed from deepest darkest Surrey. I have no idea how many years it had been since Annie had left the Emerald Isle and found herself living in Reading, but her accent gave the impression that it was only yesterday she had stepped off the mail boat and turned up for work at my office. She was deliciously weird and once you understood that she wouldn't harm a fly - let alone butcher you with scissors as the voices egged her on - she was very easy to work with. She helped you when you asked for help, laughed at all your jokes and then repeated them in a high pitched mutter over and over again, laughing to herself throughout the day.

It was Annie who first called me Andrew. She was always getting names mixed up and I thought nothing of it. Then she did it again - and again. Every time, she would apologise and make a big deal of calling me Matthew for the next ten minutes. Then before you knew it she'd be preoccupied or distracted and she'd be calling out for this Andrew character again. It got to the stage where I answered to the name and just waited for her to realise her error. In hindsight it was a schoolboy mistake - because the less I challenged her, the more she forgot that I was actually called Matthew. Somehow, for reasons I have still to fully comprehend, she found herself working on the company switchboard a few days a week. It was there that she did her finest work, telling customer after customer that there was no Matthew in the department they had specified, but there was a nice boy called Andrew who could probably help them. She would always realise her mistake eventually and laugh like a hyena as she transferred calls through to me. Direct dial eventually did away with switchboard operators and she was subsumed back into the general gopher underbelly of my office. I saw less and less of Annie, her presence eventually reduced to a rush of colour gibbering away merrily to herself as she pushed a trolley full of mail around the office twice a day.

At the time I just thought that Annie was scatty and a bit nutty, but she might have been more clued-in than I gave her credit for all those years ago. The reason I say this is because people have gotten my name wrong regularly over the years since Annie started the trend. It's always in new environments, always at the start of meetings with people I don't really know or who haven't met me many times before. You'd think that if someone was going to get my name wrong, the most obvious mistake would be to call me Michael or Mark - that's what I'd have assumed anyway. I'd have been wrong though - 99% of the time, people who get my name wrong, who don't know me or have just met me, they call me........ big drum roll......

You guessed it: Andrew.

It's occurred with such regularity that I don't even act surprised when it happens any more. All I can think is that I must look like an Andrew, whatever one of them looks like. I can only think of a few Andrews - Prince Andrew, Andrew McCarthy, Andrew Symonds - and I can't imagine anyone would struggle to tell us apart in a lineup. Anyone apart from Mad Annie, that is.

I look at pictures of myself these days and I only see a Matthew staring back at me. Maybe there's a hint of a Matt or a Matty in there, but I never see Andrew no matter how hard I look. That's fine with me. I'll answer to Matt or Matty if that's what someone calls me but deep down, I've always been a Matthew and I think I always will be. There was no 'Matt' option when I was small - I first became aware of it when Bros exploded onto the UK music scene in the mid eighties. Luke and Matt Goss were stomping around Top Of The Pops in their patent leather shoes with Grolsch tops tied into their laces and suddenly, all the cool kids I knew called Matthew were telling the world that their name was actually Matt. You could have called me many things in the mid eighties but cool was definitely not one of them so I stayed a Matthew, knowing that any comparison to Bros just wasn't going to work for me. If they had called their band Dweebo instead of Bros, it might have been a different story altogether.

As for being referrred to as a 'Matty' these days, that's something I would have cringed at until I emigrated. Those Australians love their nicknames and the antipodean twang makes being referred to as Matty just about bearable - especially knowing that I'm narrowly avoiding being called 'Matto' on a regular basis by those abbrevation-loving people I live amongst now. Even being called Andrew is better than Matto in my book.

It was so much easier when times were more simple, less complicated. In some ancient cultures, your name was chosen for you by the tribal elders and their selection process was based on the traits you exhibited as you grew up. Now in today's world, you're just given a name from birth and it's up to you to make it your own, to make it fit you. I find myself thinking how romantic it would be to have been born in those older, more simple times; to have been given a tribal name that was based on my traits - maybe I would have been named 'Soaring Eagle' - maybe even 'Flowing Feather'. Then the romance pops like a rancid water balloon as I realise the crushing truth. The reality is that the tribal elders would probably have taken one look at me and named me 'Looks Like An Andrew'.

I guess it's just as well the old ways aren't around any more. It's time to embrace the present - now I just have to decide whether to do it as Matthew, Andrew or Matto.

Fwd thinking.

2009-08-11T18:55:00.008+10:00

I switched from Hotmail to Gmail a few years ago now and I've been pretty happy with my emailing experience ever since. Gmail might not be everyone's cup of tea but it works for me. If nothing else, it's been years since I've seen anything resembling spam on my home email account. Nobody's been offering me a myriad of ways to get bigger and go harder for longer, nobody's been mailing me to claim my share of billions of bullion. Life's been quiet and it's been rather nice. These days I see the number of unread messages for my inbox and feel something resembling excitement, rather than wondering if my spam filters need to be reconfigured.

My work email is a different matter altogether and I am bombarded day in and day out with all sorts of rubbish. I can only conclude that people send stuff around at work that they wouldn't dream of sending around at home, because I'm forever getting sent faith fairies, baby angels, cutesy Disney characters, dancing kittens or wide-eyed puppies. There are Powerpoint presentations showing embarrassing people in embarrassing outfits doing embarrassing things in embarrassing locations and last but not least, many, many jokes. Every sort of joke you could possibly imagine - and some you probably couldn't or wouldn't wish to imagine. Some of these forwards are genuinely amusing but most days it's like panning for specks of gold in a wide, deep river of cack. It's easier and much more sensible to press delete and move on with your day.

Sometimes though, I read these mails prior to hitting that delete button. I have to admit that some of the more informative mails do offer some interesting concepts - whether they work or not is another matter. Most people probably hope that they never lose control of their car in wet weather and, right up until the 'aquaplane on cruise control' mail did the rounds, I was one of them. Now though, I'm secretly waiting and hoping for the day that my car aquaplanes on a puddle whilst on cruise control - then reconnects with the tarmac at something close to 200kph - just to see a) if it actually happens like that, and b) whether that revolutionary crash position that I got as a forward three months ago (and which I really should have PASS TO TEN OTHER PEOPLE NOW FOR A NICE SURPRISE!!!!) really works. Assuming it does, I should be safe as houses. It may well be a house with broken bones and internal haemorrhaging to worry about, but that's fine - somewhere in my memory banks I'm sure there's a mail entitled 'DO LIFE SAVING SURGERY ON YOURSELF WITH ONLY A WET TISSUE AND A NAILFILE OMG THIS REALLY WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE'. Dry those tears, people - thanks to the power of spammy fwds, it's looking like I'll be home in one piece and in time for Neighbours.

It's a clever twist on an old theme - how to make people read stuff they might not normally read. I used to think I was pretty savvy: I always deleted the 'get rich quick' mails because by the time I started to get them, I'd heard the rumours that there really was no such thing as free money and that these people would rob you blind if you let them. I quickly got wise to the 'tell ten people in ten minutes for an amazing dream come true' mails too. I was feeling pretty cocky, pretty confident - I was my own personal Spaminator. Then came the spate of 'this may save your life' mails and all my good work was undone by curiosity and by paranoia. Could I really afford to not read this? Really?

That was six months ago. Now I have files full of information that may or may not save my life one day. Stuck in the desert, miles from civilisation with a fully charged mobile phone but no reception? Having a heart attack at the same time? Not a problem - just enter the secret code on your mobile that allows you to dial ANYWHERE from ANYWHERE regardless of reception. Heart attack? PAH to the heart attack - the internet has proved that you just mutter the word 'cabbage' repeatedly as you cough the theme tune to Hawaii 5-O and heart problems disappear in an instant. Hello, is that the Emergency Services? Thing is, I'm stuck in the desert and I was feeling a bit ill a second ago. Can you..... An hour away, you say? Yes, that would be grand. I got this great email that told me how to change my phone into a beacon that can be seen from space, let alone be seen by the rescue helicopter you'll be sending - I'm sure you'll find me without trouble. No need to bring a medic - I'll set my own fractures while I'm waiting for you. See you in a bit - and don't forget to keep the rotor blades revving at exactly 6,112 rpm if you really do want optimal fuel efficiency....

All these emails, all these claims. They can't all be correct but which ones are true and which ones aren't? That's the first question I find myself asking. To store or not to store; that is the (second) question. There are very few of these mails I actually forward on, so I can't really believe them all - but I do seem to have filed a great deal of them, so I'm obviously not as sure as I'd like to make out.

It's the modern day equivalent of filling your nuclear shelter with tinned goods. If the world ever ends, I'll be fine - I'll know exactly what to do - my file full of THIS COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE spam will tell me. Unless of course the end of the world coincides with a power cut and I can't access my computer - in which case even an optimist like me would have to admit that he's pretty much up spam creek without a forward. Having said that, I think I have a mail on surviving a power failure stored somewhere. Best print it out now just to be safe, just in case.

The longest nights I ever knew.

2009-08-09T11:12:00.014+10:00

Many years ago now, I did volunteer work on a local crisis line. We were open to visitors but the reality was that most of our work came via the telephone. Later there would be emails, emails that encapsulated moments of desperation, of hopelessness. There was not a 'lol' in sight in these mails, definitely no 'lmao' and nobody but nobody was 'roflmao'. These were mails of sadness, of regret and despair. As I say, they came later. In the time I'm thinking of now, face to face callers were practically non-existent and our email link up was a good year away. In the time I'm thinking of now, the reality was that you sat around waiting for the phone to ring.

How often it rang was something you couldn't predict. You tend to think of crisis lines as being like an Emergency Department, casualty after casualty being wheeled in as you stand there up to your elbows in blood and guts, knowing that you will move straight on to the next when you've finished; that there will be no respite until your shift ends. The reality was often different. We were told that people got down at spring time, that we should expect to be busier around exam time, around christmas time. There's no rhyme or reason to human emotion though - sometimes we got calls close to Christmas and sometimes it was just another season. Some shifts I would walk in with an unopened book and leave, three hours later, needing to buy a new one. Some days the phone just wouldn't ring and you'd come away three hours and three coffees later telling yourself that it was a good thing; that it meant that nobody was desperate enough to feel the need to call.

Night duties were different though. The guidelines said that we had to do one every five to six weeks and they were the perfect penance for every three hour daytime shift you'd spent reading your book, wondering why you were sat there doing nothing, trying to shut out the voice inside you as it offered up its confession: Bless me father, for I have sinned. I have wished that people would be a little more desperate simply because I finished my book, because I've read all the magazines already, so that I would have something to do for the three hours of my happy little life that I offered to this crisis organisation.

Night shift was both your deserved penance and, sometimes, your salvation. We would tell new volunteers that if they expected to get a total of three and a half hours sleep - interrupted sleep at that - over the course of the night then they'd probably be pretty close to the mark. That was because night duties broke the rules. There were always calls on night duties. Always, without fail.

You would arrive at quarter past ten and talk to the volunteers you were replacing, find out if there were problems or issues that had arisen, that may rear their head throughout the night. Those volunteers would then leave and you would switch one of the phone lines off as you walked up the driveway, flashing your torch into shadows as you locked the gates behind their retreating cars. You locked the world out and locked yourself in for the night with each click of the combination padlocks we used. Nine hours later, the first volunteers of the new morning would unlock those padlocks and come in to find out how our night was gone, what state we were in. They usually found me downstairs, mildly shellshocked and smoking furiously - and that meant the night had gone well. The nights that didn't go well, I didn't want to sit around where someone might talk to me - I'd say as little as I had to, get showered and get gone; normally to work. Work was something I could do on autopilot back then and when shifts didn't go well, autopilot was a welcome mode to flick in to.

After the padlocks clicked out the world, you and the other overnight volunteer on duty would normally stay downstairs for a few hours, answering the calls in turns. You would talk in between calls, maybe make a drink. At some stage between 11pm and 1am you would normally take advantage of a pause in the traffic, agree to head up to the bedrooms on the first floor. You would always agree to knock on the wall if there was a problem in the night, if you weren't coping - and then you'd say goodnight and go into the bedroom and try to get some sleep in between the calls. You knew that the calls were normally constant until between 2am and 3am but it didn't stop you hoping for a quiet night.

There would be a lot of silent calls in the night. Some would last for a second, some would last for longer. There would be noise, indications of a presence, a life at the other end. You would ask questions, make statements, reassure the breaths at the other end of the line that you were still there. Sometimes they would begin talking, sometimes they wouldn't. The majority of silent calls lasted a second, maybe five and, one some night shifts, you could expect to log between twenty and thirty of these calls. When you added in the other callers, the confused, the drunk, the hopeless, the actively suicidal and all the others, the end result was usually three and a half hours interrupted sleep.

It was a dark sleep - I can think of no other way to describe it. You weren't asleep for long enough, nor asleep deep enough for there to be dreams. You were always listening for the next ring, always hovering in this semi state, not really alive and not really dead to the world. It was the most tiring sleep I have ever experienced and there was not a morning that came where I was not glad to see it over, to see the phone ring and look at the clock, see that my shift had ended and that the phone would be picked up by the morning volunteers already downstairs.

When you counted up your tally from the last nine hours, the night's traffic would normally number a minimum of twenty calls - including silent ones and hang-ups. Before you left and got on with your day, you would debrief to the day shift leader. They were always at home but always there in case of emergency. They would ask you how you were and you'd tell them you were tired, tell them of the calls that bothered you, that stuck. They'd tell you that they were sure you'd done a good job but ask what you might do differently if you had the call again. Sometimes you'd have an answer for them but sometimes there were only questions that went unanswered, long after you climbed into your car and headed off into a new day, into the safety and reassuring familiarity of your own life.

Alternates.

2009-08-08T17:06:00.001+10:00

These days I've long since come to peace with what I believe and what I don't believe. My beliefs have turned out to be relatively simple and straightforward - they're not esoteric, they don't involve karma and reincarnation hasn't featured for many years. Another concept I've pretty much consigned to the universal trash can is that of alternate universes and realities. The main reason for adding this bit isn't that it clashes with my faith - or lack thereof. No; the main reason I don't go for the concept of an alterate universe is the cost of accepting what it would entail: that somewhere out there is a guy who looks like me and talks like me, but isn't me - not quite me, anyway. I have a feeling that I'd take one look at him and hate him on sight.

At six feet tall, he would have a good five inches on me, for one thing. He wouldn't have started smoking at the age of twelve and consequently, his growth wouldn't have been stunted - in fact he'd never have smoked in his life. He's no fool after all; smoking kills you, it's addictive and it makes you smell bad. He'd class himself as an intelligent, educated man - and the facts about smoking speak for themselves. Why would he even start, let alone continue for years on end?

Facially, you'd have to look hard to see differences between him and I. The most obvious difference would be that his nose is straight. His wouldn't have been broken in an argument when he was fifteen and he wouldn't have the memory of lying face-down across a stranger's garden and hearing the sound of his blood dripping onto stone. He'd be able to breathe easily through both nostrils and would think nothing of it. There's no reason why he would - it would be all he'd ever known.

He would drink, but only in moderation and with some semblance of control. Control would be his watchword. Without control, you're nothing but out of control. One the rare occasion he would drink too much, he'd get a hangover like everybody else. He wouldn't enjoy coping with hangovers and would have no desire to learn that particular skill, so they would happen infrequently, would always be followed with a wry smile and a "never again". Sure, he would have had a few really bad ones when he was younger but that was then and, really, doesn't everyone outgrow that?

If you asked, he'd tell you that he was nothing special - just another standard guy. Like everybody else, he would attribute his success to hard work and dedication. When he brought a school report home that implied he 'could do better' as a child, he would take on board the comments and work extra hard at his work as a result. He would still watch television and see his friends, but he would make sure that he did his homework too. He turned into a well rounded young man, passed his exams and headed off to university. He finished with a respectable degree some four years later. He didn't excel, nor did he come close to failing. He got through university and left with a few offers of work to choose from. They were all so tempting, he couldn't decide. In the end he would ask his parents because, as he respected them and felt their opinions were always worth knowing.

Maybe I wouldn't hate him on sight, maybe that's way too strong. One thing's for sure; I don't think him and I would get on. We're very different people, despite the fact that we look so similar. There have been times in my life where I've looked at this alterate version, and thought how good it would be to have his traits, strengths, facets - how good it would be not to be flawed. Yet the more time passes, the more it turns out that I actually like my flaws. They're what mark me out from being people like him and I'm actually pleased about that. It turns out that the main reason I dislike him is because he seems so sterile, he has no flaws, no traits. Those are the things that enrich us, that mark us as who we are - more than our height, weight and eye colour. They give us our experiences and our stories and I find myself wondering if this perfect version has any stories to tell. One thing I know for certain is that the flawed one does.

Stereotypically speaking.

2009-08-07T17:30:00.006+10:00

1.

It was impossible to sleep in this heat. I tried my hardest to drift back to my dreams but it was just too hot. The flies didn't help either - they came early on days like this, buzzing around my head in the derelict shack that I called a home. I opened one eye and looked through the broken, dirty window set high in the wall. The sun was low in the sky and I put the time at around six in the morning. I crawled from the sweaty pile of blankets on the floor that passed as my bed and checked to make sure that my arse wasn't hanging out through one of the many holes in my longjohns. Then I pulled on my boots, grabbed my hat with the corks hanging from the brim, wedged it onto my head and went outside. The heat hit like a wave as soon as I opened the door and stepped out of my shack and I stood there and hawked up the night's phlegm, spitting it into the red, dry dirt that passed for earth around these parts. Only six in the morning and strewth, it was like a flamin' oven already. Welcome to another beaut day in paradise, cobber.

I'd gone hard on the grog last night and felt fair crook this morning. I could see the outhouse dunny on the other side of the paddock but it was too far to walk and I couldn't be bothered to check for Redbacks and Funnelwebs before I sat down. I didn't have any toilet paper anyway - I'd used my last roll last week and the pub wasn't due to get another shipment until the flying doctor brought it at the end of the month. The shipments came more frequently a few years ago, but there were more of us then. Now there was just me, Macca, Linda and Micko left out here. I counted the losses off in my head as I walked to check on the dogs: Pete got taken by a croc eighteen months back and we lost Danno to a box jellyfish soon after. Linda was still around but she may as well have gone with the rest of them. She was never really the same after that dingo stole her baby and it had been months since we'd last seen her in the pub. The last to go was Stevo.... poor Stevo. I wiped the tears from my eyes - it was too soon to talk about Stevo and the stingray attack, the emotion was still too raw. Maybe a few schooners of Fosters would help - they usually did the job and they'd do wonders for my hangover too. I concentrated on the grog and forgot about the dogs - I'd got nothing to feed them anyway. Off I went on the walk into town, thinking that it would be close on seven in the morning by the time I arrived. That was good - those foreigners in their foreign places may think us a bunch of savages but we tried to keep our standards around here - and only a mongrel would hit the piss before seven in the morning.

I'd been walking for around ten minutes when I saw William. His name wasn't really William but I couldn't ever pronounce his real name because we don't speak Aboriginal out here. No need is there - they all get taught Australian when the mission takes them from their families and raises them the Christian way. It was the mission that renamed him William and I always thought it suited him much better than his other name, that one with all the vowels that I couldn't remember any more. I waved to him as I passed and he put down his boomerang for a moment to wave back. I'd always liked William - he was a fair dinkum bloke and I'd happily let him buy me a beer on the day they ever decide to serve his kind in the pub. He told me that he'd already caught three 'roos that morning and he'd got enough meat to feed his family for the rest of the week. I asked him if he'd sell me some - I couldn't stomach the muck but I knew my dogs would love it. "Sure I will, Mr Whitefella" he replied. "I'll swap it for a flagon eh?" I promised to pick him one up in town and carried on my way, leaving him sitting under a Billabong tree and blowing into that painted hollow stick of his. Bloody racket it made - give me proper music like AC/DC or Jimmy Barnes over that rubbish any day.

I reached the pub just after seven and walked in, offering a g'day to Micko as I pulled up a bar stool. He slid a tinny across to me and we had a yarn, then another tinny, then another yarn. Macca came in just after nine, ready for a drink after a hard hour's work trying to start his Ute. "Bastard's fucked, mate" he opined and me and Micko nodded sagely. Macca was the best mechanic out of all of us - if he said something was fucked, you'd have to be a goose to call it virginal. Micko slid another tinny of Fosters over the counter to him. "Have a drink, mate. Get it down you - she'll be 'right. Later we'll throw some shrimps on the barbie, power up the generator, maybe see if we can pick up the footy game. The aerial came down in the last storm but it's still hanging in the right direction so we may get lucky, get enough of a signal to give us some half-decent reception at times. Now though, let's have another drink - and let's have a toast. To Stevo - love you mate... love you....."

2.

My boss came over to me, a quizzical expression etched across his face. He was brandishing a piece of paper; the print-out of an email he had just received from an overseas client. I could tell that something was on his mind before he spoke.

"Every time someone from overseas contacts me, they always say 'g'day' in their email - like everyone thinks it's something we all say all the time. Where does that come from - do you poms and everybody else really think we say g'day all the time?"

I thought back to my own life in the days when all I knew about Australia was gleaned from a screen. I thought of 'Crocodile Dundee', of advertisements for Fosters beer. I thought of watching 'Neighbours' and of Charlene telling Scott to rack off, whatever that meant. I thought of the number of characters on 'Home & Away' who mysteriously moved away to a place called Yabby Creek whenever the actor left the show in real life. It brought it home loud and clear: That it's all too easy to labour on under a cloud of misapprehension. It's not just restricted to Australians - you could probably be forgiven if you once thought that all Americans said 'gee' a lot, wore check pants and ate deep fried burgers only slightly smaller than the cameras they always wore. Or that the English cut the crusts off their cucumber sandwiches, wore bowler hats and called everyone 'old chap' as they played endless games of croquet on the lawn. Or that the French - those cheese-eating surrender monkeys themselves - were always rude and haughty and refused to speak English even though they could. Every nation has a stereotype of their own and the list could go on, much as I could go on. I won't - you probably get the picture by now.

I'm not sure we'll ever eradicate the stereotypes totally and I told my boss this, told him of what I knew of Australia growing up as a young boy, the images that formed the collage, that shaped the picture piece by piece. His expression as I finished was one of disbelief.

"Fosters? That stuff's piss. Why do you think we send it all over to you lot?"

My lot? I don't even know who my lot are any more. These days I feel part of such a number of lots, it's almost impossible to pick one above the other. Only time will tell whether that turns out to be a case of safety in numbers or merely a case of exposing myself to more opportunities for typecasting.

Slowing the pace.

2009-08-06T18:03:00.001+10:00

I notice him from a distance as I stand on the foreshore and look out across the harbour, watching as three large tug boats slowly reverse a tanker into its berth beside the monolithic grain silos. He is an elderly man, frail and moving tentatively, painfully slowly. He does not stride, not even walk. Instead he shuffles one foot an inch in front of the other and his progress is almost torturous to observe. The tanker is almost berthed by the time he is close to me and, by the time I have to turn my head to see him pass, all three tug boats have released their guide ropes and set off to dock on the other side of the basin.

The coffee I hold in my hand is still hot, faint steam rising and dissipating on the faint breeze of this fine afternoon. Its heat restricts me to intermittent, stolen sips and I find my eyes again drawn to the old man, following his slow progress along the foreshore, away from where I stand. It is unlikely that his entire life has been spent at such a crawl; more likely that age has robbed him of the mobility he took for granted; mobility that I accept without so much as a second thought. I wonder if such involved micro-motion is something that he has become accustomed to over time, whether he looks into the distance with tacit acceptance that everyone will cross the finish line long before him. I find myself hoping that to be true, unwilling to contemplate the thought that within that old, fragile body could lie the soul of the athlete from his younger years, constantly yearning to escape this infirm prison and wishing he could sprint, beat everyone and cross that line first.

It seems an inescapable truth that our pace will change as our lives progress. Today my pace is steady and my stride measured but it was not always so. Living in London made it faster, made me accelerate simply to keep up. Morning would come and I would march to the tube station, joining the fast flowing river of commuters that became a torrent as it wound down steps, into the guts of the underground system and on to the congested platforms buried so deep beneath the pavement. The train would stop, the doors would open and I would cram myself into a carriage, desperate for the doors to close and for my journey to begin. The clock was always ticking and, once my train stopped and I disembarked, steps would be taken two at a time as I strived to get there on time, to get back on schedule. I had no choice but to quicken, to swerve and to sidestep. I would mutter curses at the slower traffic, the tourists armed with their cameras, intent on taking their pictures and soaking in their surroundings. I was trying to get somewhere - they were already where they desired, determined to make the moment last. I had to get through their moment if I had any chance of being on time for my own. The tourists were just a distraction, an annoyance, a hindrance.

I was still living in London when I first met her. She told me that I walked fast on our very first date, asked me to slow down so that she could keep up with me. I told her of my grandfather, of the long walks we would take through the countryside before his own pace stuttered and died, before he became an old man tied to his house by the the thin oxygen tubes that crisscrossed each room and fed him each breath. I told her that I had been a young boy trying to keep up with a grown man; that I had learned to walk fast to keep up with him and that the pace had stuck - but that was only half a truth. The other half was down to me, be it through conscious decision or silent acceptance over the years. I could not explain this to her, this woman for whom time was a loose construct rather than a binding mesh, and I didn't try. Instead I slowed my pace to walk beside her, to enjoy her company and the time we would share. Six years on and thousands of miles removed from that first date, we still share our time and it's been a while since my life was defined by rushing or marching. It's not something I pine for these days. These days I'm with the tourists, the slower traffic. Here, today in this moment, I'm comfortable with my more sedate pace. Maybe that will change over time and maybe it won't. I'm not worrying about it for now.

My coffee is has cooled and I finish it, sneaking a look at my watch in between sips. Ten minutes of my lunchtime remain and I know that the walk back will take around five minutes, so there's no need to rush. I look behind me one more time - the old man is far in the distance now and I watch as he finally turns the corner and disappears from view. I begin my slow walk back to the office and the sound of my footsteps on the tarmac remind me of the steady tick of a metronome, its weight fixed higher on the pendulum than previously.

The boxer, awards and a late acknowledgment.

2009-08-05T17:24:00.009+10:00

Geoff had been a boxer in his day. The rumour was that he hadn't just been good, he'd been exceptional. He boasted numerous knock-outs and his win-loss record was the envy of every local fighter in every local gym. He held local belts and state belts and was looking forward, looking ahead to national titles and beyond.

Something happened somewhere along the line. The grand plan deserted him and his fall from grace was both swift and brutal. He went from fighting challengers to fighting his demons and they were tougher opponents than he was used to. They ducked his moves, had jabs and punches that he couldn't block and their hits landed hard, left marks that he would bear for the rest of his years. It was only a matter of time before they knocked him down, flat on his back. He lost his belts, his health, the future he'd been so sure was waiting for him.

I met him four years ago now, sitting on the bus as I travelled to the first day of my brand new job in a brand new country. There were plenty of empty seats but mine was a new face, a face he didn't know. He greeted everyone on the bus by name before sitting next to me, smiling and introducing himself. He asked my name and commented that he'd not seen me before. I told him why, told him of moving here and of my excitement at finding work so quickly. I told him that today was my first day of work and that I was hoping it went well. He asked if I could spare a cigarette and I apologised, telling him that I no longer smoked. He didn't see a need to apologise and told me not to worry; that I'd caught him on a good day. He told me about his faith, how it had saved him and how God helped him with his battle against life's trials and ordeals. I'm normally wary when religion enters a conversation but this wasn't a conversation designed to convert me; merely to inform me. He got off fifteen minutes later, shaking me by the hand and telling me that he liked my face, that it was a kind face. He told me that he would include me in his prayers as the doors hissed shut and he disappeared onto the pavement.

There were many mornings with Geoff and many conversations that lasted fifteen minutes, the duration of my journey into work. On the good days he would climb aboard, say hello to everyone he knew and then sit next to me. He would ask about my wife, my job, about the life I used to have back in England. I would ask him how he was that day, how his life was going and what he had planned in town. It was always the same; he was going to the Christian bookshop to talk about God, read books about God, buy little cards with God's messages on them. Sometimes he would give me one of these cards and I would always thank him and take it. He knew by now that I was an atheist and was unlikely to be converted, yet still he offered me his cards. I would read each card once and then leave it on a bench, hopeful that it would benefit somebody the way he intended. He would still ask for cigarettes and during the times I was smoking again, I would always tell him to take two rather than just one. He would offer me a handful of silver for them and I would tell him not to worry, that it was fine just the way it was. He was by far the least pushy Christian I ever encountered and that alone was worth a few cigarettes now and then.

By this time his battle with the bottle was long under control, but still you sensed the demons hovering, waiting on his shoulder. Some mornings he would board the bus looking every inch a beaten up former flyweight who was the wrong side of sixty. On these days I noticed how heavily the lines sat on his face, how his clothes were creased and dirty. I noticed his nose, lips and ears; smashed and broken from his hard, hard landing after freefalling for an age - and how his hair, normally Brylcreemed like a fifties matinee idol, would hang limp and as lifeless as the look in his eyes. If I greeted him, he would greet me back. Other than that he would rarely speak, the conflict with his God, with his depression holding him preoccupied and silent. He would stare into space the whole journey and I would wonder what he saw there, yet I never asked and he never told me. He would get off at his usual stop and go silently, slowly into his day. Sometimes his day would contain answers and sometimes it wouldn't. His enthusiasm and faith would be restored on the days when answers could be found and he would return the next day and be smiling, animated, handing out cards and offering his prayers. He would flirt with the women and tell bad jokes at Christmas and Easter. At times like this it was easy to see the remnants of the man who would have been a champion, not the man who could have been a contender.

He's been gone a while now. I don't know how or where; all I know is that he stopped appearing at his usual stop one day. Days turned into months, new faces filled the seats and life moved on as it always does. I don't know what happened to him and I sense that I won't find out; that this is how it goes sometimes. People drift through our lives and sometimes they leave an imprint. Sometimes they stay for a while, sometimes they move on. Geoff moved on but his imprint remains and I'm as grateful for that as I am for all the other imprints I have collected over these years. My only regret is that I didn't keep one of his cards - just one - to store alongside them.

Today I was fortunate enough to get an award from the lovely Nancy over at f8hasit. It's not something I was expecting and I'm very touched that she thought of me, as indeed I'm touched that anyone reads the stuff I put here - let alone feels inclined to comment. The plan is that I pass this award on to others and I will do; just not today. Nancy's award got me thinking and today there's only one title I feel I should hand out. It's one I should have handed out four years ago and I hope that it's not too late now.

When you move to a new country you leave behind a multitude of people who know your name, know your order in pubs and coffee shops. You start from scratch in this new country and it takes time before that sense of belonging returns, before people greet you by name and your drink is ready and waiting for you as you reach the counter to order it. That makes Geoff's imprint a special one. He was the first person in a country where I knew nobody, the first stranger to ask my name, to remember it and use it. So this award goes to a man who lost his other titles many years before I knew him; a man who sat next to me, asked my name, made my transition smoother at a time in my life when these things mattered. This award's for Geoff, with my belated thanks and eternal gratitude. It doesn't need to be defended and no demons can strip him of this particular belt. Wherever he is right now, I take comfort in knowing that this one's his to keep.

The ghost of Wankmas past.

2009-08-04T18:12:00.005+10:00

They say that your whole life flashes before your eyes just before you die. Personally I'm hoping there's a pause button available so that I can reminisce fondly over some of the more memorable moments, the ones that define me and mark me down as this guy rather than that other guy. If I do get to pause, I can think of a few moments I'll want to linger on. Hanging off a railway bridge in the dead of night, the wash of an express train travelling six feet below me at close to 100mph buffeting my swinging body; that's one right there. Stupid, granted, but quite an adrenalin rush. My first date with my wife, the one which lasted for eight hours and had her family convinced that she'd been abducted; that's another. Not so stupid and an infinitely better rush. I'm sure there will be other moments which are memorable for different reasons; the times I thought I might die, for example. One thing I'm certain about is that the Green Room will feature - I'm just not sure what category it will fall into. Maybe the one marked 'surreal moments'.

I first heard of the Green Room in 2005. I'd been in the country for a matter of months and my wife and I were sitting in a private clinic in our home town talking about starting IVF. We'd been trying to have a child together almost since we met, without any success. There had been numerous tests carried out, numerous samples given. They all lead us to this clinic, sitting in a room and talking with a nurse about IVF; the procedures involved, the costs incurred and the chances of success. We were told that we had as good a chance as anyone and we really did want to expand our family. We paid the money and took the odds. It would be two years and another four unsuccessful IVF cycles later before we admitted defeat, took some time off and considered other options.

In essence, IVF treatment goes something like this: the woman gets a nasal spray full of drugs to take every day and there are also a number of injections involved. They stimulate the production of eggs over a week or so, leading eventually to a half-day appointment at a local hospital for an egg harvest. If you're lucky you get a fair number of eggs and they are then injected with sperm and monitored for between three and five days. Then the most healthy embryos are re-implanted and you wait two weeks to see if you're pregnant. The process is harder on the woman than it is the man. She has to endure a number of injections, made worse by the fact that the man giving them - her partner - often has zero experience in actually giving injections. Then there's the bloating and the procedure under local anaesthetic. The man has it easy - all he has to do is visit the Green Room.

If you put 'green room' into Wikipedia, it defines it as "a room in a theatre, studio or other public venue for the accommodation of performers or speakers when not required on the stage". This was my understanding too. I'd only ever heard of it as a backstage area for chat-show guests and I imagined myself sitting in comfort and dining on vol-au-vents and sausage rolls, sipping a soft drink as my wife recovered from the local anaesthetic and procedure. There may be a few of us guys there, I thought. Maybe there would even be celebratory cigars, the big fat Cuban ones. I mentioned this to my wife as we left the first appointment and the look she gave me was part bemusement and part disgust. She then proceeded to shatter my illusion once and for all. The Green Room was badly named. A better name would have been the Wank Tank. All of a sudden I realised that they needed to get the sperm somehow, and The Green Room was where it happened. Forget about food and cigars; you're there for a different kind of party altogether.

The injections happened, the harvest day arrived and we went into hospital for the first time. The collection went relatively smoothly and I sat with my wife afterwards as she recovered, still drowsy from the anaesthetic. The nurse had told me that you could take partners into the Green Room to help you... achieve the desired result.... if it was necessary. I looked at my wife, lying in a reclining chair and staring blankly into space, still off her head on the anaesthetic. I didn't see how taking her in would give me any ideas, in all honesty. She'd done her part - now I had my own (hand) job to do. I walked slowly to the head nurse's office and collected the key to the Green Room, along with a very little plastic jar with my name written across it. My own jar. How touching.

I unlocked the door and walked in for the very first time. I noticed a few things immediately. Firstly, it wasn't green. Secondly, much to my disappointment, there wasn't a vol-au-vent in sight. Thirdly, there was an awful lot of porn there. An awful lot.

If you asked most guys how they'd feel if their wife gave them express permission to go into a room filled with porn and spend some time indulging themselves, they'd probably tell you it wouldn't be a problem. They may even look as though all their christmasses had come at once. Not me, not this time. I looked at the vinyl chaise-longue in the corner, next to the magazines and facing the television. A dvd sat alongside it, just in case the magazines didn't float your boat. I thought about putting the dvd on and turning the volume up to maximum, filling the hospital with a shrieked chorus of 'YEAH, YEAH, OH HARDER BABY, YEAH', but the thought was fleeting and lacked any real conviction. I doubt I'd have fooled anybody and, in all honesty, I wasn't feeling like much like a Studley Dooright by then. Catholics have it all wrong you know. Forget about telling kids that they'll go blind or go to hell; if you want to put them off self-abuse, give them the keys to a Green Room and tell them to knock themselves out. So much porn, such little inclination or desire to use it. Something is wrong with this picture, definitely.

I came out later to find that my wife was starting to feel a bit better. She asked how it had gone and I wasn't really sure what to tell her. Part of you feels like you've been unfaithful by yourself in a room full of porn and part of you feels like you've just done something that truly demonstrates the strength of your love and commitment. I told her about the porn and the jar, about the vinyl chaise-longue I hadn't been game to sit on - let alone recline on - and the fact that the Green Room was not green in the slightest. "It's actually white" I told her. She didn't seem surprised but then again, she'd known there wouldn't be any sausage rolls where I was going. It didn't stop her asking if I'd enjoyed the food though, or laughing like a drain as she did so. I didn't fight back - it seemed pointless. As my loins would have told you that day, you know when you're well and truly beaten.

That new car smell.

2009-08-03T17:30:00.000+10:00

We drive to their house to travel down to Sydney together. The event is being held in a hotel, a cocktail party for graduates present and past. I never went to university but the three of them did and it's a chance to catch up with a friend they've not seen in fifteen years. The agreement is that they pay for petrol and we pay for parking. Driving is equally split, with him driving us down and me driving us back.

We take their car - a relatively new wagon. They bought it recently after weeks of deliberation and comparison and we've heard all about it since. It's a few years old, has around 20,000km on the clock and they say it's comfortable and drives well, much better and more reliable than our old station wagon. I notice the smell as soon as I climb in. It smells pristine, of clean seats and new plastic. The drive down is uneventful and we talk about everything and nothing. We cross the Harbour Bridge after sunset, negotiate the CBD and park at the hotel without incident.

The event itself is less arduous than I was expecting. As a relative newcomer to this country and their lives, I am well versed in listening, of paying attention to memories I was not part of, involving people I never knew. Their friend makes tonight easy for me. He is funny, witty and intelligent. I can see why they liked him, why we drove this way to see him and I find myself hoping that we do it sooner next time. The five of us head to an upstairs bar after the event officially finishes, sinking back into expansive leather armchairs, ordering drinks and coffee and talking some more. Behind us, a woman plays piano and sings and time passes easily. It's close to midnight by the time he says goodbye and we head to our car and plan our journey home.

Our female companion realises that she has forgotten her coat at the moment of departure. Her husband goes with her, back up to the desk to retrieve it. They are gone for an age and my wife and I talk. Eventually we tiring of talking and find new ways to entertain ourselves. We conclude our research just in time as our companions come back around the corner, some thirty minutes later.

The woman is upset. Her coat cannot be found and she is oblivious to anything else. Her husband comments that the car smells musty and opens a window as we drive home. Neither of us say a word. Musty isn't the word I'd have picked but I choose not to share the more appropriate adjective - he'd only hit me for a valeting bill I could do without.

It is after midnight as we cross the Harbour Bridge again, heading north up the highway and back to our lives. We stop on the way for provisions, food and drink to keep us sustained for the rest of the journey. They walk ahead, finally giving me time and opportunity to re-buckle my belt properly and make myself decent. They doze in their seats as I drive us home and I'm left alone with my thoughts. They weren't wrong - the car is comfortable. I can honestly say that it turned out to offer levels of comfort I truly wasn't expecting.

Her coat turns up the next day. The hotel says they'll post it and our female companion's mood improves as a result. "We should drive down to Sydney together more often" she says. I nod my head in agreement, not trusting myself to speak.

Homework as an adult.

2009-08-02T10:51:00.008+10:00

The sky today is a perfect shade of blue; deep and vibrant and humming with weak winter warmth. It stretches for miles without break, without even a whisper, a trace of cloud. It's been this way for days - clear and warm as the sun arcs slowly above our heads. Each day it returns with a little more strength, fighting off winter as surely as we fight off the coughs and sneezes that this season brings.

Today we are two; just me and the kid. My wife left early today, travelling to Sydney for a lunch with friends. She will return long after the sun has set and the house will be filled with the scent of her perfume and the tales that she comes home bearing, words streaming from her mouth ten to the dozen. She will ask how my day went, so I'd best have something to report.

I plan time in the yard for today. Winter is a time of hibernation but also neglect. Things that we cherished, helped flourish over summer and autumn have been left to their own devices these past few cold months. Some have died, some have spread and some have gone native. Now, as winter enters its death-throes, the time has come to cut back, to replant, to weed and renew. Plots require stripping and new plants need to be dug into the soil in their place. Only this way will there be tomatoes, potatoes and beans on our plates over the coming months. We could buy them at the supermarket, of course, but the crop produced from our own efforts and our own garden tastes different, sweeter, the flavours condensed and heightened somehow. The realist in me says that it's just less additives in home-grown stuff but the optimist keeps whispering that what I taste is a sense of achievement. I like to listen to the optimist, especially on days like today.

Grass will be cut and the cuttings piled to compost. The grapevines that flourish so voraciously over the warmer months will be cut back to within an inch of their lives now. They have been here for over twenty years and I take confidence from knowing that I would struggle to kill them even if I tried, that they will recover from my crude hatchet job and bring back sweet, black grapes throughout the months ahead. For the last three years I have promised myself that I would make jam with those grapes. Maybe this will be the year.

I find the kid in the lounge room, eating toast and watching Sunday morning cartoons. I tell him where I'm going and what I'm doing. Out of duty rather than desire, he asks if I want some help out there. I tell him no, tell him that he can do his homework instead. He nods his head, secretly happy not to be involved and I don't really blame him. Going outside and making things grow isn't something I was keen on as a child either. When I was his age, I watched my parents in the garden from a vantage point in the warm, playing some game on some basic 1980s computer system. If they asked me to help, I always had a reason why I couldn't. It was rarely homework-related though, and I take comfort in the fact that the kid may be typical, but at least he's not typical of me. He may just do alright for himself.

He knows where I am if he needs me. I head outside and into my Sunday, armed only with gloves, secateurs and the words of an optimist for company .

Shadows.

2009-07-31T13:29:00.012+10:00

Her family moved from Sydney when she was young, travelling a few hours up the highway and settling in a small lakeside village many miles from the nearest settlement of any significance. Her father and mother ran the local boat hire and her younger brother grew up wearing a lifejacket, safeguarding him in the event that he wandered away and fell off the wharf. It happened frequently, so she tells it. She went on long bush walks with her twin sister, sailed catamarans on the lake and caught fish, eels and squid armed only with a hook and a line. She had her first kiss there - the boy with soft lips who became a man and who, years after her life had moved on from this lakeside settlement, would take his life and extinguish it for reasons he never explained. She did unspeakably cruel things to Toadfish, the kind of things you can only get away with as a child. Ants and magnifying glasses, Toadfish and stamping feet. Curiosity is a defence against a multitude of childhood crimes.

When she talks about these years at the lake, it always sounds idyllic to me. Winter never happens in these tales and I picture her existing in a blaze of heat and sunshine, her skin brown from a life spent outdoors, not inside playing on gaming consoles or glued to a computer. She shows me photographs taken during these years and I recognise the woman in those pictures of a girl. I wish I'd met her sooner, been her friend back then. My lips were as soft as his, I'm sure - but I'm equally sure that we'd not have kissed, her and I. She would have been kind and friendly but nothing more. I was trying too hard to be somebody else back then, somebody cool. Turns out that she never went for the cool kids much.

Inevitably there is a darker side to this life. She talks of nights barricading her door, protecting herself from the drunken, angry noises on the other side. She talks of shouting, of arguments, of crying. She talks of her brother, the boy who grew up in a lifejacket, and of slipping notes under his door when he was sad, when he had been banished in a maelstrom of harsh words for some minor offence, blown out of proportion by too many wines or beers. She speaks of tears and fear, of wishing she could leave and of her mother bundling the children into a bomby old car and leaving him again, this time for good. They always returned, the summers continued and the photographs from this time show the smiles, only the smiles. Photographs cannot tell a whole story though; all they can capture is a moment, an instant. Sometimes all we see are the smiles. Look at the eyes though, and sometimes you can see shadows there if you look closely.

Today, some thirty years later, that lakeside settlement has moved on. Her family moved on too, moving out long ago. The boat hire is gone but the house still stands, with new owners forming new memories within its walls. We have been back to the house and to the lake on a few occasions over these past years. When we do so, the memories she talks of are the good ones, the ones captured on film which show a time when summers seemed eternal and nothing bad ever happened. Sometimes when we are alone, we touch on the negatives hidden in the pouch behind those photographs. She accepts them as part of her life, who she was and who she is. I see her as strong, resilient and I tell her that. She tells me that some days she doesn't feel strong and I tell her that it's okay; that we all have days like that.

I look back at the photographs we take together now, photographs which her son will use one day to remember his own childhood. We look happy and carefree, smiles as fierce as the sun which blazed down upon her, a young girl in a small settlement on the side of a lake all those years ago. I look back at the photographs we take that day, looking for shadows in her eyes, in her son's eyes, in my own. I look closely and I look for a long time but see none. Today at least, in this frozen moment, all eyes are clear.

Contemplation and the car.

2009-07-30T17:28:00.008+10:00

Picture the scene; a middle class town in the affluent south-east of England. It's the mid-nineties, maybe three years before Tony Blair and his cohorts take over the UK and everyone learns the chorus to 'Things Can Only Get Better' off by heart - admittedly not a very difficult task, given that the title's almost the entire chorus. These are innocuous times, better than the Thatcher years but a few years removed from the nationwide euphoria of Euro 96 and the subsequent feelgood factor that predates Labour's landslide victory in the 1997 election. Other things that have yet to occur include two first marriages, one second marriage and the arrival on the scene of one knife-wielding ex-girlfriend. I have recently split from another unsuitable girlfriend and have moved back to live with my mother and brother - except that my brother isn't there very much. He is still doing his law degree in Oxford, an hour up the road from where we live in a leafy suburb on the outskirts of Reading.

I am in my early to mid twenties at this time and if there is any stigma attached to moving back in with your mother, it doesn't really impact on me. In these times, I am constantly protected by a big shield of alcohol fumes. They deflect everything - nothing gets within 20 feet of me unless I want it to. Sadly it also works on women, whether I like it or not. I resign myself to a single life, nights at the pub with my friends, marathon sessions playing computer or watching videos and lying in bed mastur...... sorry; contemplating my life. If I had the motivation to spend less time contemplating my life and more time actually contemplating my life then maybe things would be different. I might be at Ikea instead, looking at flatpack furniture called Oddo or Stengaar, hand-in-hand with someone called Stephanie or Ruth. In reality, that Babylon-5 box set isn't going to watch itself and regardless of that, it's hard to concentrate on anything serious when your wrist's aching like hell from all that contemplation I've been up to.

My brother comes back from university for the holidays and I am pleased to see him. This is still a relatively new sensation as my brother and I have spent many years at loggerheads. We fight and bicker throughout our childhood and into our teens but become closer the older we both get. We get on well by the time he goes off to university at eighteen, to the extent that I often go up to Oxford and spend an evening or a weekend with him. So yes, having my brother back home for the holidays is a good thing. If nothing else it gives me another person to go to the pub with.

The pattern is often the same. My brother and I will walk the short distance to our local pub, the Bull & Chequers. We will sit there and put the world to rights over a few pints. Later I might persuade him on to the spirits; typically bourbon or, in his case, gin & tonic. Then as the night is winding down and the bell for last orders is being clanged, we will have the inevitable conversation about going on to a club. Inevitably it happens and inevitably we find ourselves at Sindleshams, not because it is a great club - that doesn't exist in Reading - but because it is relatively close to the pub and someone has walked through the pub handing out flyers which give you entry to Sindleshams free of charge.

It is three of us on the night in question; my brother, his friend Mike and I. We've drunk our fill at the Bull & Chequers and have taken a taxi over to Sindleshams. We sit there on the first floor of this grotty club and look around at all the girls and boys strutting around in their finery. They look like they're having fun. We, on the other hand, look like three men in slightly dodgy clothes who probably don't have girlfriends. We sit around our corner table, drink our drinks and carry on talking. In all honesty the night was looking like a non-event a while back and it's only getting worse as time passes. We don't have a great deal of money left and Sindleshams is a dull, dull place if you're in any way sober. A relatively early night is looking on the cards, right up to the point that I go up to the bar to get the next round of drinks.

I've had a cash card for some years now but, for some reason, I've only ever used it to withdraw money from ATMs. The idea of swiping for purchases hasn't really occurred to me but all of a sudden, standing at the bar, I see their EFTPOS machine and something in my head clicks. I look at the pile of silver in my hand, just enough for three halves of lager before a tragic return home, and I put it back in my pocket. Then I get out my debit card and reassess our drinks requirements. One swipe later and I need a tray to carry the order back to our table. We decide to keep hold of the tray for when we go back and order again. My bank seem oblivious of the fact that my account has no money in it, so it seems stupid not to take advantage of their accidental generosity. All of a sudden, a totally mediocre night is looking..... still mediocre actually - but at least we have the resources available to drink ourselves into a coma. Thank heaven for small mercies.

A few hours later we leave Sindleshams and get a taxi home, having drunk god knows how many Budweisers and tequila slammers. There may even have been B52s involved. The cab drops us a short walk from our house, presumably because we don't have the full fare between us. We start the five minute walk back to the house, unware that the fun's not really started yet.

Mike and my brother carry on walking when I stop to answer a call of nature. We are cutting back down an alley, it is dark and very late and I really can't hang on until we get home. I say that I'll catch them up and I watch them wander off down the alleyway as I get up close and personal with a fence. Eventually I finish, put everything back where it's meant to go and start walking to catch them up. I reach the bottom of the alleyway and come onto the road, a quiet cul-de-sac road, the kind that Harry Potter's aunt and uncle would live on. My brother and Mike are nowhere to be seen and that comes as a surprise. Have I really taken that long to pee? It hadn't seemed like it. No matter, they'll be heading to the house and so I carry on walking. The street is deserted apart from a young couple standing next to a car and I think nothing of it until I draw level with them and they call me over.

"Are you with those guys that just came past?"

I've had a few drinks but I can tell by the tone in their voice that they haven't stopped me to tell me that my brother or Mike have accidentally dropped their wallet on their way home. I play it safe.

"I'm by myself - why?"

Technically that's not a lie. I am by myself. They can see I've walked up alone but I think asking them 'why' probably blows a big hole in my carefully constructed cover. Not that it matters - they are in the mood to be expansive.

"We were just about to go to bed up there" says the man, gesturing up towards the upstairs window of a nearby house. "We were looking down at my new car that I picked up this morning when these two guys walked up, looked at it and then climbed onto the bonnet. They walked across the roof and down on to the boot, then jumped off. I banged on the window and they ran off. Are you sure you don't know who they are?"

My last utterance might not have been a lie, technically speaking. The next words out of my mouth most definitely are.

"No, sorry. If I see them I'll let you know".

Why I say that, lord only knows. It's so obviously a lie and all three of us know it. I start to walk towards my street. I don't look back - only a guilty person would look back. I do however decide to take a slightly longer route back to the house, just in case they haven't believed me to the extent where they decide to follow me. I walk fast, cutting through a garage block and walking an extra street before heading back to the house. I've seen nobody, so I am pretty sure they've not followed me.

I am right. They've not followed me. They've not needed to, as they are standing outside my house when I get there. They are in the middle of a very loud argument with my brother and Mike, who appear to have been waiting for me to show up with keys to let us all in. The man doesn't look surprised to see me but he is too busy screaming at my brother and Mike, accusing them of being vandals, louts and thugs. When he's forced to pause for breath, his girlfriend takes over. It turns out that she's the scarier of the two but that doesn't concern me too much. Somehow I have lucked out of this predicament. Somehow this is my brother's argument, not mine. It makes a refreshing change to watch somebody else getting in trouble - I could definitely get used to this, I think. I contemplate going in to bed and leaving them to it, but they are blocking the doorway and anyway, as much as I like my brother these days there is no way I can miss watching Golden Boy getting a verbal kicking of this calibre. My only regret is that I have no popcorn - this is better than the cinema any day of the week.

My brother is studying law at this time in his life, but even he knows he can't win this argument. He is very apologetic and remorseful. Mike isn't being anywhere near as co-operative. When the man threatens to call the police, Mike chips in with a very calming and helpful "he's studying law at Oxford - you can't beat him. Do what you want, it won't work". The guy and girl get even more animated and I wish I had a large coke as well as popcorn at this stage. The decibel level gets louder and I look up at the darkened windows around us, waiting for one of them to open and a neighbour to scream more abuse at us. As fun as it is, it probably needs to calm down now and reluctantly, I step in and apologise on behalf of my brother and Mike and tell the couple that they know where we live if they want to take it further in the cold light of day. Words to that effect. I'm polite and reasoned and eventually they get tired of arguing. After all, it's late, what's done is done and they've shouted themselves hoarse. Finally they leave. Mike gives them a head-start just to be safe, then goes home himself leaving my brother and I alone in our front garden. We go into the house and away from the spotlight of public scandal and neighbourly humiliation. I am sure I see several pairs of curtains twitch as we close the door behind us.

The next morning, I find the whole chain of events quite funny. My brother isn't meant to do this kind of thing. He's spent his life being the clever one, the smart one, the one with serious prospects. It's only taken twenty years but it turns out that we've found something I'm good at and which he sucks at - getting away with criminal behaviour. He's suitably chastened by the night's escapades and I can get away with taking the mickey out of him for a bit, so I do so mercilessly. It's only after I've sung the theme song to Prisoner Cell Block H for the 20th time that he snaps and tells me to fuck off. We never hear from, or see, the couple whose car got trashed and my brother eventually goes on to graduate in Law rather than find himself being pinched by its long arm. It's probably better this way - I suspect he'd wouldn't have enjoyed being a prisoner's wife.

All these years later, we're both older and wiser. My criminal activity is confined to illegal downloads and, to the best of my knowledge, my brother's descent towards prison both began and ended with the car-walking incident. These days my brother is responsible and mature and has even been known to write a reasonable blog entry now and then. As for me, I come here when I feel like contemplating my life these days. Sometimes it works better than others but one thing's for certain; my wrist feels a lot better than it used to.

Five degrees of separation.

2009-07-29T17:36:00.003+10:00

1.

The postcard has a Spanish feel to it, a picture of a bull emblazoned across the front. I turn it over and look at the blank space in front of me. The address I will write is one I know off by heart. The message itself is harder to phrase.

She's been gone less than a day. I said goodbye to her at Heathrow last night, watched her go through passport control and stayed until she turned a corner and disappeared from view. Then I got in my car and drove here, to Windsor where my father and his wife live. I will be staying with them until my circumstances change, until I can walk through that same passport control and turn that same corner. Conservative estimates from the Australian High Commission in London put that at between eight and ten months. We've only been married a month, her and I, and I'm saddened to think that our first year together could be our first year apart.

I do some calculations in my head. Right now she's probably flying across the top of India on her way back to Australia. That observation seems as good a place as any to start and I take the pen from my pocket and write that on the postcard. I tell her that she chose the wrong time to leave; that it's a beautifully warm and sunny Sunday. I tell her that I'm sitting in a bar I know she'd like, that I saw this postcard and thought of her. I tell her I miss her and end by saying that I'll see her soon I sign my name and fill the rest of the card with kisses. On my way back to my father's house, I buy a stamp and drop the postcard in the red post box at the end of their road. Eight to ten months, and she's been gone less than a day.

2.

The days and months ahead are filled with work, with seeing my family but, above all, with paperwork. Emigration is no easy process and it takes longer than I'd like to get ready for sending. Forms need to be completed, documents need to be witnessed, copied and countersigned. Witness statements need to be obtained, police checks and medical reports need to be booked and the clearance certificates received. Above all, money needs to change hands. Close to five hundred pounds simply to lodge the visa application alone, not to mention hundreds of pounds spent on certified copies of official documents, medical examinations and police checks. The package I finally send to the Australian High Commission in London is weighty and summarises my life thoroughly. The final inclusion is the most important: my passport. All being well, it will be sent back with a visa stuck to one of the pages. I take the package to the post office and pay the extra amount to have the package tracked and signed for. After all this effort and expense, I want the guarantee that it arrives safely. If I'm to have the future I hope for, it's absolutely essential for this package to arrive where it's meant to.

We speak regularly on the phone. Mostly the calls are good; she tells me how she's moved back into her house and how great it is to have her son back in her life after 8 months away from him. She tells me how the two of them are going to redecorate the kitchen, ready for my eventual arrival. She talks about going back to university and starting a Fine Arts Degree, she tells me how her family are doing and how she's coping. In return, I tell her what's going on in my life and how frustrating it is trying to speak to someone - anyone - at the High Commission in London to find out how my application is faring. I tell her how I've been allocated a case-worker now, but that she's never at her desk when I call and never returns voicemail messages. I tell her how my family are, how living at my father's is going. I tell her which of our friends I've seen since we last spoke and how they're all doing. In reality, my wife is starting her life and I'm sitting thousands of miles away waiting for permission to do the same. It feels like she has the monopoly on news and I'm just treading water. Sometimes that gets to me and sometimes our calls aren't good.

The calls that aren't good are really very bad. The best part about arguing is often the making up, but that's impossible when the two of you are on opposite sides of the world. We take it in turns to scream, shout and protest. We call back after the other's hung up, intent on continuing the row until we make our point. Sometimes the call back never comes and when you eventually ring to apologise and make up, the phone goes unanswered. When it goes like this, I feel every second of the night and every mile of the distance as I lie there in the darkness, unable to sleep.

3.

The long, hot summer inevitably gives way to autumn. The days shorten, become cooler. The clocks go back and when I'm awake, she's invariably asleep on the other side of the world. I sink myself into my job during the days and continue to spend evenings and weekends with my family and friends. Seeing our mutual friends who remain in London is often bittersweet. Being reminded of what you had makes you want it back all the more keenly. I continue to play the waiting game, leaving messages on my case-worker's voicemail every week just to try and find out how my application is going, whether they require any more information or whether it's just a question of time.

It turns out to be time, and my timing eventually turns out to be almost perfect. I arrive at my father's one Tuesday afternoon in November to find that the post office have tried to deliver a letter addressed to me. It had to be signed for, there was nobody home and so they left the calling card. I can collect the letter from the postal depot in 24 hours time. There's only one piece of mail I'm expecting that would require a signature and there's no way I am prepared to wait another 24 hours to get it. I check the time that the card was left - ten minutes ago - and get back in my car, driving back towards the depot and scouring the side streets, hoping to spot the postman. It takes me a few streets but eventually I locate him and get my letter. It's smaller than I expected and there's some weight to it. It feels suspiciously like a passport. This is it. Either way, this has to be it. I tear open the envelope, read the letter and look at the visa stuck into my passport over and over again.

Later I phone my case-worker and thank her. I don't really know what I want to say but I want to say something. As always, I get her voicemail but this time it doesn't matter and I leave the message anyway. Then I get in touch with my family, my boss and, as soon as the day breaks in Australia, I phone my wife and tell her the news. She asks why I didn't wake her up and tell her the minute I found out. I don't have an answer for her, but that doesn't matter either.

4.

I stay in the UK for Christmas, my flight out of Heathrow booked for early in January. It gives me time to save money to take with me, just in case I struggle to find work for a month or two after arriving. It also gives me the opportunity to spend a final Christmas with my family and I'm grateful for the chance to add to the memories I'll take away with me. I write letters to my brother, mother and father, instructing them not to open the letters until I'm gone. In essence, I tell them that I love them, that they make me proud to be part of them and that I'll see them again and keep them in my heart until that time comes. My departure date draws closer and I say goodbye to my father first, then my brother. My mother is the last, driving me to Heathrow on the day I leave and staying with me until it's my turn to go through passport control and to turn the same corner that my wife did five months previously. My mother gives me a card and I open it once I'm through passport control and by myself. It's personal and beautiful and almost a mirror image of the letter I wrote her.

The first leg of my flight is from London to Hong Kong and I wake just the once. There is no such thing as time on a long-haul flight but if night-time were to exist, this would be the dead of night. The cabin is silent apart from the drone of the engines and the hiss of the air system. Around me, everybody sleeps. The stewardess sees me stir and pads over quietly to offer me a bottle of water. We are 30,000 feet up in the darkness and for a moment it feels like her and I are the last two people in the world. I thank her quietly, offering a conspiratorial smile which she returns. Later I sleep again, waking to shuffle off the plane at Hong Kong whilst it refuels. Two hours later, sat back in my seat, we hurtle once again through the night, rising into the sky and heading to Sydney. I sleep from the moment we take off.

5.

I see her before she sees me. She looks exactly as she did all those months ago on the other side of the world and I can't help but stare as I move down the arrivals hall, wheeling my luggage in front of me. My hair's longer than when she left and maybe this is why she takes a moment to recognise me.

The moment she does is one I will never forget. Shock registers on her face, almost as though she wasn't really expecting me to arrive, and then she breaks into a run up the hallway towards me. I push my trolley away and she crashes into my arms. We say nothing because this needs no words, just time to take everything in. The reminders come in waves, one on top of the other; the scent she wears, the smell of her hair, the way her body fits against mine. Five months later and we still fit. I always knew we would, even when the phone calls were bad and it felt like I'd never get here. I knew.

My luggage trolley rolls down the hallway, away from us. Eventually it slows, comes to a halt. Neither of us see that happen and it will be some time before we retrieve it and leave.

Six months on.

2009-07-28T17:24:00.006+10:00

When it finally happened there was no Hollywood moment and no string section accompaniment. In the end, it came down to a group of us gathered around his bed, in a private room removed from the ward he had occupied for the last four days of his life. This new room was too big for him, for us. The ward had been intimate and we had milled around him to talk, to sit close and to spend time with him. This room was one that we couldn't fill with conversation, bodies, silence or tears. It dwarfed us and made him look even less substantial than he had previously. The distance became too great too quickly.

His decline when it came had been rapid. Four days ago he had left the High Dependency Unit and moved onto a shared ward, seemingly on the road to recovery. He looked different, more sallow and his features more defined. When he smiled, it was an old man's smile, frail and fragile. Even his eyes had changed, as though some unspoken fear had finally been allowed to rise from where he'd kept it hidden all these months and take up residence in his face. Despite all of this, he joked and alluded to the life he would have when he finally returned home. He even fell out with his wife, a sure sign that he was feeling better. We recognised him, hidden in this new sinewy, skinny body covered in a voluminous blue nightgown. We recognised him more with every visit and convinced ourselves that we had more time, that he had more time. We booked to go on holiday for a week, sure that he'd be there to hear all about it when we returned.

One night he went to sleep and when he woke, things had begun to change, to deteriorate. His concentration fell away and his speech began to fail, to become slurred. Words which had always come so readily to him became lost in an effort to breathe and to concentrate. Under the nightgown and that thin, bruised skin which now broke and bled so easily, his body began to shut down. There had been too many years of abuse and too much trauma from the surgery he had endured for it to renew itself. Within 24 hours he was on oxygen, reduced to writing his thoughts, instructions and observations on a notepad or pointing to letters hastily scribbed on a piece of A4 paper. Conversations were torturous, filled with mistakes and misinterpretations but they were still conversations, still a chance to connect and communicate. Even at the end he was correcting his english and ensuring that we didn't just understand the basics of his point but that we fully grasped every single word, correctly, exactly as he intended his thoughts to be heard. This man is the reason that my stepson always refers to 'X and I' rather than 'me and X'. I tried my to educate my stepson for months but to no avail, yet he managed it instantly and effortlessly. If he was leaving us now, he was doing so using the appropriate phraseology and if we didn't like it or it made conversations last longer than they needed to, that was just too bad.

The medical staff were honest with us - the next twenty four hours would be crucial. His body would either find the reserves it needed or it wouldn't. It was that simple in the end. We cancelled our holiday that night. Whichever way it went, this was not the week to be leaving.

So we didn't leave. He did though - at around two o'clock the next afternoon, in that large room that was just too large. We had been in the corridor waiting for him to be moved and we all knew the significance. This was the final stop, away from the prying eyes of the ward and the other patients still focused on surviving. His focus had gone now. He was still and wax-like, his skin a strange yellow hue. If there was breathing, I didn't see it. The nun came to baptise him and said that she felt a weak heartbeat as she performed the short ceremony. At the time I was angry; he wasn't a catholic and had no time for religion. He wouldn't have agreed with it. Now I know better. He would have have understood, as I do now, that it's as much about the people who survive you. His wife will spend her life with a multitude of what-if's running through her mind. His baptism, whether it came in time or not, gave her one less thing to worry about. He'd have understood that and accepted that and I often wonder what took me so long to see it.

The nun offered some words of comfort and left us. He had gone too. Looking at his body, I recognised aspects of the man I'd known for a short five years but, as always when a life departs, something personal departs with it. The man lying motionless in the bed in front of me was almost a stranger, no longer carrying the essence of the man I'd known, the man who'd given me a hard, hard time until he trusted that I loved his daughter as much as he did. He had been a man I looked at and recognised parts of myself in over the years but today he had gone, leaving just a thin, still shell behind. Even though I knew this was the last time I'd ever see him, it made leaving the room just a bit easier.

Having said that, we have seen him since then. Every so often we'll be walking down a street or walking through the club and, out of the corner of the eye, there he is. We look back to say hello but the moment's passed and somebody else stands in his place. It turns out that there are a lot of old men walking around in polo shirts, short shorts and gnarled old sandals; many more than I ever realised when he was still with us. I know - I've very nearly said hello to them all over these last six months.

Six months, Bill. I didn't even realise it had been that long until today. Six months ago I wrote a farewell to you here and this isn't meant to be another. No; this is a "hello", an "I've missed you", an "I was walking along the harbour today, saw a tanker coming into dock and thought of you". I guess when you boil it down, it's just my way of saying hello six months after I said goodbye. And that's it; that's all I wanted to say.

All the things I didn't do.

2009-07-27T17:51:00.002+10:00

So I'm sitting at work on Friday, all ready to get driven down to Sydney by my boss who's going there for meetings separate to mine. It's coming up on 11am and I'm ploughing steadily through my work safe in the knowledge that we're not leaving until around 1pm. Then my boss announces that he's going home sick and cancelling his meetings. Twenty minutes and a rather fast walk to the station later, I'm sitting on the 11.28 train out of Newcastle.

The journey down is fine. I read my book most of the way, plugging myself into the iPod for the last half hour of the journey. By then we're out of the wilderness and heading in through the northern suburbs of Sydney. Over the water and past Sydney Olympic Park, we pull into Central just after 2pm and I make my way to the City Circle line and catch my connection through to Circular Quay. Sydney is warm and bathed in sunlight. I can smell the harbour as I walk towards my hotel and even after a long train journey, my mood is as light as my step.

I've stayed at the hotel I'm booked in once before. It's described as a 'boutique' hotel but that description seems to cover a multitude of sins. Let's just call it sufficient and leave it there. I check in, drop my bags and just have time to wander around The Rocks before I have to head over to work for my 'professional development workshop'. I'm intrigued - what will I learn, I wonder?

Turns out nothing, although I enjoy the workshop nonetheless. Apparently I'm supportive and empathise well. I'm not overly loud or boisterious but neither am I a sociopath who's incapable of speaking to others without sweating. On the plus side, I get a free pen and there are hot nibbles afterwards. On the downside, nobody's kicking on after the event and I'm faced with the unenviable task of filling an entire evening in Sydney's CBD with nobody but me for company.

It starts well enough with the obligatory walk around Circular Quay. I stride into the dusk, having changed out of my suit and into my preferred uniform of jeans, teeshirt and a zip-up top. I forgo the iPod because, well, I'm in Sydney. Don't I want to take in the sounds as well as the sights? Turns out that I don't - the sounds aren't anything special unless you count a couple of drunks outside McDonalds telling the world and his wife to go forth and multiply. I head past the ferries, up towards the Opera House and then cut back into the city proper. Rush hour's in full effect and people are milling around everywhere I look, rushing past me on their way to somewhere, from somewhere. Me on the other hand, I'm just walking. Nowhere specific to go and no clue as to what could hold my attention. I check my watch - I've been walking for fifteen minutes and I can't work out if it feels like a nanosecond or a lifetime. All I know is that it's not even half past six yet. The night yawns ahead of me ominously.

In the end, after having walked block after block of anonymous identikit city, I find myself a fast food joint and grab a large burger and fries for dinner. I can't work out what's more tragic; the fact that I do this or the fact that I eat in, taking as long as possible to digest my food so as to kill more of the night. By the time eight o'clock rolls round I've truly lost the will to live. Somewhere in Sydney, something remarkable is happening. Sadly it's an invite-only soiree and my name's not on the door. I trudge dejectedly to my hotel room, switch on the television and watch a load of shows I could have watched at home. Indeed, I suspect that Vanessa and Henry are doing exactly that, 100 miles up the freeway. Sleep eventually comes around eleven o'clock and I don't try and fight it.

Friday dawns early and I hit the shower, get dressed, then check out and dump my bag. I meet Sarah for coffee at the Portobello Cafe just up from the Quay. We chat for a while over our drinks and then head into the office together. I'm feeling better, well rested and with the boring part of my stay behind me. Today is a meeting with a Product Manager and then an indulgent multi-course Italian meal with company and conversation focused around a shared love of football. Sure, it'll be a late finish and even later arrival home but it only happens a few times a year and it's worth the sacrifice. So I'm sitting in the office on Harrington Street, looking very professional and feeling very important when my phone beeps. A text message from Kerry back in my usual office which reads 'you have an email saying your lunch has been cancelled'. On the plus side, I'll be home at a reasonable hour. On the down-side, the trip's really starting to feel like I made it for nothing. I pad the morning out with discussions and meetings, then grab my bag from the hotel and head to the railway station. I pick up lunch from yet another burger joint and stink out my train carriage with onion rings and bacon. Some of the other passengers look at me disapprovingly but, by now, I really couldn't give a rats. I stick my iPod on, block out those people around me and watch Sydney disappear as my train heads northwards, closer to home.

At some stage I begin to drowse. I'm woken rudely from my slumber at Gosford, around halfway through the journey. Four backpackers are sitting a few seats across in my carriage and they're playing music through the loudspeaker on their phone. They're playing it loudly - so loudly than my iPod can't drown it out. I switch to Nine Inch Nails, thinking that surely Trent Reznor's screaming could drown out even the end of the world. It might do, but for some reason it can't overpower an acid drum & bass version of Finlay Quaye. It's easier to move carriages than it is to ask them to turn the music down and, as I head to the next compartment, I realise how right the personality test I did yesterday was. Passive doesn't begin to describe me some days. Today is one of them.

My second and final carriage is better. Sure there are a whole load of kids wired off their skulls on McDonalds but I'd rather take boisterous kids than Finlay Quaye any day of the week. It helps that the children's mother is trying to have a sleep in the seat in front of mine, so she screams at them to shut up every so often. Bad parenting it may be, but at least I can relax a bit. The mother discards her copy of the Daily Telegraph under my seat. I read it and get a worrying insight into her mind. No wonder she's cranky - the Muslims are trying to take over the world and the government's selling us down the river, it seems. I read the sport section, then chuck the rest of the paper under my own seat. If Heinrich Himmler gets on at Tuggerah, he may appreciate the read.

My train finally pulls into Hamilton at just after 3pm. I stop and grab a coffee from Suspension Espresso, pleased to be home and back on familiar ground. There's no sign of my bus and it's a nice day - a hint of sun peeking from behind ominous clouds which are the colour of diluted black ink. Something tells me that they won't release the rain any time soon; they're just there for decoration today. I begin to walk home, along the Maitland Road at Islington, over the creek and through the bottom part of Tighes Hill before I see the sign announcing that I'm in Mayfield, my home suburb. I step through my front door some thirty minutes after getting off the train. Two buses pass me on my walk and I could have jumped on either of them, but I enjoy walking home so much that I decide to carry on to the bitter end.

I get home and nobody's there. Henry and Vanessa are out but at least the dog's pleased to see me. Well, she's pleased to be let out to go to the toilet anyway. I sit myself down, catch up on all the football news I've missed over the last two days and, eventually, Vanessa gets home. She makes the appropriate sympathetic noises about my time away and spends the rest of the night expressing surprise that I'm this pleased to be home again. We go for a drink at the Mayfield Hotel just after sunset. I ask her how her night went and it turns out that she did indeed watch the same shows I was watching. I ask her what she thought of the final one but it turns out that she fell asleep and didn't find out how it ended. It doesn't matter though - all that matters is that I'm back where I belong after being somewhere that I didn't.

The All-Stops Express.

2009-07-22T18:21:00.006+10:00

Tonight is my last night at home until Friday. To put it in a less dramatic way, I'm not at home tomorrow night. I have an alumni event in Sydney to attend late tomorrow afternoon, so will be travelling down to Sydney around 1pm tomorrow. The event won't end until 5pm and, with everyone else being based in Sydney, the general concensus is that it will kick on somewhere else. We'll be in The Rocks so there are no shortages of places to go.

The train home from Newcastle takes just under 3 hours. I've always felt like I live a long way out of Sydney but in reality it's no further than London to Bristol, the distance I talked about in yesterday's posting. That distance makes you feel well removed from the hustle, bustle and stress-laden Sydney lifestyle but equally, it makes getting down there a torturous task when you need to. Because the train takes so long, my company's putting me up in a hotel tomorrow night. It's one that I've stayed at before (so have my mother and her husband, come to think of it) and it should be fine. Sure, I've stayed in better but I've also stayed in worse - and it is well placed. I'd much rather stay in The Rocks than in the City proper.

I found Sydney absolutely compelling when I first got here. The Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, Circular Quay and its ferries - not to mention the cityscape itself. It's very different from the London skyline for sure. I'd go to Sydney and feel very enthused and happy to be there, I'd walk along the Quay, from Bridge to Opera House. I'd wander through the city, towering glass buildings reflecting the light from passing cars and buses as I just strolled in the humid night air. I felt like a tourist trapped in a resident's body and it was marvellous. Now though, I'm more used to it. I've seen it a good many times now and, as much as I always get a kick out of seeing the sights, something's definitely changed. I guess it's no longer got the 'wow' factor it had a few years back. I've been there too many times for it to be new any more. Hell, I even know my way around on foot these days. Unless I head out of the CBD, it's pretty fair to say that I couldn't get lost if I tried.

There's another thing too. For a lush, iconic city in the tropics it tends to shut early. Sydney's got the harbour, the climate, the bars..... yet come 11pm on a weeknight it's dead to the world. Walking around the CBD on a weeknight after 10pm is like walking around the City Of London at the weekend - there's nobody around with a few notable exceptions - and experience has taught me that you don't strike up a banter with those exceptions unless you fancy taking your chances.

Of course it's the company that I'm going for - and that's company with a small 'c'. It's a chance for me to catch up with people I haven't seen for 8 months and that will be good. Mind you, if they're not up for kicking on after the event finishes then I'm pretty much sitting in my hotel room with takeout from McDonalds and watching whatever passes for entertainment on television that night. Sure, there's going to be satellite television most likely - but the football season's over at the moment and I have no desire to watch yachting on ESPN or boxing on Fox Sports 1. Damn my timing - I'd best pack a book just in case.

On Friday I've arranged to have an early coffee with Sarah, a girl who used to work in our office and who now works in Sydney. After that I'm heading into our office on Harrington Street and spending the morning shadowing one of our managers. That will be pleasant for sure; how worthwhile it is will depend on a number of variables over which I have limited influence. Still, I'm going to stay positive and tell myself that it'll be good. After that it's off to lunch. Those of you who've been reading a while might remember that I mentioned attending a football lunch in a posting earlier this year. It's basically a select gathering of the football nuts in my industry and I'm spending the afternoon in a bar in The Rocks eating Italian food and watching football dvds and talking all things football with a group of blokes sitting around in replica jerseys. Put like that it sounds a bit..... dweeby... doesn't it? Fact is, it's probably more than a bit dweeby - but I never was the coolest kid in class so it shouldn't really surprise anyone.

After that it's a case of getting the train home. To put that another way, it's a case of getting a link from Circular Quay to Central and then a train out of Sydney. During the peak hour period. On Friday. The chances are good that I'll get a seat. The chances are even better that I'll end up with some smelly person sat right up against me, at least until Hornsby. The chances are then staggeringly good that I'll want to sleep but be kept awake by schoolkids who have OD'd on red drink right up to Gosford.

You'd think it got better after that wouldn't you? Wrong. Dead wrong. You see, after Gosford, we have to pass through the Twilight Zone.

Newcastle has a bit of a reputation for being a bit rough... uncultured. To an extent it's deserved but there's one area even less cultured than Newcastle - and that area is the stretch of land between Wyong and Cardiff. I can guarantee you that every drunk, shambler and general lunatic will get on or off the train between those two stops. It's the longest hour of the journey and if I manage to sleep through it, I count my blessings. Normally I just pretend to sleep, my iPod on loudly so that I can drown out the strange noises the misfits around me are making. The minute the train pulls out of Gosford, my life expectancy percentages will have increased in direct proportion to the average IQ of the train's passengers. What's even better about leaving Cardiff is that it means I'm only 30 minutes from my home stop and getting off the damn train once and for all.

It probably sounds like I don't want to go to Sydney. That's not true - it's just a long and involved process, that's all. It's also made less attractive by the fact that I really like being at home. Home doesn't need an Opera House or a Harbour Bridge or even high-rise, reflective cityscapes; it's got something far more compelling than that. The minute I step off the train at Hamilton and see the neon lights flashing on the crappy bar across from the station, I know that it's only a matter of time before Vanessa arrives in the car to pick me up and take me home. That sense of happiness and belonging fills me with the kind of enthusiasm that Sydney did when I first arrived in this country, so if spending a night away gives me the chance to relish coming home again then it's well worth the journey.

Dying tonight.

2009-07-21T17:29:00.006+10:00

There have been a few times in my life when I thought I was about to die. I remember the first very well, although I admit to being a little sketchy on the exact date. I was young, probably around eight or nine, and we were living in a pebble-dashed terraced house in Staple Hill, a suburb of Bristol on the South West coast of the UK. It was the four of us back then; my mother, father, brother and I. We would have had a dog, too - probably our second dog Freya, she of the pie-eating and general food stealing fame. This was before the family move to Reading that followed a few years later. Back then, we lived in Bristol and Reading was what you did with a book in your hand.

That year, be it 1979 or 1980, my family took it in turns to contract flu. By that, I don't mean a heavy cold - I mean bona fide influenza. To date, I have never been as sick as I was back then and these days when I'm off work and return to fill out a sickness absence form, I always write 'heavy cold' in the description box. Once you've had flu, you don't call anything else by the name. I remember feeling really, really sick for the first time in my short life. I don't remember how long I coughed for, how long I stayed in bed for or how high my temperature got, but I do remember the day that my chest became so congested with phlegm that breathing became difficult. The more I tried to breathe, the more crap I sucked deeper into my chest and the harder breathing became. I got very, very scared and remember crying and shouting repeatedly that I was dying. In hindsight, I was making a pretty good racket so I doubt that lack of oxygen was really going to do for me as long as I could protest that vociferously but anyway, the point is that the fear was real. I remember it vividly and I sense I always will. I honestly thought I was going to die, right there and then.

Fast forward just over 20 years and 100 miles west. I don't know the exact date but I do know this isn't how it should be. It's a work night, it's late and I'm sitting on a wooden stool in the kitchen of my first floor flat in North London. I've lived here for a while now and I like it. My first marriage has gone south and, like some people do, I've jumped headlong into a new relationship and moved in with the girl. It's different, exciting. The sex is good (for now, anyway). There's only one slight problem - the girl I live with is standing in front of me with a kitchen knife against my throat.

How this came about, god only knows. I remember arguing with her, although not what that argument was about. It could have been something as banal as her being unable to find the television remote and then getting more and more angry, accusing me of not looking hard enough to help her and then of deliberately hiding it to cause her grief. Me being me, my response wouldn't have been overly supportive by that stage. Maybe that's how I got here - or maybe I'd got some freshly washed sheets dirty by accident and the argument had spiralled from that. Basically I should have admitted to something and apologised for everything a good ten minutes ago, if not sooner. Now, sitting on that stool at one o'clock in the morning, looking into a face that I don't really recognise these days, I wonder if this is the moment that I leave this world. Common sense would say not but let's face it, common sense doesn't put someone who claims to love you in a position where they have a large knife pointed in your direction. Time slows, moments are drawn out and you become aware of everything around you - almost as if you're preparing to take in one last gulp of life before the lights go out.

I find myself wondering how it came to this but, more importantly, how I'm going to get out of this. I talk, I admit to things I didn't do, intentions I never had and I promise to be a better person. Anything to get me off this chair. Eventually it works. I persuade her to calm down, put the knife away. I talk her back to bed and tell her that I'm just going out for a walk - to clear my head. I click the door shut behind me and tread quietly down the old wooden steps, never actually calm until I'm through the big front door and out on the street. I walk through North London, stopping at the all-night coffee shops run by the Algerians and the Moroccans. I order thick black coffee and smoke cigarettes with the locals. Then I do the same again. After all, it's not like I was going to be able to sleep anyway. Inevitably, hours later, I find myself walking back to the flat. Despite the area's reputation, I never feel in danger out on the streets of North London when I'm walking and it's late. I feel the wind and hear the traffic and smell the exhaust on the air and I wonder if I've ever felt more alive. I also wonder how many more times this will happen before I finally leave. Just the once, as it turns out.

Now hit the fast forward button again and come up to the present, to a well-to-do house in Sydney's affluent Northern Beaches. We have travelled down for the weekend to see family on Sunday but made the journey late on Friday night so that Vanessa and her mother could shop for cheap stock at Manly Markets on Saturday morning. I am distinctly unwell. My breathing's fine, my temperature's normal and no psycho ex is holding a knife to my throat, but I find myself nauseous, with absolutely no appetite and unable to keep any food down - or in - for prolonged periods. Maybe I should have stayed in bed at Joan & John's place but I tend not to do bed-rest so instead I'm out at the markets with Vanessa, Henry and Jacky. Later after the markets are done, we send Jacky home in a taxi and the three of us sit on Manly Beach to have lunch. It's a beautiful day, warm and filled with sun. We buy a large portion of hot, salted chips and I eat just five of those chips, only because I feel I should try and keep my strength up rather than through any real hunger or desire. Later we walk to the local gallery and I am grateful that there are public toilets nearby for me to throw up in. We walk around the coast to a lovely aquatic reserve cove and paddle in the crisp, cold surf - but my highlight is finding the one remaining toilet that isn't occupied on the two occasions I need it at short notice. That night at dinner I order a small bowl of soup; again to try and keep my strength up rather than because I'm hungry. The soup's a success - it stays down for around 2 hours before reappearing. It's at that stage I decide to go to bed and try to sleep.

My night is disturbed and my dreams are strange. I tell myself that this is just temporary, that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Deep down though, I'm wondering if this is something more serious. Maybe this is the start of something major and maybe I'll never be the same again. Maybe it's the start of bowel cancer, stomach cancer or something else entirely. Deep down I know it's just a bug but it's laid me low and ravaged me, more than any illness has managed since I was a young boy living in a pebble dashed terraced house. I find myself wondering if this is how I'll die - not suddenly through asphyxiation or stabbing but slowly, painfully and without dignity, in pools of my own waste. It's a long night and I'm glad when it's over and Sunday's upon us. I'm even more pleased when Sunday sees me able to keep down fluids and small portions of food. Maybe I needn't write my epitaph just yet.

The meeting with the family takes place in Sydney's Botanical Gardens. We have lunch together, I manage to eat and I am able to show some flashes of my usual self. Vanessa drives the three of us home just after 5pm. Although I know she doesn't like doing the drive from Sydney to Newcastle at night, she refuses my offer to share the driving and I love her all the more for that.

Monday comes and the bug draws its final breaths before expiring just after midday. I play it safe, calling in sick to allow myself time to recover for sure. That gives me an extra day of recuperation and that's fine with me as despite having packed so much into the weekend, I feel as though I was cheated out of a significant part of it. I cook spaghetti for dinner that night. Much like the North London air in the early hours of a morning all those years ago, it tastes sweeter than it has any right to.

There will be no news.

2009-07-17T14:34:00.002+10:00

Today is a non-day for purposes of blogging. It may feature in a retrospective when I'm old and famous and worthy of retrospectives, but I wouldn't hold your breath.

The weekend sees us travelling south to Sydney town. I am sure that I will have a good time and equally sure that, as I travel up the freeway home again on Sunday night, I'll be pleased to leave it behind me.

Anyone who happens to stop by between now and the next posting, I wish you a very, very relaxing weekend.

Causchwitz

2009-07-16T17:38:00.007+10:00

Something didn't feel right the minute I stepped through the gate. I grew up reading Enid Blyton books which featured farms with cutesy names, red-cheeked affable old farmers and fresh apple pies cooling under a cloth on the open window sill. This place was different - as far removed from Willow Farm as you could imagine. Yes, there were farm buildings but no haystacks in sight - and the farm buildings that existed were white, shiny, clinical and unwelcoming. If I'd not known already, one look ahead would have told me that this wasn't a place where things came to grow or be nurtured.

There were no cows in sight from where I stood but, seemingly from all around me, came the sound of cows mooing. The noise was low and constant, occasionally punctuated by a short lived, high pitched cry as, somewhere, something bad happened. From within the wipe-down white buildings came whirring, the buzzing of machines and of steam-driven equipment. I noticed the concrete was wet, a watered down mix of chemicals and blood having drained for hours from within those buildings. And then there was the smell.

I have been to farms before. As a young child, we holidayed in Devon at the charmingly named Bolberry Farm. There were cows - plenty of them. I remember seeing them rarely in the stinking paddocks which lined the entrance road from the narrow, single track country lane. Once or twice we saw them being herded down that road to the milking sheds and, yes, I remember the smell they left behind them - the overwhelming stench of faeces caked to the paths, tracks and, inevitably, our shoes. It was deposited in such quantities that it reeked. It became the air that it hung so heavily on, yet I grew accustomed to it and found myself gagging less as the holiday passed. Somewhere in my head, it became a farm smell and not a poo smell. Farm smell good, poo smell bad. I was fine from then onwards.

This smell now was different though, and became stronger as I walked to the rear of the building, to the business end. It was a mix of many different scents. Primarily it was still based around cow shit - certainly the holding pens in front of me which held a good thirty cattle must have been at least 6 inches deep in the stuff. The cows milled around aimlessly as I watched. It was only towards the front of the pen that they were being moved with more purpose, into single files which disappeared inexorably beyond view into the building from which the rythmic noise of presses and power tools eminated.

I couldn't stay in this spot any longer and there was only one place left to go. Slowly, I began the walk up the ramp towards the killing rooms.

They say that when you die, something leaves your body. Here in the killing room, a cow is clamped in place by its neck and stunned with a massive burst of electricity to subdue it, calm it, stun the crap out of it. All being well, it won't feel as much when the steel bolt is shot from a compressed air gun, right through the front of its forehead. Death is almost instantaneous but two things leave the body during this process; that final high pitched cry I heard earlier and a voiding. Maybe not the soul but definitely the contents of the bowels. I come to realise that's the main difference in the smell here. This sudden death produces a hot, feral explosion and, as the faeces is hosed back towards the sides of the pen, flowing back towards the cows waiting patiently in line, it rises and invades your nostrils. You cannot escape it and can only watch as the beast's still-warm body is released, pierced with hooks and hoisted roughly into the air to be dragged further into the building - to be hacked up, have its skin and hide ripped off and its bones removed. Nothing is wasted - it is either stacked, packed or ground to dust. I notice that the floor of the killing room is thick with blood, flesh and and hair. Pressure hosing of the floor will take place sporadically, in between killing shifts, but you sense that no amount of cleaning or scrubbing can eradicate all the stains from this floor or completely remove the odours that hang in the air. Death takes a long time to leave your nostrils.

It's sobering, in all honesty. We eat a lot of meat but never really think hard about where it comes from. As processes go, this one is probably a lot better than some involved with ending a life. The one thing it can't do is prevent that life having to end. When you meet the eyes of the men who work in the boning rooms or the killing rooms, there's an expression that they all share. They stand there in protective clothing and gauntlets, covered from throat to toe in dried blood and look at you as if to say ' what did you expect - somebody has to do it'. And they're right. Somebody has to. Not me though. Thankfully not me.

As I left, I noticed one of the cows which remained in the holding pen. It had a tear streak of dried blood coming from the corner of its eye which ran down its cheek and from all the smells and images that bombarded me that day, it's that one image that sticks; that I just can't shake.

Lists - when a posting just isn't enough.

2009-07-13T18:52:00.002+10:00

Seeing as I'm short on time and have plenty to do tonight (and let's face it, nobody's really interested and I'm really keeping this blog going for myself these days), the weekend can be summarised in a list as follows.

Saturday

Coffee at Roladoor. Very enjoyable.
Haircut. Very pleasing. Cheaper too, now my stylist's moved salons.
Soccer. Good game, ending in a loss. Couldn't begrudge them their win, though.
R&R at home. Always nice. Just what weekends should contain.
31st birthday party. Great fun, fantastic decor and ambience.
Dinner party. Even greater fun, many laughs and some male bonding (albeit with the enemy) over The Ashes.

Sunday

Sleep-in. Very nice.
A few art galleries with the missus. Always fun but especially this time, where the art quality was even better than usual.
Making a soup into a stew. Just what Sundays in winter spent by yourself were meant for.
Watching the first Ashes test slip away. Inevitable.

Monday

Waking to find they'd drawn it. D'oh but hurrah, especially because England didn't deserve to and I know for a fact it'll piss the crap out of my friends and mother-in-law!
Work. Kind of necessary.
Dinner at the club. Always fun, although we're about to go so I should hold fired on that statement and see if I come down with dysentary first, really.

And that, dear reader (note the singular), was my weekend.

One thing that hasn't featured on the list is phoning the UK. That's on my list of things to do. It's been an age since I spoke to my mother and, right now, Telstra are running a 'give your mother a call' ad on television. I should and, this week, I will. The weekend's out - we're in Sydney all weekend but one of the benefits of having a near-retiree as your mother is that she doesn't work Wednesdays. Wednesday night it is, then.

The rest of the family - you're on the list. Promise. Yeah, I know I've said it before but I will call. Even you, Nathan.

Waffeur theen meent time.

2009-07-10T17:30:00.002+10:00

Sometimes it's not all about the finest venues, the finest menus and living the high life. As enjoyable as that can be, it's often nothing compared to the guilty pleasure of slumming it. You know - socialising with the proles rather than the nouveau-riche or tucking into a battered sausage and chips rather than fillet mignon in a cheeky jus. That's where I'm coming from today because, all things going to plan, tonight sees us back at Mayfield's Mecca of Grease, the poignantly named 'Diggers Club'. It all depends on Henry getting a good half-yearly report from school. He's had a challenging but rewarding first six months of high school and, upon receipt of a good report, we're all off out to dinner to celebrate. Chances are good that his report will meet the required standards so we'll be making the short walk down the street to Diggers.

It used to be called Mayfield RSL before the most recent facelift. Sadly the facelift stopped a little bit past renaming the place and a long way before steam cleaning the carpets, putting a fresh coat of paint on the gaff and fumigating the patronage. In my experience, clubs around NSW are much the same - more than a little desperate and tragic no matter how much the owners have invested in refurbishments. Diggers, however, really does feel like the club that time forgot. For one thing, it's absolutely huge and that kind of surprises you. You expect small, ramshackle little bowling clubs to have a hint of deterioration around them but a club the size of Diggers, you'd expect them to have overcome it with more success than they managed.

Anyway, it just adds to the guilty pleasure that is our visitation. It doesn't matter that I spent last night preparing and cooking a hearty vegetable soup - the minute Vanessa suggested that Henry, Steve, her and I go to the Diggers Club for dinner tonight, the soup was forgotten. It'll keep until Sunday and anyway, Diggers did get one thing in their facelift that I approve of. An All-You-Can-Eat buffet.

We've only been twice so far - once when it opened and once just after my birthday. I got a free voucher from them as a 'happy birthday' gift so we all traipsed down there. As someone renowned for their appetite, it will come as little surprise to you that I rather like all you can eat buffets. Now I think about it, there's not much to dislike about them, is there?

Vanessa's not a big fan though. She's forever weighing herself and planning to lose weight. The last time we went to the buffet, she was the most svelte woman in there by around 200kg. Seriously, some of the women waddling around that place were bigger than the buffet carts. You'd have thought that Vanessa would have eaten her usual fill, looked at the behemoths wandering around her and felt good about her sassy little shape but no; she looked at them and, by association, became 'one of the women who eats at the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet'. That was the last time we went.

Poor old Vanessa. Women have such a hard time don't they? Imagine being given a plate and told you can fill it up as much and as often as you want - then having to worry about the after-effects. It's not a position I'd want to be in, admittedly. Thankfully my biggest concern when we visit isn't my calorie intake or whether deep fried potato gems count towards your five portions of veg. No; all I care about from the minute I get in, right up to the minute I leave, is out-eating Henry.

He may be a teenager with hollow legs and the metabolism of the Roadrunner but I normally have the experience, staying power and sense to beat him. Normally by a whole plate - anything less and outside adjudicators need to be called in to count broccoli florets - not to mention rule on whether a spoonful of uneaten rice counts for more or less than 3 chips. If he does 5 plates, I have to do 6. Well, I don't have to, obviously. I could just eat my fill, what I'm comfortable eating, then sit back contentedly and let Henry eat however much he chooses to. It could be a nice family dinner instead of a continuous game of masticatory one-upmanship. Where's the fun in that though?

Anyway, I have standards to uphold. I have a somewhat legendary reputation for being able to eat which has even followed me across the world to Australia. Back in the UK it was all about demolishing a pasta bake. Here, it's expanded to incorporate chilli nuts, rissoles, pretty much anything. As I've said before, the minute my metabolism slows up I'm either well and truly buggered or on the biggest diet you've ever seen in your life. Until then, I may as well play to my strengths. Henry thinks it's all about eating as much as you can but it's really not - it's all about pacing. Sure, have your deep fried goodies and your plates of chips but believe me when I tell you that there's no way you'll manage 6 plates of food if three of them are deep fried. Nope; go for the noodles, the casseroles, the meats and keep the deep fried items and the carb-heavy dishes to a minimum. That way, when your stepson's looking rather pasty, full and sweaty and you're sitting there looking good and feeling fine, you can either declare yourself victorious or crush him even further by encoring with a plate full of desserts. Then you can truly sit back, loosen your belt a notch and relax in your glory. Sure, he may be taller than you, better looking than you and fitter than you - but you fit in down at Diggers All-You-Can-Eat. You're one of them now - and he's just a wannabe. Maybe with some training he'll make it. Hell, maybe one day he'll even beat you. Not today though. Today belongs to you. Embrace it.

Changing rooms.

2009-07-09T17:52:00.001+10:00

Looking back at it now, I should have seen the warning signs flash before my eyes the minute Vanessa mentioned that she was thinking about rearranging the lounge room. We were sitting down watching television two nights ago when it came up. Right now we have two lounges in the room - one against a wall and the other one, a red lounge, out from another wall. That second one creates a mini corridor effect, separating the lounge room area from the walkway that takes you from the front door into the rest of the house. It's never given me any problems, let alone food for thought. Until now.

Vanessa wanted to move the red lounge. The problem, she explained, was that the corridor walkway felt cramped and she was always catching bags on it when she walked through the room, laden down with groceries or purchases for the shop. I took a look at the wall space dimensions we had available, the location of the window and the fact that the TV aerial and gas outlets were immovable, pretty much guaranteeing that the television and gas fire would remain where they were. That didn't leave too many options and I made non-committal noises that I thought would placate my wife. In my ignorance, I thought my response would indicate that a) the room was fine the way it was, and b) she needn't worry her pretty little head rearranging it.

I should have known better on a number of fronts. Firstly, I have been resistant to every single change we've ever made in the house. It's stopped none of them happening and I've always admitted that they improved the house once the changes had been made. Secondly, I always underestimate Vanessa's determination to carry out these plans. Once the suggestion comes out of her mouth it's not a question of how or if, it's always a question of 'when'. A few months ago, my lovely wife was sketching plans of our back yard on a whiteboard we own, swapping sheds and garages around, moving vegetable patches, the clothes line and the pool to create a better outdoor space. She consulted Felicity and Paul and, eventually, me as well. I was lucky in that Paul didn't like the plans in their entirety, which is the main reason our back yard's still the same - that and the fact that it would cost some money to rehash it anyway. Having said that, deep down I know it's not settled. At some stage, the back yard will be altered. I'll object and be negative but it will happen and I will end up admitting that it looks better. Then I'll completely forget that next time Vanessa suggests an improvement around the place. It's like Groundhog Day meets DIY SOS, and no mistake. Welcome to my world; my world of self-induced pain.

So no; I shouldn't have expected the lounge room discussion to have been put to bed. I should have expected to come home and be forced to discuss it again, right? That's a fair assumption but Vanessa had a bit of spare time on her hands yesterday and, after she finished a batch of fairy cakes, she found herself standing in the lounge room for a little too long. Leave me in there for ten minutes and I'll put the Playstation on. Not Vanessa though; I arrived home at 5.20pm last night to find the shelves emptied, one lounge piled full of stuff and the other lounge against the window wall. The other stuff was piled on the floor in precarious piles as Vanessa and Henry lugged various pieces of furniture from point A to point B, assessed the feng shui and general appearance, then lugged them to point C to repeat the process. My supportive 'you can't see the television with it there' was met with a withering stare and a loving 'leave me alone' so I made my excuses and left. Never have a pile of dishes looked so attractive.

By the time dinner was ready, the room was nearly finished. The end result was the red lounge being moved, a few lamps and coffee tables being moved and that was about all. I hate to admit it, but the room does look bigger now. You would have thought I'd learned by now wouldn't you? Actually, you wouldn't. Me being me, this is pretty par for the course. I don't know what we're eating for dinner tonight but I'm pretty certain that, should dessert be warranted, humble pie will be up there on the menu board.

In the deep mid-winter.

2009-07-08T19:12:00.001+10:00

Hibernation has set in of late. That's one of the reasons that I've not updated earlier, anyway. We're deep into winter now and whilst the skies are clear and blue and the days are sunny, the downside is that the nights are clear and cold. Our house is a 1950s weatherboard house with a tin roof. It has many endearing qualities but heat preservation isn't one of them. As a result, most evenings we spend in the lounge room with the gas fire hissing away until we're toasty. Seeing as the computer's down the other end of the house in a room where heating is reliant on a plug-in 2 bar electric heater, I have been choosing to stay warm in the lounge room and leaving you uninformed as a result - not that you've missed anything riveting, in all fairness. That said, it's been too long since I last updated you so here it is - my update.

The weekend passed in a marvellous blur. Henry's soccer game was as entertaining a 0-0 draw as I've ever seen and the coffee & sausage sandwich went down a treat. After that was over, we had just enough time to head home and relax for a bit before leaving town. Henry & I dropped Vanessa off on the Central Coast as she was staying with her friend Barbara. We then continued down the freeway to Sydney, Henry and I, to go to the WWE live event I got tickets for a few months back. You can get as sniffy or cutting as you like about that; I really don't care. Fact is we had a great evening and it was very good fun. It was also nice to spend time with Henry where it was just the two of us. I hear some real horror stories about step-parents and step-children, how they fight or don't get on or how the whole family dynamic is really screwed up the minute a parent remarries. Whether it's through luck, hard work or a combination of the two, that's never been my experience. Anyway, we had a great night, ate hot chips and drank large cokes, cheered and booed and clapped and shouted. What's not to like about that?

The journey back was nice and easy. As I get older it's not so much about what a great time I'll have when I arrive somewhere, it's about how easy it will be to get to and from there. Sad but true. The live event was at Sydney Olympic Park which, as the name suggests, was built for the 2000 Olympics. These days it's used for football matches, concerts, that kind of thing. A guy I work with complained 2 weeks ago that he'd taken 3 hours to get out of the car park after the second State Of Origin match at ANZ Stadium but thankfully, Henry and I had no problems getting away from Acer Arena. What's more, we didn't even have to drive all the way back to Newcastle. The plan was that we'd drive to Barbara's on the Central Coast, meet up with her mob and spend the night there, plus the Sunday with them. Around 90 minutes after getting into the car, Henry and I were pulling up at Barb's place. Her son and fiancee had long since gone to bed but Vanessa was still up so the four of us sat around for a bit before bed.

Sunday dawned early on the Central Coast. Barbara is very different from Vanessa; she's an early riser who gets going immediately. Everything is planned and timed and that's how we found ourselves woken up around 7.30am and sitting down for breakfast a little after 8am. What makes it all okay is that, as well as being an early riser, Barb's also an amazing cook. It's not very often I sit down for breakfast but when you're offered bacon, eggs, chorizo, tomato, coffee and juice.... well, it's worth getting up for! We finished up, then went to two lots of markets. Vanessa and I managed to get a wrought iron brazier for $10 which will come in really handy when we get our new back deck built. Hell, in the short term I could even stick it in the dining room where the computer is - you might get more updates over the next month if I did....

After the markets it was time for lunch. Marinated king prawns, cold meats, salads, roasted potato pieces.... Barb really doesn't do 'opening a tin of spaghetti' lunches and I'm always grateful when I sit down at her place for something to eat! We hung around for a few hours after lunch, then got on the road again and got home with an hour or so of daylight left.

The weekend didn't end there though. Well, it did - but I also had Monday off work. The reason is that Monday was my fifth wedding anniversary. Vanessa's too, obviously - but her first marriage lasted close on 200 years, whereas mine was a lot, lot shorter. Five years is something I wanted to celebrate. I certainly didn't want to be sat at work, so I took the day off. We lazed around, went into town, had some lunch, then went over to Vanessa's mother's for dinner that night. All in all a very sedate, satisfactory day - and the perfect antidote for such a hectic weekend.

Since then it's been business as usual. Work, cooking, sleeping, the usual. So there you go - bored but updated. Now I'm out of here to go and do the dishes and cook dinner. It's the only way to stay warm in that kitchen at this time of year, after all......

Forecasting and spectating.

2009-06-30T18:28:00.001+10:00

Dan lied. He's normally so accurate too - and even if he's not you tend to forgive him because he's consistently the funniest thing on television. If ABC had told me that it was going to be 23c and sunny today - despite it being winter here - I would be muttering into the coat I didn't think I'd need today. Because we tend to watch a bit of shlock tv on Prime every now and then it doesn't matter so much because my weather report on Prime is delivered with humour that compensates for the lack of panache. Sure I have to wear a coat when I didn't think I would but at least I got a belly laugh last night. All good.

I've been watching Wimbledon these last two weeks and it looks like Britain's been bathed in glorious sunshine the whole way through. That's what happens when you put a roof on centre court I guess. At least it'll save Cliff the bother of rolling out his hits of yesteryear during this year's tournament. As you probably know by now, there's very little sport I'll turn off and as luck would have it, I'm in the right country. There's a lot of sport on terrestrial television over here. Rugby League, Rugby Union, Football, Cricket of course, Tennis, AFL - even Netball graces the airwaves. I'm lukewarm about cricket and I doubt I'll ever watch the netball but the minute a tennis tournament comes on I'm very keen to watch it. Wimbledon holds a particular place in my affections because it's the chance to see a tournament I grew up watching, in the country I grew up living in. I was lucky enough to go to Wimbledon once on finals day. My mother got two tickets and I tagged along. We were on No1 Court watching the ladies doubles final but you could hear the Mens Singles Final taking place on Centre. I remember it for a number of reasons. Firstly the view was exactly as it was on television and, having come from watching football matches on terracing (where the view you get bears no resemblance to the view you get on television), that was a real treat. The finalists didn't exactly make for disappointing viewing either. I don't remember who won - just that there was a fair amount of leg on view. Anyway, the second reason I remember it is because, back then, I had my head shaved and a goatee. I also had prescription sunglasses at the time which came in very handy. In my head, I thought I looked pretty cool. In reality I probably looked like a slightly overweight thug who obviously had yet to stop drinking. I am sure my mother has a photo from the day. I really should get her to email it to me and I can post it. If nothing else, it'd make me feel pretty good about myself now.

So yes; Wimbledon holds a special place in my affections. It's like the FA Cup Final and comes around every year so it's a constant - especially welcome in a year when neither the World Cup nor European Championships are on. Sadly the time difference means that I don't get to watch all of Wimbledon but, on the plus side, it goes to air from 10.30pm most nights so I can watch the first match, maybe a bit of the second, then get myself to bed and get around 6 hours sleep. I can cope with that, albeit on a short term basis.

I even find myself hoping that Lleyton Hewitt does well this year and that surprises me. In the past I've always had little time for Hewitt but this Wimbledon, I hope he makes the quarters at least. If anything tells me where I am now as opposed to where I spent the majority of my life, right now that fact's it.

Aural pleasure.

2009-06-26T17:35:00.003+10:00

My iPod was going through a bit of a lull recently. I had it around 50% full with albums that I really liked - and that was all without going through my CD collection and copying the 'old but good' ones onto it. That said, no matter how good the stuff you listen to is, you eventually get used to it. Riffs and lyrics that you thought were amazing become more normal after the 50th listening and before you know it, you've sucked all the marrow from those great tracks you were so thrilled to discover. That's the stage I was at recently. I'd not found anything I'd wanted to acquire for a month or so and, whilst I enjoyed listening to the stuff I already had, it wasn't moving me the way it used to - it was merely passing time and filling my head with (admittedly still pleasant) melodies.

Music has always amazed me. Ever since I was a small kid with my ear pressed up to the massive radio we had in our house in Bristol in the seventies, it's held a special place in my life. I don't really get people if they say that music doesn't matter to them a great deal - it matters to me a massive amount and I'd be pretty much lost without it. Finding that song or album that just has something that makes you keep coming back and playing it again, again, again.... whether it be lyrics that move you or inspire you, a melody that's totally addictive or something that makes you want to snarl or go home and tell your family that you love them, music's power to move and inspire has always left me awestruck. It's what contributed to my wanting to play the drums when I was 13, lead to me joining the crappest of teen bands ever to exist in Reading in the mid eighties and it's definitely responsible for the old 5-piece Pearl Export kit that's sitting in our garage and which, one day, I will fix up and play. I'm an okay drummer, or at least I was all those years ago. Not amazing, not crap. Somewhere in between - yet when I sat behind my drum kit with headphones on, drumming along to vinyl LPs as a teenager, I felt like a rock god. Yeah, music counts for a lot in my life.

The other thing I love is music's ability to evolve and stand the test of time. I've truly lost track of the number of times I've heard something, listened to it over and over and thought to myself that's it - that's as good as it will ever get for me - nothing else will ever move me like that again. The joy is knowing that it won't be too long before something else appears and you listen to it and lo and behold, it's just as good - if not better. For a moment you feel as though you've found the only pearl left in all the oceans in the world; that everyone else is looking but it was you that found it. I think music owns us as much as we own it, if not more. Well, it does for me anyway.

Having said that, it seemed like it had been a long lull between inspirational finds of late. Thankfully that's over again for now. I've been looking all over the net for a particular album for months now and, just as my iPod was beginning to feel a little stale, I came across it last week and downloaded it. It took an age because it wasn't a mass produced album and there weren't many people seeding it but I finally got it and uploaded it to my iPod. Since then it's been on constantly. Normal service has been resumed and my faith duly restored.

What the album is doesn't matter. If nothing else, I once confessed to liking a song in a blog posting going back years and got well and truly panned for it. Anyway, I like it - that's all that really matters here. I have some more ideas for artists and styles to search for, so that should keep me going for a little longer. The one thing I'm certain of - and always have been - is that something inspirational will come around again soon. Everyone needs a little faith and that's a significant part of mine. I hope to live for a long, long time to come - the soundtrack to my life is only half formed, all being well.

Mainstream, track one.

2009-06-25T22:50:00.004+10:00

Here's a confession. I moisturise. It's not something I was initially proud of but over the years I've managed to deal with the stigma associated with male grooming and move on with my life, feeling no less of a man because of it. When you have facial hair and sensitive skin, moisturising becomes a necessity if you want to avoid a rash and constant scratching of your face. There are enough people with flaky beards on my bus in the mornings; I see no need to add to their number and so I work some moisturiser into my face every morning.

That was as far as my jaunt into metrosexuality ever went and it was far enough for me. Sure, I knew that manbags existed but I always thought they were a bit poncey. I think I'd been scarred by my father buying a manbag in the late eighties. Back then, manbags as we know them now simply didn't exist. Back then, manbags were just rectangular handbags without anything glittery - on other words they were gay as. Thankfully my father only used his a few times before the novelty wore off and, once again, we were able to walk alongside him in company without fear of being laughed at. Well, no more than we were normally laughed at, anyway.

So I never bothered with manbags. In the UK I had a company car which was kind of like a massive manbag on wheels. Then I got to Australia and found myself getting the bus to work and pockets that you couldn't get your keys, wallet, phone and a sandwich into. I had a cheap rucksack to carry my stuff in and that was was fine. It did the job well enough although I did find out that if you leave pears in a plastic bag in a rucksack for 2 weeks, eventually they will leak through the bottom and your bag will smell like a wino's. That's not the rucksack's fault though so I didn't hold it against it - I merely hosed it out, dried it out and packed it full of my stuff again. Then came the revelation. My first christmas in Australia and my brother sent me my first ever manbag as a christmas present.

Looking back now, my brother was probably just trying to save me from myself. He probably feared for my panache and style, having voluntarily extricated myself from the affluent South-East of England and materialised on the other side of the world without so much as a Waitrose within 12,000 miles. Anyway, I warmed to my new bag immediately. It had an AK-47 rifle on it and 'Bruder Meinhof' emblazoned across it - an in-joke between my brother and I which brings back warm & fuzzy thoughts every time I see it. I told myself that it wasn't really a manbag; merely a DJ's record bag and that made it all the more acceptable. After all, a manbag has to be leather and cost over $100, right? This was just a cool alternative. The placebo of manbags, if you will.

These days my bag comes with me every day to work. It even came with me to the UK when we went there last year. It gave the security staff at Sydney a laugh and sent the security staff at Heathrow into a panic. After all, that picture of an AK47 could do some serious damage if they allowed it into the plane with me, right? By this stage it had already gone through the x-ray machine and we all knew that the stencilled AK47 didn't have any stencilled bullets with it, but no; paranoid fervour being what it was, the bag had to go in the hold rather than return with me as hand luggage. Yep; my bag's infamous amongst airport staff on both sides of the world. Here it is relaxing in style in a grotty hotel we stayed in whilst in London.

Anyway, I own one bag. Vanessa, on the other hand, owns a great deal more. I'm no expert but she has a cabinet specifically devoted to bags so I'd say she has at least 20. I never understood why you needed so many, in all honesty. Now I'm getting the idea a bit better. It's not because you need to match them to your outfits. That's just a myth I reckon. No, you need more because there's only so much one bag can hold and it's much easier to start another bag going than it is to clean out the one you currently use. Trust me, I know. Right now, my bag contains one magazine, three books, some painkillers, my keys, wallet, iPod, various silver change, an old lighter and, for some bizarre reason, an ethernet cable. I don't need half of that stuff. The magazine's been read, as have two of the books. Still, at least the shoulder muscles on my right side are getting a good workout from carrying all that excess weight.

So I need to force myself to go through my bag and clear some stuff out. Getting my lunch in there this morning was a struggle, that's for sure. What I need is some middle ground. If I clear it out totally then I'll feel as though I'm carrying very little around in a bag that's way too big for the contents. I'll also be jangling on the bus with every step up the aisle and that will just make the flakybeards eye me suspiciously. The trick is to go through my bag's contents and take out just enough to keep it looking full enough to mark me down as important - and not imply that I'm one of those saddos who goes to work carrying a briefcase containing nothing but a pen and a peanut butter sandwich. I reckon getting rid of two of the books and that magazine should just about do it, leaving me with a comforting weight to the bag but also meaning I can slip a takeaway container full of leftovers in for lunch should the opportunity present itself. Honestly, it's more complicated than I ever thought it would be. This metrosexual stuff is seriously full on. Thank god I don't have a proper manbag or else I'd probably have to polish and buff it every few months as well as clear it out every four years. Now all I have to do is work out what to do with the ethernet cable and we're home and laughing.....

Politics: The big issues.

2009-06-19T18:11:00.002+10:00

I have been wracking my brains about what to write about for a while now. At the time of typing this, it's just before 1pm on Friday here. I've been working hard all morning and I'm 7 minutes away from a well-earned lunch break. Again, it'll probably just involve listening to music as I walk along the harbour but it's okay with me. What isn't okay with me is that I really have no idea what to write about. Maybe it's apathy or maybe I'm tired but I can't find much to report that you've not heard before. I can't sex up any witty conversations I had or overheard recently and I'm not likely to make up something salacious (or borrow from someone else's experiences) just to write something worth reading. I guess I have to hope that inspiration strikes soon. Maybe a surf on news.com will help me out. Hmm, let's see.

Okay, there's a story about that burger bar in the US which serves the most grease-laden monstrosities I've ever seen (I'm talking about the burgers, not the patronage although I'm sure it's equally applicable). Problem is that I've already had the chain e-mail about that one, complete with Powerpoint slideshow - so it doesn't feel like news. I could talk about the groping 'scandal' that's enveloped a governmental Mid-Winter Ball but let's face it, MPs misbehaving is hardly a scandal these days. Hell, one of these things passing without a hint of scandal is more newsworthy. I think I'll mull it over lunch and see how I feel when I get back.

Well lunch is over, in fact we're nearing the end of the working week. Just before 4pm if you're interested. I have my final coffee stop scheduled in for 4pm and it's as much to get me out of the office for a few minutes and make the last hour of my working day pass quickly as it is to load up on coffee. But at least there's one thing these past hours have done: they've helped me decide on a topic.

That topic being Barack Obama.

We all had high hopes for Obama when he first won the presidential election. He talked about shutting Guantanamo Bay and we cheered. He made his speech in Cairo recently and we all wondered if, just for once, we might really be experiencing history in the making. I mean; if it went as right as it was possible to go, wasn't the end result going to be something bordering on an orgasmic utopia? Come on, admit it - you looked at your own president or prime minister and wished you had the American's one didn't you? Sorry Kev, sorry Gordon.... Nothing personal; that's just the way it is.

And then, all hope was lost. Obama went....... normal.

First up he compared his bowling skill to the Special Olympics and the capuccino-sipping pinko brigade spat their dummy. How very dare he? Disabled people vote too you know, the liberals trumpeted - even if someone has to hold the pen for them, they didn't add but anyway, you get the point. Barack Obama was degrading to the disabled, to their sporting ability and.... well.... to the world in general.

Deep down, we never did trust him. We all knew he was a bad 'un, that Obama. We all knew it was too good to be true. We just weren't expecting his descent from deity to devil to happen so quickly. Having personally kicked the wheelchairs out from under every disabled person in the world with one off the cuff remark, he then committed murder - on live television! I know - I saw it on the news and we all know that the media doesn't lie, so it must be true.

Yes, Obama must be brought to justice. During an interview he swatted away at a fly and then, when it settled on his hand, he smacked it stone cold dead. The camera lingered on the fly's motionless form as Obama commented something along the lines of 'I got that sucker'. PETA for one are outraged. It sends the wrong message apparently. We preach tolerance of muslims and other religious groups, then go on a killing spree of insects. Where will the bloodbath end? Hitler probably killed a fly once too - look how that turned out. Save one blowfly and you save the world, grasshopper. Grasshoppers - don't kill them either, just so we're clear on that.

Myself, I liked Bill Clinton. Things were simple with him in charge. At least he gave the outraged something decent to be outraged about. Personally I thought Clinton represented a broad cross-section of the voting populous. He lied, he had affairs, his business dealings were a little shady allegedly. Hell, I'm sure half of the people who wanted him impeached were far from perfect themselves but that doesn't matter - ever. We always want our politicians to be better than we are. They're meant to represent us, not resemble us. They have to be purity personified, never lie, never fiddle their expenses and absolutely definitely never kill a fly or make inappropriate jokes about people with disabilities. And if you're going to get caught with an intern, at least make sure she's a looker and have the decency to pay for her laundry bill. You never know when your tight wallet and aversion to Sketchleys will come back to haunt you.

So yes, one fly later it's already the end of the world as we know it. Obama may be trying to bring peace to the world but he's intent on insectocide. He's obviously the equivalent of a walking, talking can of Aeroguard - and who wants one of those responsible for the betterment of the world in general? Not PETA, for sure. It's strange really - there are a lot of things to admire about PETA but trying to keep the numbers of flies in the world as high as possible isn't one of them. We should have voted for the old guy. You know - old grandad McCain. Not only was he nice to animals, he even offered us a dancing weasel in a designer suit as vice-president. He wouldn't have mocked the afflicted either, although maybe he'd have got more attention if he had. I think that if that's as bad as Obama ever gets then he's a hell of a lot better than I was in my younger days. Let's face it - he has a point. Special Olympians don't compete alongside their able bodied companions for a reason - they'd be trounced.

For what it's worth, PETA, I'm ready to stand for election the minute you read this. I don't mock cripples any more and I don't so much as kill a cockroach. Oh; and I promise not to wear fur either. I know absolutely fuck-all about politics but hey; don't let a trifling matter like that put you off - it's not what you're focusing on, right?

"Nice to animals, crap with voters". That can be our motto. I'm ready to take this country forward the minute I hear from you. Hell, any country will do. Where's nice this time of year?

Pausing to update.

2009-06-18T17:31:00.002+10:00

So busy.... so busy.....

Vanessa's birthday was a success. Henry bought her this amazingly funky scarf that he picked out himself and, yet again, I found myself wondering at how grown up he's getting. Granted, he could paint a toad pink & green and Vanessa would love it (I, however, would accuse him of stealing my idea - see previous posting) but the scarf he picked out was absolutely right.

Vanessa went off to get her hair cut, then came into town to get the facial and massage that I bought her as part of her present. It seemed to go down well and we just had time to dash home and get changed before we were due back in town for Henry's Tantrum performance. I have it on good authority that it was much better than the last thing we saw. Sadly I had to miss it because we weren't able to park the car. Tantrum were performing at the Civic Playhouse which is attached to the Civic Theatre. The theatre itself alsohad a performance on. We were cutting it fine anyway and it was just absolutely packed. In the end, I dropped Vanessa off and ended up parking a long way away. It's a shame I couldn't see it but really it was Vanessa's birthday and I didn't want both of us to miss seeing Henry if only one of us had to.

After that we headed off to meet Vanessa's friends. That was a really great evening. The pizzas were marvellous and the company was very amusing. Vanessa & I got home around 11pm in the end and watched a few episodes of Frasier before bed as we weren't overly tired.

I will be tired tomorrow though. If nothing else, tomorrow's Friday and although work's frantic right now, I figure that it's the end of the week and I can cope with being more than a little weary. That way I can stay up and watch USA v Brazil in the Confederations Cup being held in South Africa right now. I don't think SA's too far ahead of Greenwich Mean Time but the matches kick off at 11.45pm so I can usually watch the first half and be in bed before 1am. Now that the English football season is over, I'm getting my fixes where I can. If that means yawning through the mornings because I was up watching dodgy teams play in a competition nobody really cares about, so be it.

June's also starting to snowball too. It's not fair to say I'm operating on autopilot - I'm too busy and my work's too complex for that - but it's a definite juggling act. I tend to go down and walk along the harbour most lunchtimes, my iPod belting out something to relax me. It works well and sets me up for the afternoon nicely too. I don't mind being busy but it definitely takes some getting used to, in the sense that you normally have uninterrupted time to look at something. These days I barely have time to clear my mind from one matter before I'm having to churn over something else. Put it this way; if my head were a washing machine there's a very good chance I'd have accidentally dyed my whites pink by now.

Thankfully there's always the joy of coming home. It doesn't matter what sort of day I've had, home's always the best remedy. It doesn't matter what we do (or don't do, very often) - it's just nice to spend time with Vanessa and, if he's there, Henry. Vanessa might not agree but I think this June's been my most successful to date when it comes to de-stressing. For the past few years I've always apologised in advance for being a bit of a grumpybum every June. This year, I think I've been much better; happy, relatively calm and composed and collected. I'm just weary now with one working week left to go before July hits us. Maybe I'll look at a week off once the rush has died down - that would be the perfect remedy I think.

In closing, the office is extra quiet today because Susan, the girl who drives us all mad at work, went into labour at 4.30am this morning. Her six month (minimum) maternity leave started today instead of Monday so that's a whole two days extra peace we weren't expecting. What a nice surprise! The tension levels in our office have dropped noticeably and immediately and it's very, very welcome. Kerry from our office is going to see her in hospital tonight. The rest of us will wait for the inevitable visit-with-newborn in a couple of weeks. I'm just hoping we can keep the morning tea we had planned to send her off tomorrow. Right now, a bulk load of sausage rolls and party pies would go down very well. Nothing gets you over a busy day like baked, greasy, cheap meat, that's for sure.

It's the final countdown.....

2009-06-16T17:30:00.002+10:00

Tomorrow is Vanessa's birthday. I think I'm like many husbands in that my present buying is sometimes a hit and sometimes it's a miss. At the start of our relationship I could probably have giftwrapped a live toad (providing I'd dyed it pink and green first) and Vanessa would have been over the moon. Now, all these birthdays later, I have to get it right. I know it's the thought that counts but let's be honest; if it's a load of crap then you obviously haven't thought enough and you risk a night in the spare room.

Yep, it used to be so simple. Was it spangly? Check. Was it pink, green or both? Check. Could it be worn around the neck, in the ears or on the wrists? Check. Here's my debit card, salesperson. Thanks for your time. These days though, it's not so easy. For one thing, Vanessa has a lot of trinkets, necklaces, bangles etc - so many that she's actually told me to stop buying them for her. Mind you, maybe I just got it wrong one too many times in the past. Ah well; that was then, this is now and I'm hopeful that this year I will get it right again. You should know in just over 16 hours, as you'll probably hear the screaming from here if I screw up...!

Vanessa may well be getting her hair cut tomorrow morning and then, tomorrow afternoon, she's unavailable. I could tell you why but I'd have to kill you afterwards. Then, later that night, we're out watching Henry perform in the latest offering from Tantrum, the theatre group he goes to. This came about when we were trying to get Henry into the Hunter School of Performing Arts - part of our 'Anywhere But Waratah High' campaign of last year. Then he ended up going to Merewether and, as some sort of karmic punishment, we have to sit through a poorly constructed play every year. I say 'play' but really it's more like a poorly scripted improvisation. Stagecraft isn't relevant to the kids - it's just some random jumble of letters that would score 16 in Scrabble, if they were ever uncool enough to play Scrabble. The plots usually revolve around peer pressure and bullying but hey; Henry enjoys it and if that's the price we have to pay for him not going to Waratah High, it's a price worth paying. I can be magnanimous easily - my birthday's on Boxing Day so no half-arsed teen performance is ever going to ruin my birthday!

After we finish at the theatre and congratulate Henry on his stunning portrayal of a gangly teenager, Vanessa & I head off to trendy Cooks Hill for her birthday dinner. Vanessa being a twin, we very often find ourselves celebrating with her sister and her family. This year Vanessa's friends arranged to see her on her birthday before anything was sorted our with Felicity and her family, so off to Cooks Hill we travel. There will be around six or seven of us heading out to a pizza place called DeLuca's. We've been there once before and the pizzas and ambience were very good. Hopefully it will be a really marvellous end to a really marvellous day. Hopefully Felicity will have an equally great time with her family too and we can catch up with them before too long.

So that's the plan. If it all comes off as I hope it will, I will have another year under my belt of rising to the challenge of my wife's birthday. I think I put the expectation to excel there much more than Vanessa does, but it matters to me. I hope that I make my wife feel special more than a few days every year but this is one of the few occasions where I can spend a reasonable amount of time and money really attempting to force the point home - that she is special and that even if I don't always get it as 100% spot-on as I hope to with gifts, it's not through lack of thought or trying. I guess it could be worse - my grandfather once bought my grandmother a set of suitcases as a present. Thank god that particular gene wasn't passed down the generations. Mind you, I really should wait to see how Vanessa's gift of the 'Dusting To Perfection' hardback goes down before I start casting aspersions on my grandparents and singing my own praises.

In closing.... just a note to my wife if she's reading this before her birthday. That dusting thing? That was a joke. No need to make me spend the night in the spare room, all by myself in the cold and with only my regret for company, honest......

Briefly updating.

2009-06-15T22:25:00.004+10:00

It's been a busy weekend and an equally busy Monday. I've not had time to compose my thoughts or, indeed, think about what I want to talk about. I figure that's as good a sign as any to say nothing, so saying nothing's what I'm going to do.

For now though, here's a picture that Vanessa got through the mail recently. We went to her Fine Arts graduation ceremony earlier this year - you may remember me mentioning it in this blog (or you may not, depending on your memory). Anyway, this is one of the two official shots that were taken (and which we paid for). Vanessa, Henry and I in all of our glory.

Normally Vanessa's the one dissecting her appearance in pictures but in this instance, I'm going to steal her thunder. Who stole me and replaced me with that old bloke who actually looks old enough to be that kid's father? When did I stop looking buff and in my late twenties? You could have mentioned it earlier - this combined with undeniable photographic evidence that "little" Henry is now taller than me has been one hell of a shock to the system!

More soon - when time permits and inclination.... erm.... inclines (and I recover from the traumatic effects of realising that I can't fight the passing of time!)

Strange that you mention it, Vanessa.....

2009-06-12T19:23:00.002+10:00

With all the drama this week (illness, cold snaps, that sort of thing) I completely overlooked one marvellous piece of news - Henry's continued sporting excellence.

The days of Henry being this short little tubby kid are long gone now. I'd like to pat myself on the back and tell myself that it was all down to me; that my arrival in the country coincided with him slimming down and getting sporty but to be honest, I think metabolism has as much to do with it as anything. It just so happened that Henry started playing soccer the year I arrived in Australia and that got him a bit more active. Add in three years of playing cricket every summer too and he's now a very active kid. Slim, tall and active. The minute he gets into girls, I have a sneaking suspicion he won't be short of offers.

Anyway I digress. Henry's very fit now and last year (his last year at primary school) found him entering the school athletics carnival. There's this tiered system of progression and it goes something like this: Win in your school carnival and you go to 'zone'. I think zone is just schools within a certain radius. If you win at zone, you get to regional and I'd imagine that's just a more expanded radius. We never really had to worry about regional. Henry would win the sprinting events in his primary school carnival, get to zone and find himself finishing well but outside of the winning places. Vanessa & I weren't disappointed - we were just really impressed with him doing well for his school.

Then, this year, he went in the school carnival for Merewether - his high school. Obviously high schools have more kids and therefore more competition. We were pleasantly surprised when he won the 100m and 200m races but what really blew us away was that he won the high jump too. Henry's never high jumped before - in fact he didn't even know how to jump. He just thought it would be fun to try, watched the kids before him and tried to jump like them. It obviously worked - from what I gather he blitzed it.

Anyway, we knew that Henry was going to 'zone' for high jump and for the last few weeks, Vanessa's mum has been trying to persuade Henry to speak to his games teacher to get some coaching on technique. Henry wasn't so keen - he just wanted to do it his way and try his best. That's always been his attitude - to do his best and just have fun. Vanessa & I weren't going to push Henry too hard. Jacky, on the other hand, maintains that Vanessa's brother Richard could and should have played cricket for Australia and I fear her attention's now shifted from Richard to Henry. I think she looked at Henry winning the school high jump competition and pictured herself waving the Australian flag at the 2016 Olympics as Henry got his gold medal. Thankfully Henry dealt with the weight of grandmotherly expectation well and maintained that he'd just do his best, his way.

So the zone sports carnival rolled around on my day off sick. I didn't go, obviously - I was having trouble seeing much. Vanessa and Jacky did go though and it turns out that I missed a really good day. Henry entered the high jump and managed to clear all the heights. The competition slowly fell away and in the end, it came down to him and two other kids jumping to clear 1.35m. Henry was the only one who managed it. He then tried for - and cleared - 1.40m on his first attempt. He was finally thwarted by 1.45m but that doesn't matter though - he was the outright winner. Next up are the regionals. I have no idea what comes after that but, on this evidence, I'd best find out - there's a chance it may be necessary.

I'm very pleased for Henry. He tries his very best at soccer and cricket with a certain amount of natural ability but it's fair to say there are kids playing much more skilfully and effortlessly than him. Somehow he seems to be really good at athletics - sprinting and high jump in particular. Vanessa and I have talked to him about adding to his hectic social schedule by joining an athletics club. At first he was a little bit cool on the idea, but that was before he won the zone competition. Now he's quite keen and I'm really pleased about that. He works very hard on his sport and schoolwork and always gets the required results - but it seems like he's got more natural ability for high jump that soccer or cricket. He's got bags of confidence already but he handles it well and he's not a show-off. It's nice to see life reward someone with such a positive outlook. I know I'm biased but truly, it couldn't happen to a nicer kid.

Arctic Monkeys.

2009-06-11T20:17:00.002+10:00

You'll be pleased to hear that I'm finally getting my comeuppance for bragging about how hot it gets here. This week has been seriously cold. We've had arctic winds blown up from, well, Antarctica (as you probably guessed) and it's been a case of putting on as many layers of clothing as possible - followed swiftly by the gas heater. I've lost count of how many times I've been pleased that we moved the lounge room into the front of the house, and that the sole gas outlet means that we can sit there in comfort and warmth.

I didn't post yesterday because I wasn't at work. I was off sick as I woke up with my left eye scratchy and streaming. I don't know what caused it but it got quite inflamed and painful. In the end, I phoned in sick and spent the day doing.... well.... nothing really. When seeing's an issue, you can't really sit down at a computer or watch television for prolonged periods. It got bearable by around 3pm and I was able to entertain myself a bit but believe me; prior to that it was seriously dull!

So today was my first day back at work. I know I was only gone for a day but this is my busiest time of the year and, sod's law, yesterday was one of those days where 200 things became urgent all at once. That said, I got through today and got everything done - in style and in a composed manner too I may add! The funniest thing was that although I tell everyone that I don't like this time of year much, I have a sneaking suspicion that I might just enjoy it a little more than I let on. Certainly the sense of satisfaction that came when I walked out of work at 5pm today was palpable - and not just because I'd finished another day at the grindstone.

Tomorrow's Friday and then the weekend looms. I may have something to write about tomorrow or I may not. Guess it depends how busy I get between now and then.

Reflecting from afar.

2009-06-09T17:41:00.003+10:00

I had a mixed response on my last posting about my misspent youth. Reading between the lines, my mother found it interesting but didn't see that I was under any compulsion to bring the skeletons out of my closet. My wife's reaction was to go into ultra-maternal mode and pretty much imply that my poor mother would be shamed and shocked at my tales of sin and that I'd drive her into an early grave. She obviously doesn't know that my mother's one of the undead and will never die but I'm pretty much powerless when two mothers gang up on me - especially when they're the two alpha females in my life.

Then there was my brother who, true to form, loved it and asked for more.

It's tough to know where to go next really. Yes, I have plenty more tales to tell but I didn't really sit there and think 'I know, I'll shock everyone with some salacious tales of yesteryear'. I just thought it was interesting, that's all. It was on my mind and that's why you got it. As agendas go, that's as complex as it gets.

I guess if I'm guilty of anything, it's trying to compensate for distance. Let's face it; if I was still in Britain, most of this stuff would come up over the many, many conversations that would have taken place with my family over these past few years. I'm not in Britain though - those asides, comments and stories don't get touched upon because, well, I'm not there to have the discussion with. That's probably why it comes out the way it does - unannounced and in blocks of texts on a website.

It's sometimes difficult being the only family member who has moved away. What's more, we're not talking 100 miles up the road either; we're talking 12,000 miles and an entire hemisphere away. Please don't get me wrong here; there's nothing about my life in Australia that I don't love and I'm not missing Britain itself - I just wish my family were closer so that I could occasionally pop in to see them, meet them when they get together for coffee, that sort of thing. I might have to skip the birthday dinners though because, between you and me, I don't earn enough in two years to pay for one of their sumptuous dining experiences. A chat and a coffee would be nice every now and then, though. Still, that's just one of the prices you have to pay when you emigrate. Life goes on, birthdays and anniversaries happen and you're absent. Not forgotten, just not there - and I guess maybe if I could sit down with my family more frequently and banter the way a lot of families can, maybe I wouldn't be running over the past and wondering what people know, what I've glossed over and what I've never said. Maybe that's something to do with it.

My brother and I, for example. We spent many years never getting on and now we do. We have a cool but cordial relationship, more due to the distance than anything. When Vanessa & I went back to the UK last year, rediscovering my relationship with Nathan & Kelly was marvellous. For one thing, I wondered if I'd ever see their flat - the first flat they ever bought together. When you're on the other side of the world, you never know how often you'll get back and I did wonder if maybe they'd have moved again before I dragged my hide back to the UK. It might have been silly, but I didn't want to miss having seen their first house. When someone in your family buys their first house, you all pile around and see it right? Not from the other side of the world you don't. It may sound silly but I was as pleased to nose around Nathan & Kelly's flat as I was to banter with them both over drinks and dinner in Oxford. No matter how many phone calls or emails you have, sometimes you just need to be somewhere and see it for yourself. Being in their flat completed the picture and made living away a bit easier.

Your family is a unique relationship. You love them and fight with them more frequently than with anyone else and very often it's a bittersweet relationship marked by recrimination and forgiveness. Whenever I see my family (and it's only happened twice in the last 4 years), it's not like I've been gone for years; it's like I've just stepped out to get milk for 5 minutes. It's a marvellous feeling of acceptance and it's as reassuring as it is freaky. What sucks is saying goodbye though. As I've said, I love living here. Nothing against Britain or any other country in the world, but I belong here and I feel that keenly and instinctively. Within 48 hours of landing in the UK I was looking forward to landing back at Sydney - and that's no reflection on the people I went to see or the places I wanted to visit. No; it's just a feeling that you're a tourist in a country you used to call home and, strangely enough, you don't belong there any more. The problem with leaving is having to say goodbye though. That sucks Totally.

Just as you've got to know someone again, caught up and spent time, it's time to leave again. You say goodbye, enriched for having spent the time with everyone and going home with some marvellous memories. Then you get on a plane and you don't see these people again for years. Your lives go on and you go back to being the person who sends cards (or fails to, much to your chagrin), the person who calls every so often, the person whose blog you check to see how they're going, the absent person who you raise a glass for at family functions.

On a positive note, realising that you value someone and love them and miss them isn't ever a bad thing. In my experience, you feel their absence for around a week before life gets back to normal and they return to being your family 'over there', as such. Life goes on for everyone concerned and the good times experienced aren't diminished - they're just not repeated as frequently as they used to be.

I know for a fact that my wife will read this and feel sad. She feels guilty about taking me away from my family but really she's got nothing to feel guilty about. My life is remarkable and that's because I met her - and I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's. Being so far away from the people you grew up with; that's just an occupational hazard. If my family were closer, that would be good. They're not though - but the plus side is that I value them more than I ever did when I was just around the corner from them. Contrary to how it may seem, I'm happy today - I am 99% of the time, thankfully. I guess it's just a day where I'd like to be able to catch up with them all and, in the absence of being able to do that, this seems the next best thing. That and reminding them all that I love them - and that no miles or years will ever change that, anyway.

Yesteryear's miscreantics.

2009-06-05T17:20:00.001+10:00

I used to be bad. You wouldn't know it to look at me now but I used to be really bad. Having said this, I never really felt as though I was being bad a lot of the time. A lot of the time, I was just doing what I wanted to do and I didn't care about the morality or the consequences. Granted, I can think of two things I did that were plain wrong - that not even my brother's excellent debating skills could justify on my behalf - but the rest of my misdemeanours were just part of my growing up process. I mean, who doesn't drink underage, , get drunk during a high school sports carnival, start fires and jump out of their bedroom window at 2am to go and party with their friends?

I alluded to this before in a previous posting, but I was never going to reallytrulyultimately fall in with 'the wrong crowd'. My friends at the time were chancers and opportunists at best - and a sad pack of wannabes at worst. They were always going to go straight after the first serious slap on the wrist and even if they didn't, I moved on after a while to new friends. You do that when you're 14 I think - or at least I did. For a while I was hanging out with the cool sporty kids in my high school year. Then, for some reason, I gravitated towards a group where the ringleader was a year above me at school and a lot of the others were in the year below me. For some reason there wasn't the stigma that normally comes with associating with kids in the years below you and most of my mischief was carried out during this friendship. I don't want to glorify my behaviour in any way. Suffice to say it was an eventful summer, that's for sure.

We'd go out in the evenings. If I had homework to do, I wasn't doing it that's for sure. I'd eat my dinner, get on my bike and go out to meet my friends. This was before the days of mobile phones. Back then, mobile phones were the exclusive toy of the millionaires. They were carried in a rucksack and the battery alone weighed 20kg. It would be another few years before Gordon Gekko walked down the beach with his brick of a cellphone and everyone thought 'ooh tomorrow's world is here today'. So no, there was no texting to find out where everyone was, yet we always managed to find each other. I guess we just knew where we'd be hanging out. Typically it was at Jason's house or over in the grassy area of Enstone Road, close to where Mark lived. I always hoped it was Enstone Road because that's where Stephanie Walker lived. She was a few years younger than me but she was brassy, pretty and puberty had visited young Stephanie earlier than most girls (and been very generous to boot). She liked me, I liked her. In case you're wondering, nothing happened. Sometimes you can play it too cool and, by the time you get around to doing anything, the girl in question's about to move out of the area. I think she ended up in Feltham. Someone has to, I guess.

So Stephanie was on the periphery a lot of the time along with a few other girls whose names I don't remember. One was an Emma but the other's name escapes me. Anyway they would come and see us in the camp we built in the woods. We made it from packing pallets and nails and covered it with plastic sheeting stolen from the nearby truck depot. That same depot also had a petrol tank and, silly old transport company, they hadn't put a padlock on the petrol pump. That gave us plenty of fuel for when we wanted a little camp fire and the only wood we could find was wet. We'd sit there, smoking and chatting with a big fire blazing. These days those woods are long gone I fear, swallowed up in new housing developments. Do kids even make camps or cubbies any more? Maybe not in deepest darkest Woodley any more. I think it's a shame - every kid should have a camp.

When we weren't camping out, we were heading into town to shoplift. I was very susceptible to peer pressure I suspect - that's the excuse I'm going with anyway. We'd hit town like a whirlwind. No shop was safe. I didn't even need half the things I stole - that came later when I got a paper round and found that the owner left the cigarette counter unattended when he opened up and switched the alarm off in the mornings. My shoplifting spree got me darts, expensive skateboard wheels, skateboard trucks, clothing, all sorts of things. If you add in all the cigarettes and magazines of a somewhat... fleshy.... nature, I reckon my haul would amount to at least five hundred pounds over those few years. Thank god I never got caught, that's all I can say. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Now of course I'd hit the roof if Henry so much as didn't pay for something by accident. It's always the reformed ones who are the most pious, isn't it?

Eventually my parents found out that I smoked. That combined with my not doing well at school meant that they tried grounding me at night. That didn't work though - I'd stay home, go to bed like a dutiful boy and then climb out of my window at 2am to go and meet my friends. Then when my parents got up, they just assumed that I'd got up early and gone out. Little did they know, or else they might have come good on their constant threat to put me into the care of social services. If that had happened, who knows which way I'd have gone? I doubt I'd be sitting here in Australia married to one of the most kind and ethical people I've ever known, put it that way. Anyway, I'd very often come down in the morning to find that my mother had gone through my coat pockets, found my cigarettes and broken them up. She'd put them in a bowl of water because, apparently, they never taste the same if they have to be dried. I didn't care - at 15 I'd smoke anything and everything. Anyway, the minute I turned up for my paper round there were packets of cigarettes just waiting to be pocketed once the newsagent's back was turned. I wasn't ever short of cigarettes, let's just say that.

Then of course there were drugs. More to the point, there was pot. Back in those days, pot was harder to come by than it seems to be these days and possession could still carry a hefty fine and, in some circumstances, a minor period of incarceration. If you were a schoolkid in the mid to late eighties, there was only one place to get resin in Reading - and that was the fabled Mandela Court block just off the Oxford Road in town. We'd get the bus in, smoking our heads off (it's hard to believe you could ever smoke on public transport these days) and head to Mandela Court. We'd get a five pound block and head somewhere (usually Forbury Gardens) to roll it. It wasn't ever that great, I realise that now. Since then I've had some seriously good stuff and, well, it's probably just as well I wasn't getting premium stuff when I was 14 or 15. I still have one good friend who partied a bit too hard on the recreational substances and, well, as much as I love him he's certainly a little altered for the experiences. Like I said, it was just pot back then. You could get coke if you really wanted but it was a bit too pricey for me back then - and I wasn't nearly as well connected as I needed to be. As a result, I've only ever had coke once and, again, it's probably just as well. To say I had a good time that night was an understatement.

It's only now that I realise what a charmed life I lead. I never got caught shoplifting and I once missed a Drugs Squad raid on Mandela Court by around 2 minutes, concluding my transaction just as they were cordoning off the front entrance to the Court. My parents thought I was trouble; if only they knew how close I came to fulfilling their fears, they'd have been much more worried. Sure, I got busted for drunk driving 2 weeks after passing my driving test - and under the legal drinking age - but if the police had found the matchbox full of resin that was sitting under the steering wheel, blowing an increasingly high alcohol content would have been the least of my worries I suspect. It could well be that my criminal record would have denied me immigration clearance into Australia - assuming of course my life had gone that way in the first place. We'll never know how it could have gone and, for that, I'm very pleased. If you believe that everything happens for a reason then there's method in those years of mine between the ages of 14 and 20, even if I struggle to see it at times.

This isn't even the half of it, really. There's more - I just forget about it often. I guess it just doesn't seem important any more and I've consigned it to the past. The past's not something I spend a great deal of time on, really. Next time I'm in danger of posting about my plans to do the lawn, I'll try to remember to tell you about the time I set fire to Tippings Lane, not to mention the destruction of public property that followed my attendance at a Young Conservatives Party in Ascot in 1988 - or the time that one too many drinks contributed to my ruining my Economics Teacher's car. After all, you can't truly appreciate who you are until you acknowledge who you were - and even if you don't approve of my life, you have to admit one thing; it's got to beat hearing about cloud formations and what's growing in my vegetable patch for the hundredth time.....

Hola Signor Haitus.

2009-06-04T17:30:00.001+10:00

I'm a little disillusioned with blogging right now. I won't bore you with the details but sometimes things happen and it makes me wonder why I bother. Then I sit back and remind myself that I'm just doing this to air my thoughts and let a few select people know what's going on; nothing more and nothing less. Normally I pull through the funk without too much trouble and it's business as usual.

For some reason, I'm having trouble shaking this current funk. It's not helped by the fact that nothing's really happened for me to write about lately. Well, nothing that springs out, anyway. I'd rather not write than end up writing nothing for the sake of writing something, so I'm giving myself the long weekend off to relax, recharge and get my sense of perspective back. All being well, I'll be back to my usual cheery self on Tuesday.

I. Am. Over. It.

2009-06-03T18:11:00.002+10:00

I like to think of myself as a happy person - an optimist, if you will. Sure, I can be sarcastic occasionally and, in my time, I've been known to be a little cynical. These days though I tend to approach each day on a positive note and even when I'm stressed and muttering under my breath at the world's injustice or stupidity, I can console myself with the knowledge that the stress will pass and that life will return to normal. I credit a lot of this to my wife by the way. She's very optimistic and generally a happy little soul. It's infectious in all the right ways and there's a lot of good to be drawn from being positive. I think so anyway.

What I now find is that I have less time for negative people than I used to. Sure, eternal pessimists are always annoying but I've tolerated them more in the past than I do now. These days, there's only so much you can listen to before you want to switch off or get away from the negativity before it brings you down. Right now work's falling into that category. Everywhere I go, people are bitching about other people in the office, outside the office and in general. Sometimes those complaints are justified but let's face facts; after a while it doesn't matter how justified your complaints are - you just end up coming across as grumpy. I'm well and truly sick of it so here I am complaining about complainers. Where's the logic there? Not entirely sure, to be honest - humour and indulge me......

Some people like things being broken, that much I'm sure of. If things were fixed, they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. They'd spend all day staring out of the window and wondering what to talk about, rather than staring out of the window and complaining about so-and-so. I mean, at some stage complaining becomes pointless. You either address someone's or something's shortcomings or come to terms with the fact that they can't be addressed and do something else about it - whether that be ignore them, tolerate them or look to get away from them somehow. Don't you? Isn't it that simple?

There's a girl I work with right now who's a touch, shall we say, controversial. I've thought long and hard about why she's that way and how best to describe her. Believe me, I've been trying to do this concisely for the best part of a year and I've not managed it yet. It's unfortunate but I'm just not sure she's cut out for this industry and this office. When she needs to be literal, she's creative. When she needs to be creative, she's literal. Her people skills are honed in certain ways and could do with significant development in other ways. She doesn't read things fully and she doesn't think before she acts. Oh; and she's pregnant so, on top of all of these points, her major crime is that she has other things on her mind at the moment - namely her pregnancy.

The woman in question is far from perfect and, in all honesty, I find her annoying. Have done for a while, to be honest. I won't bore you with the intricacies but I've come to the conclusion that she is who she is and that nothing's really going to alter so we either like it or lump it. Granted if she were sticking around then she might be able to get some training in some areas, some monitoring in others but really, she's only ever going to progress so far. Short of a Clockwork Orange level mindwash, her edges are going to end up a little more rounded and polished but that's as good as it's going to get. Hopefully she'll toddle off to have her baby, discover the infinite joys of motherhood and vow never to return to work. I think that would be the best option for everyone concerned. If she does want to go back to work, going somewhere else would probably work better. This office and her just aren't on the same wavelength and I can't help thinking she'd be happier somewhere else anyway. There's no vitriol here - truly, I wish this woman no ill will whatsoever. I wish her a quick, pain-free pregnancy and a healthy baby, not to mention many happy and rewarding years ahead. I just happen to find her annoying but hey; there's no rule saying that we have to get on equally with everyone is there? I'm always polite and we get on okay - she just annoys me more often than not. Nothing I can do about it though - it's just one of those things I have to put up with. Only for a little longer though, as she's about to head off on maternity leave.

The rest of the office see it differently. Every day the conversation comes around to this woman's faults. Every day, we get vitriol and anecdotes about how useless she is and every day the whole boys club mentality ramps up another notch. If you want to be held in esteem, you make a dig about this woman and everyone laughs and you're one of the boys. Doesn't matter if the dig you make is justified - just make it and everyone will love you. You'll fit in and be on the side of right, the side of strength. Anyway, I'm well and truly over it. There are worse crimes than not being naturally gifted at your job and not really wanting to work too hard at it. This woman's a pain and I wouldn't behave the way she has but come on; nobody's dead or in danger of dying. The general mood of negativity in this office isn't being generated by her any more; it's being generated by the people who slag her off day in and day out. I'm not joining in with this whole lynching and I pretty much made that clear today. This is a busy and stressful month for us all without voluntarily paying into the negativity piggy bank - that would just be foolish.

Right now I need all the optimism I can get, so I'm switching off the pessimists, the bitches and the small-minded. They can revolve around each other in their own little orbits without my help, I'm sure - not to mention slap each other on the back and tell each other how great it is to be accepted as they swap derogatory tales and write people off. For now, I've got work to do and positive mantras to recite and, if nothing else, I've paid this small-minded and negative issue enough attention. To paraphrase Paulie from Goodfellas, I gotta turn my back on it now, you understand. Move on, calm down and chill out...... Tomorrow's another day, as always.

Padding the void.

2009-06-02T17:36:00.002+10:00

I have nothing to report. Absolutely nothing. Remember I said that June was my busy period? Well, it's started to pick up and that leaves two outcomes: Firstly I'm busy and secondly I'm weary. Those two don't exactly combine to leave me full of thrills and news.

So I'll pad for a bit. Who knows - a paragraph or two in and you may even forget that you're reading the literary equivalent of marshmallow. Hmn, last night's normally a safe topic when you've nothing to talk about. Yeah; let's do last night. It was good, actually. Nothing spectacular happened but it was very enjoyable. Henry's staying with us at the moment, so the three of us went down to the Phoenix for dinner with Vanessa's mum. The food was largely adequate but unspectacular. Can't say I cared too much, seeing as a) I wasn't paying, and b) it meant I didn't have to cook.

We got home relatively early to some shocking, unexpected news. Henry, somehow, had managed to finish his homework and it was looking like he might not be working all night for a change. I'm sure that we could have found an assignment for him to work on if we'd tried hard enough but, in all honesty, he's been working pretty constantly on his homework and assignments lately so neither Vanessa nor I pushed too hard on what he had left to complete. Vanessa curled up on the lounge with a magazine to read and Henry & I took it in turns to play a game on the PC. We tend to go through phases on what we enjoy and, right now, we're playing Pirates - a game I first played on the Atari ST back around 20 years ago. When I reference things that happened 20 years ago and I can remember them like they were yesterday, it makes me feel very old! Anyway, Henry & I are both enjoying Pirates. For him, it's a fun new game and for me, it's a total nostalgiafest. All good.

I texted Vanessa earlier - just to say hello really. I don't care if she's got no news or I have nothing to say, sometimes it's just nice to catch up and hear her voice. Anyway she's trying to cook a stew from what I gather, so that means another night where I don't have to plan dinner. Don't get me wrong - I normally don't mind doing dinner and I doubt Vanessa would disagree with my saying that I do the majority of the cooking at home. Having said that, we're a bit behind on the dishes right now and if there's one thing that I really don't like, it's having to do heaps of dishes before you have to do dinner. One or the other, that's what I say. Having both jobs to do is fine at the weekend but when I get home during the week, it's one or the other as far as I'm concerned.

So it's "Stewsday". Not quite on a par with my mother's fabled "Pie Monday" but I think it's got a ring to it. Who knows - maybe tomorrow will be Newsy Wednesday and I won't have to ramble on lamely in an attempt to keep you all informed. Let's see - six paragraphs. That's a respectable enough haul for today I think so I'm off eat dinner and then aim for another cosy night. I downloaded a film overnight which I'm keen to see, so maybe I'll stay up and watch that tonight. I guess it depends on how warm the lounge room gets and how sleepy I end up feeling as a result of that. Not exactly top of life's problem pile, is it?

Autumn disappears in a bang.

2009-06-01T17:24:00.002+10:00

And so to June - the official start of the Australian winter and the busiest and most stressful month on my working calendar. Halfway through the year already, too - where has all the time gone?

Somewhere time didn't go this weekend, thanks be to Christ and all of his little fluffy angels, was into Henry's homework. It's not that Henry's suddenly become mega-organised and forward thinking; more that this was his weekend staying at his dad's place. We did end up seeing Henry though - more on that in a bit.

Vanessa was up early on Saturday morning to get to Miss Porter's Markets. It was being held indoors up at a local school, which was just as well as it had been chucking down all week. Vanessa had been working very hard, getting stuff from the shop to sell, making new cards and pictures to sell, making display signs, filling baskets, ironing clothing. Most of the house resembled an indoor market when I got home on Friday and I almost thought about suggesting that Vanessa stick a sign out the front and have the market at our house rather than going off to Miss Porter's Market! Nevertheless at 7.45am on Saturday morning my wife climbed into our absolutely packed station wagon and drove off to make a killing at the markets.

That was the plan anyway. The reality was very different. Vanessa and her mother arrived at the market site to find that it was badly organised and generally chaotic. It was advertised with a crafts and antiques slant but seemed to be mostly people selling new stuff. The final straw came when they reached their allocated pitch and found that it was the size of a postage stamp. At that stage, they decided not to set up and decided instead to vacate the premises and ask for their money back. They went down the the shop at the Centenary and put a lot of stuff in there instead, including some new racks.

Whilst this was all unfolding, I'd had a nice morning. I'd got up, made myself lots of coffees and spent a fair amount of time looking at the football websites and blogs I usually check. I'd done the dishes, made a compilation CD and had walked to Woolies to get some stuff for dinner. I'd got 'Australia' on DVD to (grudgingly) watch with Vanessa that night and I'd filled a prescription for her. I'd managed all this without breaking anything, accidentally maiming the dog or burning the house down. All in all, I was doing pretty well. Then my phone beeped - a text from Vanessa. Her mum had gone back home and my poor wife was down at the shop with heaps left to do all by herself and with nobody to talk to. I looked around me wistfully; at the Playstation, the DVD player, the PC. It had been fun while it lasted but really there was only one right thing to do. I got the bus into town to keep Vanessa company and give her a hand. They do good coffee down at the Centenary so it wasn't as bad as it sounds - despite the fact that I got there around 1.30pm and we didn't leave until 4pm.

We had plans for Sunday already mapped out. Vanessa's friend Barb was driving up from the Central Coast with her son Alec and her fiancee Darren. They were due to come to ours early on Sunday morning and we were all going to some local markets, then hanging out for the day. As it happened, Barb rang on Saturday and they ended up coming to ours that night and sleeping over. At the risk of sounding antisocial, neither Vanessa nor I were initially keen because, well, we kind of liked our plans for the evening already (do nothing, stay warm, cuddle up and watch 'Australia') but we eventually decided that we'd postpone our plans and arranged to see Barb, Alec & Darren at our place around 6.30pm that night. That left just enough time for a few drinks down on the Foreshore before heading home and making dinner. Our visitors arrived just as dinner was ready and they'd spoken with Vanessa's ex-husband and arranged for Henry to spent the night with us too, as him & Alec get on pretty well. Anyway, we had a really nice night, just chatting away whilst the boys played on the computer. Then, being the sociable soul I am, I told everyone that I was watching the FA Cup Final at midnight on SBS, that absolutely nothing was going to prevent or delay that and that if they didn't like it, tough luck! In the end, everyone stayed up with me to watch the match. Well, everyone made an effort anyway - the late hour was beyond everyone eventually and they all filtered away to go to bed as the match progressed into the second half. When Barb said goodnight around 1.30am on Sunday morning, I was left alone to watch the conclusion. I didn't mind the company but equally, it was nice to watch the end uninterrupted by requests to explain what was going on.

And so to Sunday and our visits to the market. Barb was hoping to buy a ring she'd seen last time they came up to see us. Sadly, the recent wet and wild weather meant that a lot of regular stallholders weren't around. Barb's ring seller was one of them so we poked around the few stalls there were, then went over to Mayfield and the Coliseum Antiques Centre there. As it turns out, they didn't have any nice rings but they do have a very nice cafe attached, so we stayed and had lunch there. We'd already sent Henry & Alec back to the house so that they could hang out and play the PC so it was just the adults. Lunch was very nice and reasonably leisurely. Then, finally, we drove back into the city and visited the Centenary Antiques Centre so that Barb could look for rings there and Darren could see Vanessa's shop for the first time. We had a walk on the foreshore afterwards, then went home to see how the boys were doing. Barb, Alec & Darren left for home around 3pm and dropped Henry off at his dad's on the way. All of a sudden, Vanessa and I were alone. The funny thing was, when Barb first suggested coming up early, all we wanted was a quiet night in and we sort of reluctantly agreed for them to come up early. By the time they all left, we had our quiet night ahead of us but it was looking much less appealing. It was fun to see them all and hopefully we'll all get together again soon.

So Vanessa and I finally got our quiet evening at home, on the back of a totally unplanned, very busy 2 days. Sunday night was very enjoyable in the end - we sat there eating left-overs, watched some television and then stuck 'Australia' on. The film was okay, but only okay. Strange to think we'd almost cancelled seeing people to watch it and it turns out that I'm glad we didn't; that I didn't get my cosy Saturday night in with Vanessa and that the weekend happened the way it ended up. Just goes to show; life really is what happens when you're making other plans.

Siding with Sol.

2009-05-29T18:32:00.005+10:00

It's Friday yet again. The end of another week and, to my mind, the first week ever that I've managed to post every working day. I didn't set out to do that and if I'd not had something to say, I wouldn't have said anything. That doesn't mean I'm not pleased to have managed it though.

With so many stories in the news this week, one that I've not mentioned before are the comments of Sol Trujillo about Australia being a backward and racist country. For those of you who don't know, Sol used to be in charge of Telstra, the Australian phone network. From what I gather, his reign was a pretty inglorious one and most people were pleased when he departed. That was until he made claims that coming to Australia was like 'stepping back in time' and that he'd experienced racism during his stay. Kevin Rudd apparently greeted news of his departure from Telstra with an "adios" and, seeing as Sol's part Mexican, that constituted racial abuse apparently.

There are other examples Sol Trujillo gives to support his claims of racism but nobody seems interested in hearing them. With one noteable exception, the general response to the claims have been something along the lines of 'Australia isn't racist and this is just a case of sour grapes - good riddance to bad rubbish' Which would be fine if you really had the moral high ground to crow from, but I'm not sure Australian does.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to say that all of Australia (or all Australians for that matter) is/are racist. I'm just saying that you don't have to be an investigative journalist to uncover the fact that there are problems. Want some proof? Just as well because, like Sol Trujillo, I also have some examples for you.

Did you click on the link in yesterday's posting and play the video clip? Did you do a double-take when the chk chick made her comments about 'the thin wog' and 'the fat wog'? What you may not know is that over here, 'wog' is a generic term applied to (typically) Greek and Italian immigrants. It's commonplace and when I mention to people that I'm really not comfortable with it, they can't understand why. They point out that the Greeks and Italians have taken the label proudly - I guess much in the same way that you hear some african americans refer to each other as 'nigga'. To back up this claim, I'm always told to look up the early-nineties Australian comedy show 'Wogs Out Of Work' - written by and starring the sons and daughters of Greek immigrants to Australia. They call themselves it so it's okay that everybody does.

I don't think it is okay. Personally I have no time for that particular label - or the constant referral to Lebanese immigrant families as 'lebbos' or aboriginals as 'abbos'. I think it's derogatory, inappropriate and sends the wrong message. Much like Coon Cheese, in fact. My double-take the first time I saw that on the shelves at Woolies made my double-take on the chk chick's video clip look like a minor twitch. In fairness to Australians, the cheese-that-dare-not-speak-its-name has been around a long time but you can't doubt that the phrase carries much the same gravitas it does in the UK. I'm amazed it's still got the name it has - whatever they're paying their marketing people, it's obviously too much. I mean, it's not as though it's not been pointed out before but, today in any supermarket you visit, you can still get your hands on a good old lump of good old Coon.

Innocent or otherwise, some things are just wrong. Maybe a cheese isn't as racist as calling someone a wog or a lebbo or an abbo but equally, it's not helping the 'against' argument is it - and if you've already got an accusation against you that your country is bigoted and you don't take it seriously, I'm not sure tucking into a Coon sandwich does you any favours.

So no, I think that we've overlooked the big picture here when rubbishing Sol's statement. You might feel that he hasn't adequately staked his claim but I think you're on shaky ground if you state that the claim isn't there to begin with. Every year in Newcastle, the indigenous community march for more recognition, better rights, that kind of thing. To be honest, I don't know exactly what they're marching for but whatever it is, it's probably a lot less than they're entitled to ask for (the country back, the return of the stolen generation, health, welfare & social facilities on a par with the white Australians, for example). There are a few aboriginal people in the public eye here; Cathy Freeman's the most famous but there's also the actress Deborah Mailman and a number of indigenous AFL and NRL players. Sadly, all I ever hear about are caricatured 'blackfellas' sitting around and spending all their dole money on flagons as they whinge about not getting enough benefit. It gets tiresome pretty quickly, I can tell you - nearly as tiresome as one of our most senior and knowledgable staff at work constantly being referred to by one individual as 'that Indian bastard' when he annoys certain people in my office. The guy isn't even Indian to the best of my knowledge - he's possibly from Malaysia but hey; they all look the same, right?

Tolerance takes time to deliver and old habits die hard - I'm aware of that. Britain and Australia both had major immigration policies in the fifties. Britain's came mostly from the West Indies and Australia's was mostly white Europeans. If it had been the other way around, maybe today's levels of integration and tolerance would be reversed? Vanessa and I discussed this recently and my wife made a very valid point. Australia had a lot less to actually adapt to than the British back in the fifties. What's more, it's not as though Britain's racial integration was without serious issues. It's only really in the last 30 years in Britain that television, for example, has stopped lampooning and caricaturing ethnic minorities.

I tend to take a different stance though. I think that, rather than view Australia as being a relative newcomer to the pitfalls of dealing with multi-racial integration, what we should look at is Australia having had 30 years of Britain's mistakes to learn from - and Australia having a great opportunity to get it right a lot quicker into the process than the British managed. Like I said though, old habits die hard and little changes overnight.

On the plus side, acceptance is coming in its own little way, day by day, slowly but surely. Take the relatively new Muslim Centre in my home suburb for example: It's not been burnt down but the local kids have covered it in their little graffiti tags. If that's not a sign of acceptance, what is?!

Joking aside, I have every confidence for tomorrow. Being labelled a country where you 'step back in time' needn't be the insult it's been made to be. We don't have digital radio and there are some areas where you can't get broadband. What's more (as my mother found to her chagrin) there's not a single branch of Waitrose anywhere. I know - what a bunch of savages! We make do, though, here in this little land (mass) that time forgot - and there's a lot of potential here. Despite all my negativity I can't deny that, slowly, the country's changing, growing and adapting around me and I feel part of the process. As long as we get rid of the bigotry as soon as we're able, I'll be quite happy living in the world's equivalent of Life On Mars.

The Fame Game.

2009-05-28T17:49:00.003+10:00

Sing along if you know the words:

Fame! We want to live forever, we want to learn how to fly (hiiiigh).

Hmm. Anyway, enough of that. I think I've made my point. Fame's what we all crave - and some of us our prepared to sacrifice anything to get it.

Becoming famous used to involve a lot of hard work, training and dedication. It still does sometimes but increasingly, it seems all too easy to obtain. I know that actors and musicians and sportspeople and politicians enjoy comfortable lives but I think the vast majority of them have sacrificed a fair bit to get to that stage. Then all of a sudden Andy Warhol declares that everyone will have their limited spot in the sun and, rather than tell ourselves not to listen to the reedy mutterings of the creepy albino man, we sit there and think 'hmm, he's got a point, that Warhol fella'.

So everybody suddenly wants to be famous. Sadly, only 0.01% of those candidates have any talent which could possibly elevate them to the status they crave and, of that 0.01%, only 0.001% have the requisite level of talent. They're they ones that make it, leaving a whole load of talentless people feeling cheated out of their destiny, their birthright. So what do they do? They take matters into their own hands, safe in the knowledge that we live in a world which has so devalued the concept of fame that even convicted hitmen have their own facebook pages with hundreds of friends - and that somebody out there is likely to grant their request.

I tend to exclude shows like Idol, Fame Academy, Make Me A Supermodel and Masterchef from this because, in order to win it, you have to be good at something - even if in the case of Make Me A Supermodel, the thing you're good at is being pretty. Big Brother, on the other hand, has provided a string of talentless non-entities. Jade Goody's death was untimely but let's not forget that she was most famous for being a) extremely thick, and b) an old-school racist. Oliver Stone may have parodied the cult of the anti-celebrity in Natural Born Killers, but at least Mickey & Mallory were good at what they did - and there are plenty of D-list celebrities out there who can't claim to be anything remotely special.

The latest example of this is a girl called Clare Werbeloff who witnessed a shooting incident in Kings Cross recently. Except she didn't - but she was quickly on hand to provide a soundbite when she saw the camera crews. I have to admit that I laughed when I saw the clip because although it painted her as a total bogun, it was a pretty entertaining (if more than a little racist) summary of events - but that was when I thought she was a credible witness. It was only when the police asked her to make an official statement that she shuffled her feet and batted her eyes and finally admitted that, much like Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, she didn't see the incident. But that's okay because she's cute, right? We'll forgive cute people anything; it's the fuglies that have to watch themselves.

This chk-chk-boom chick, as she's become known in the papers, has admitted that she 'just wants to be famous'. That's why she did it. So what do we do? We duly press the 'go' button on that particular elevator and, slowly but surely, up she rises. She featured on A Current Affair this week. I didn't see the interview but I can't imagine they had much more to ask her than a) why did you lie, and b) are you just a little bit racist? If that's the case, aren't there better people to be questioning over their integrity or ethics? Thank god for Clare Werbeloff because let's face it, there's nothing going on in the world right now that ACA could do a piece on, so she really bailed them out of a hole. I mean, it's not like wars, famines, outbreaks of influenza or a global financial crisis are available for ACA to report on is it? Ah.

At the risk of sounding like a right-on, stoned sixth form student, it's a problem of society's making. If we look at this girl, roll our eyes in a disparaging manner and get on with our lives then she has no choice but to get on with her life. Instead, we interview her repeatedly, write comment on her, talk about her being eligible for jobs in the media because she's good in front of a camera and offer her money for getting down to her undies and draping herself artistically over a rock in a lads magazine. Maybe she'll be forgotten about in a few months or maybe she'll have a stint doing the traffic report on Nova FM. Maybe she'll be getting her kit off in Nuts Magazine every week. Whatever happens, it'll be because she saw an opportunity and we were stupid enough to give it to her. That said, I'm no better than the people I claim to be annoyed with though - here I am having done three paragraphs about her and if you'd not heard of her before, you sure as hell have now.

Bring back family values, morals and meritocracies that's what I say. Oh; and maybe capital punishment while you're at it. There; that's opinionated enough I reckon - I'm off to call A Current Affair and see if they want to ask me any questions. Just got to get my back waxed and buy a bikini first....... those cameras can be cruel, after all.

Consider me cured.

2009-05-27T20:06:00.002+10:00

For a while there, everything was going swimmingly. The world may have been going to hell in a handcart but it wasn't really affecting Australia all that badly. We may be a big land mass but we're a long way from anywhere, you see. Unless you count New Zealand, anyway. Maybe best to say 'a long way from anywhere significant' and leave it at that.

Recession? What recession? As for swine flu, we heard about it sure - but it was your problem and not ours. We had enough on our plates trying to stop our rugby players from gangbanging teenage girls after all - who needed the added complications of having to deal with the economy going tits-up and people returning from holiday with a heavy cold?

Then it all went a bit Pete Tong. We woke to find ourselves officially in recession but we could console ourselves with the fact that swine flu hadn't come ashore. Then, inevitably, it did. Firstly a couple of young boys in Melbourne were suspected of having contracted it whilst on holiday in Mexico and put into house quarantine straight away once the authorities suspected it was more than a cough and a tickle. Unfortunately one of the boys had been at an AFL match at the MCG that weekend - along with 129,999 other people. I found myself waiting for the outbreak of mass hysteria in the media and was pleasantly surprised when it didn't arrive.

Time passed, everyone forgot about those two Melbourne kids and once again, swine flu was put in the pile marked 'other people's problem, mate'. Then, earlier this week, a cruise liner (the Pacific Dawn) docked in Sydney and dropped some Australians home. You can probably guess what happened next - a whole load of them tested positive for the Pigsniffles and were duly quarantined. We now have 61 confirmed cases so I think it's fair to say that swine flu has officially hit Australia, New South Wales and now the Hunter region where I live. I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest with you. I thought I'd moved far enough away from all you troublemakers to avoid exactly this kind of thing. Obviously not and I'm thinking that the next move will have to be to Antarctica at this rate. Maybe time to ditch the boardshorts in favour of polar fleeces for the sake of my health. Then again I could always dose up on cough mixture and hope........

Quiet, contented and a little bit dull.

2009-05-26T18:03:00.002+10:00

Every so often, Vanessa expresses wonder and gratitude at the fact that I get up early every morning and go off to work - and have done ever since I've known her (not to mention the preceding 14 years). To be honest, you take your compliments where you can. I don't really see it as anything special but I'm not going to point that out. Everybody likes to feel valued by the person they love, don't they?

In the past, getting up has sometimes been an effort. In the good (bad?) old days where I'd go out on the piss straight from work, get home around midnight and then sit up with a four pack to watch some television before retiring to my pit around 2am, the alarm waking me up some four to five hours later wasn't always welcomed. That said, it's been many a year since that was the case. Normally if I'm tired these days it's because I stayed up late watching Frasier dvds or set the alarm for a 4am Champions League start. No matter how tired I am, it's only an issue until I get to the shower. From the moment that hot water hits my body, everything's good.

The house feels different with everyone else asleep and I'll go out to the back yard with my coffee and feel as though the day was created just for me. No matter whether it's bright and sunny or chilly, damp and shrouded in a blanket of fog, it's always an experience I enjoy. It's my time. Henry and Vanessa are asleep and the dog can't be bothered to rouse herself from her bed and pester me for attention until she can get into the house and ensconce herself on the lounge in the front room. I have the house to myself and, other than the sounds of the kettle boiling, my shoes on the hard wood floors or whatever song I'm singing to myself, silence reigns. Some mornings I can even hear the tanker's horns as they come and go on Newcastle Harbour, some 9km southeast of our house. Granted you need the wind to be in the right direction but even so, you can hear them - it's often that quiet before everybody gets up.

Of course, the minute Henry wakes up everything changes. He comes to say hello, see what I'm doing (usually football related and either involving the Playstation or the internet) and then gets into the shower. Our house is old, our water pipes are old and the pipes make a din as soon as the shower goes on, howling away as the water surges through them. Sometimes it grates but I normally find that if you mix the hot and cold correctly, it's actually quite a nice noise. Just as well, seeing as I don't have the aptitude or money to fix it.

So yes, I value my me-time in the mornings but equally I get very excited if, by chance, Vanessa and Henry are up early. Poor old Vanessa takes a while to wake up and on the odd occasion she's up before I go to work, I normally buzz around in a hyper-animated fashion and chat her ear off. I don't think she knows exactly what to make of it but she very rarely tells me to go away, so that's good. She's probably too shell-shocked to complain, now I think about it.

I think if I lived alone it would be different. I've heard of people who lived alone and they would get home every night and put the television on just so that their flat wasn't silent. Our house is very often noisy - Henry's at that age where the television's on almost constantly and if it isn't, the PC or Playstation is usually making rat-tat-tat or kabloom type noises. When the morning rolls around and everything's peaceful it's a lovely contrast.

This isn't the most entertaining of posts and for that I apologise. If you'd caught me a few years ago, my vitriol and sarcasm levels were a lot higher and, let's face it, that makes for better blog updates. Fortunately for me (but unfortunately for you), I don't have a great deal to whinge about these days. Sure, I could find something if I looked hard enough but I don't have the motivation or inclination at the moment. If life's good, it seems stupid to dwell on the negative rather than embrace the positive. If nothing else, I didn't set out to write this blog with the intention of entertaining and amusing - merely letting people close to me know what was going on in my life and in my mind. Right now, everything's rosy. Sure, it'll probably change at some stage but I'm in no hurry for that particular stage to pull into Dodge. Today I'm just happy and if the price I have to pay for that is dull blog postings, I think it's a price worth paying.

Oh Henry......

2009-05-25T17:24:00.002+10:00

You may remember reading about Henry's ill-fated art assignment last week - and how I mentioned that Vanessa & I would be sitting him down and getting him to tell us all about his coming assignments this weekend. Well that didn't quite happen the way we planned it. I got home on Friday night and Henry announced that he'd brought his geography assignment to ours for the weekend. I was impressed with his foresight, right up until he told us that it was due on Tuesday.

Not all bad, I hear you murmur. After all, he'd done some planning, right? He'd worked out what he wanted to cover and what was required in the way of research, right? Hell, he'd probably even been out taking environmental samples and written a few rough notes - if not a full rough draft - right? Right?

Wrong. So wrong that you couldn't be any more wrong if you were advocating Gary Glitter for the lead role in Nanny Diaries II.

I don't even remember what the topic brief was for this assignment, in all honesty. What I do know is that the lack of time forced us to scale down plans to map the topography of the Hunter Region, discuss and analyse the erosion of Newcastle's beaches or even talk about the avoidable pollution going into Throsby Creek. No, in the end we played safe and close to home, discussing the back yard and its propensity to flood during heavy rains. Henry sat down to work at a pace best described as torturous and that pretty much set the scene for the weekend. Forget about bonding over the latest WWE pay-per-view event or even having a few games together on the Playstation. Nope; Vanessa went to man her shop in the Centenary Antiques Centre on Saturday afternoon and I spent the time sitting in the dining room helping Henry make points, think about various topics and rewrite what he'd managed to get onto paper. By 6pm he was three lines into his 'conclusions' paragraph and 300 words short of the minimum word-count of 1,200. It had been a long day and we were both glad when it was time for him to go to bed and we could sit down and watch Frost/Nixon and forget we'd ever heard of the word 'assignment'.

So Sunday rolled around and the fun continued. I went to K-Mart to print some pictures Henry had taken of the backyard - inadequate drainage, guttering, holes dug in the soil to prove consistency - that kind of thing. Vanessa sat down to help him with completing the assignment and we worked right up until 4pm, when it was time to go off to Henry's cricket club presentation.

I'm glad we went to the cricket presentation in all honesty. When you're swearing under your breath about someone for a full weekend, it's very easy to lose track of the fact that, more often than not, they try their best. It's very easy to look at these last minute rushes on the assignments and forget that Henry's getting - and completing - a lot of homework day in and day out; that he rarely complains and always completes it. We may moan that he leaves these assignments to the last minute but they do get done - we'd just rather they weren't done in a way that sucks the life out of your only 2 days off a week.

Anyway, we went to the cricket presentation and Henry won the most improved player award for his team. His bowling at the start of the cricket season was woeful. As the coach said, the fielders would duck for cover when he ran up to pitch at the off-stump. By the end of the season, he was not only getting the ball on target but also taking the occasional wicket. Add this to the fact that he won most improved player for his entire soccer club last year and the picture you get is of someone who really does persevere and try their hardest. It's easy to forget that when you're sitting there fuming over the fact that he's not touched an assignment for the two months he's had it.

So we got home around 7.30pm by the time the cricket presentation was done and dusted. Henry wanted to leave the assignment there, take it on a flash drive to his dad's and finish it there on Monday night. We put our foot down, saying that we wanted him to finish it at our house and, to be honest, there were a few cross words on both sides. In fairness to Henry, he'd been working on the damn assignment all weekend and was sick of it. In fairness to Vanessa and I, so had we - and it wasn't even our assignment. We also worried that he'd get to his father's and just leave it untouched - as he'd done for the last two months - so we sat him down and made him work on it. By 9pm it was finally finished to the stage where all he had to do was glue in a few pictures at his dad's on Monday night. We let Henry play the computer a bit before bed and when he finally came in to say goodnight to us, he was relatively happy and any bad atmosphere there had been was well and truly dispersed.

We have stressed time and time again this weekend that planning is the key but words can very often fall on deaf ears if you're not aware of the consequences when things go wrong. Vanessa & I will be asking about future assignments when Henry's back with us on Wednesday. We'll mark them up on the calendar, make sure we know the brief for each of them and make sure that Henry's thinking about them and doing a bit of work on them each week, well before the day that they're due. I sat down with him last night and got him to agree that it was much better to add on 20 minutes extra homework every so often than write an entire weekend off just doing the whole assignment. I guess we won't know if it really sank in until the next assignment comes up but I really hope it does. The weekend really was a write-off and I find myself back at work feeling like the weekend didn't really happen.

It wasn't all negativity though. Yesterday out in the back yard, I noticed that our banana plant is just starting to produce little bananas. I don't really like bananas but isn't it great to be able to say that you grow them? We were at a friends place a few years ago and I was admiring their banana plant. They handed me a spade and told me to hack one of the new growths off and take it home. I did just that and, later that night, planted this little banana plant at the end of our then-fledgling veggie patch. The plant was around 1ft tall back then and I wondered if it would survive the trauma of being removed with a spade. Three years later, it stands around 10 feet tall and has split into three distinct plants. The eldest is now producing fruit - around 20 by my count - and I'm very excited. Who knows - I may just grow to love bananas after all and even if I don't, I'm sure they'll get eaten. Banana muffins, banana bread, banana splits. The possibilities are endless - much like these assignment tasks we've got to look forward to over the next 5 years but hey; let's end by dwelling on a positive. Screw assignments for now - and here's to bananas.

Confessions of a mall rat.

2009-05-21T17:31:00.002+10:00

I don't know how it happened, but I've suddenly realised that my guilty little secret - my sly indulgence if you will - is spiralling out of control. Before you get too excited, it's nothing to do with wearing the clothing of the opposite sex or self abuse whilst listening to the music of Daniel O'Donnell. To be honest, I'd feel better if it were but no, it's much worse than that - and it casts more questions on my so-claimed sexuality than either of those would ever manage.

My name is Matthew and I'm a mall rat.

Over here they call them shopping centres. The Mall is the pedestrianised shopping street in the centre of town but, for the purposes of a cool title, I've decided to work on the basis that malls can also be defined as a covered shopping centre. Hell, if it's good enough for the US and the UK, it should be good enough for Australians. Anyway, we have two malls to choose from in Newcastle: Charlestown Square and Westfield Kotara. My dirty little pleasure is the Westfield. It always was, even before it had a major facelift and became the snazzy one with snooty shops, plush carpets and expensive espresso bars. Pre-facelift, Westfield was a low-ceilinged monstrosity with daggy little shops (King Of Knives anyone? No? How about Howards Storage World then?) It was tiled & dirty-white or grey depending on where in the mall you were - but it was closer to home than Charlestown and, anyway, Charlestown just seemed a little soulless. I'll usually take daggy and dirty with a bit of soul over clean, pristine and anodyne any day. Anyway, Westfield had their major renovation a few years back and, all of a sudden, the ceilings seemed higher, the atmosphere was rarified and the place was a whole lot cleaner. The expensive clothing labels moved their shops in and the posh people descended en-masse. Somehow going there became more of an experience than a reluctant chore you eventually grew to enjoy once you got there. God knows how it happened but I actually found myself looking forward to the chance to visit, even if I wasn't really looking to buy anything.

With all of that said, I'm still not sure how it gets to this stage. I'm going there tonight straight from work - it's late night shopping in town on Thursday you see. That's not such a worry until you consider the fact that this will be the sixth consecutive Thursday I've been there. Yes, six in a row. I'm not sure whether I should get a medal or a bullet to the head, in all honesty.

If you asked me what reasons I had going to the same mall for 6 solid weeks, I'd struggle to remember. I mean, I won't deny that I'm an addictive creature of habit but this is kind of bizarre even for me. Sure, I go to the same coffee shop a few times a day every working day (and the voices tell me that I'll die a lingering death if I ever, EVER break that routine, but that's beside the point) and I have been known to go down to the harbour for lunch as many times as I can manage, looking at the same old boats on the same old strip of water. As for my love of all things gaming, let's not even talk about my FIFA09 habits; they tend to speak for themselves after all - but going to the mall quite this much? That kind of came out of left field, to be honest.

It might not be as bad as I think though. After all, I was only there last week because Henry needed to get his dad a birthday card and present. The weekend before I was there to speak to Telstra, the telephone people - and their only local Telstrashop is in the Westfield. The previous visits were done with the rest of the family I seem to recall. I don't even think I suggested any of them. It's starting to sound a bit better I think. After all, it's not like I'm going there myself and just wandering around, rubbing myself inappropriately when I think nobody's looking. Yeah; it's definitely sounding better - and if I keep telling myself that, maybe I'll start to believe it.

In case you were wondering, tonight's visit is for a haircut. My pet stylist, the lovely Lauren, has been on holiday in India for a few weeks and I wasn't game to let somebody else cut my hair so I delayed the appointment until she came back. I'm crying out for a haircut, in all honesty. It's been a good few years since I had a parting and I'm dangerously close to that now, so the appointment's rolled around just in time. And if I find myself browsing a few shops afterwards, so what? It's not like I picked my hairdresser because they were in the Westfield mall is it.

Is it?

Maybe I did it without realising it.

Dear god, what have I become....?

You can't prove a thing - not a thing, not for sure. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to look up the Westfield website and plan my walkthrough for tonight whilst simultaneously resisting the urge to touch myself inappropriately. Just not outside King Of Knives though - I do have some standards left.....

The longest story ever told.

2009-05-20T17:48:00.004+10:00

Henry started high school at the beginning of the year. He had offers from Merewether High and Broadmeadow, with the eventual winner being Merewether. Broadmeadow's the local performing arts high school whereas Merewether is a selective high school with an excellent reputation. In fact it's altogether possible that Merewether is one of the best schools in the state outside of the megabucks private schools in Sydney. Anyway, Henry enjoys drama but if he excels at anything right now, it's learning rather than drama or sport or something else. That's why we thought Merewether would be the best choice and, thankfully, he agreed (then changed his mind, then agreed again, then changed his mind but we got there in the end). So off to Merewether he duly toddled on the first day of school this year.

The downside of attending a school with such a determination to educate your child is that they give a lot of homework. What's more, it's hard homework. He's only in year 7 and already his maths homework is doing my head in. Mind you, I took two attempts to pass maths so maybe that's not such a surprise. It helps that Merewether are very aware that the transition from junior school to high school can be difficult and I think they realise that it can be especially challenging when you go to a selective high school. That's presumably why they give out homework diaries, so that the students can record what they have to do and when they have to do it by. That way they can keep track of things because, as the school is so fond of saying 'if you fail to plan, you plan to fail'. As in his previous school, Henry gets homework on a nightly basis. Some of it has to be in the next day, some of it by the next lesson. In addition to that homework, certain subjects will set the students assignments. Henry had geography and art assignments set in addition to his homework and, every so often, we'd suggest he worked on them for a bit after he'd done his normal homework. He occasionally grumbled but he always did it - and that's much more than I ever did at his age so I can't really complain.

What complicates things further is that Henry lives half of the time at our house and half at his dad's. His dad doesn't live too far away and they're always popping in to pick up things that Henry's forgotten, but it stands to reason that life would be a lot easier for Henry if he didn't have to remember to take X to house A on day C and then make sure that Y was brought back to house B because he had a test on day F. On the plus side, Vanessa has been separated from her ex since Henry was 4 so you could argue that this split-life is all that Henry-the-student has ever known. Having said that, I still have a great deal of admiration for the way he juggles everything and still manages to get good results at school. I think that life at his father's is a little more cruisy than it is at our house but I think that it probably works well in that the two houses provide respite from the other and we manage to achieve a middle ground somehow.

So yes, Henry's pretty much a model student. He gets his homework in on time, he always tries his best and he's polite and respectful. He's shown to be remarkably adapatable, firstly with his parents splitting up, then with his mother marrying this opinionated dick with a weird accent and finally making the move to a very intensive high school. Granted he's not top of the class but he's not at the bottom either. He's doing very well and we're all very proud of him. That said, the shine came off our resident golden boy just a bit recently. Every time Vanessa or I enquired how Henry was going with his art assignment, he would always say categorically that it was all under control; that we should trust him to do it without nagging and that he didn't need us to note his entire life up on the wall planner that Vanessa bought specifically for helping him manage his homework and assignments (and which curiously is now full of her social and business engagements). Vanessa spoke to her ex husband about the assignments during one of their conversations and his take on it was 'let him do it his way - he'll either do it okay or learn a valuable lesson from failing'. He's right, of course, but Vanessa and I still pressed Henry every so often to make sure that he hadn't forgotten. I guess we didn't want him to screw up if we could help it and if we came across as nags compared to his dad, so be it.

In case you're wondering, the art assignment went something like this:

You have won the lottery and decide to go on a 7 day trip to indulge your love of art. List the cities you visit and the artworks you see. Describe and comment on each artwork. Detail your stay in each city, what you did, saw and experienced etc. Collate your diary and photos in a scrapbook. Marks will be given for inventiveness and elaboration as well as factual information.

Personally I think that's a pretty heavy assignment for a first year high school student but the one thing you can't deny is that it will certainly teach you a lot. Henry now has an idea what works of art are in what city and what gallery they're in. He knows roughly how many hours Australia is removed from Florence and the name of the airport in Rome. He also knows that they often serve black pudding as part of a full english breakfast and that Hearts/Hibs is the football rivalry in Edinburgh. No prizes for guessing which bits of information Vanessa helped him with and which parts I contributed. Anyway, we decided to let Henry run the project himself, with the occasional check that yes; it was still being worked on and yes; there was still plenty of time before it was due. Then I came home last night and Henry casually admitted that the art assignment was due tomorrow and that he only had to finish a little bit of his travel diary. Oh; and could we please help him find pictures and postcards from every city and gallery he'd written about.

It doesn't sound like a lot of work left, does it? Believe me, it was a lot of work left. Henry's nothing if not thorough and must have spent half an hour on Google Earth just seeing how far various airports were from various city centres, then trying to calculate travel time from plane to hotel or gallery - and that's before he even got close to Google Images to try and find the artworks and the postcard scenes. You can argue that he put in too much effort but I'm not sure I'd agree. What I will say is that he left it too late - and late it was when he finally finished it, printed it and stuck it in to the A5 scrapbook that Vanessa had bought him for the assignment. I have it on good authority from my wife that Henry completed the assignment around 1.30am this morning. I wouldn't know - I was in bed by then.

Vanessa's very similar with her uni work. Every assignment she's had since I arrived has culminated in an all-night work session so at least we know where Henry gets it from. On the plus side, he finished it and it looks really good. Henry's a very capable young man but the whole planning thing takes time to get used to, especially when you're trying to juggle it with your other homework and still get some time to watch television, play the computer and generally have a life outside of school work. He'll get there, I'm sure. One thing I'm equally sure of is that we'll be sitting down with him over the weekend and getting every assignment he has up on that wall planner. Finishing at 1.30am every so often isn't going to kill Henry but if we can get him working to a method which he's comfortable with and which allows him to manage his work without Vanessa and & nagging him, I think it'll be better for everyone. Most importantly, we mustn't lose track of the fact that he's doing really well at school and adapting with relative ease to a really steep learning curve compared to his friends who went to the local high school and have very little in the way of homework.

Henry's at his dad's now until Friday. We've told him to bring his geography assignment over for the weekend so that we can find out where he's up to and what he's got left - not to mention how long he's got left to complete it. Thankfully I'll have downloaded the latest WWE pay per view event by then so it's not all doom and gloom - and passing or failing, he's still putting in heaps more effort than I did at school, so I can only take the moral high ground for so long before I feel like a total hypocrite or Vanessa tells me that she's sick of the sound of my voice and suggests that I stop talking for a bit. My money's on the latter coming first, in case you wondered.

Lotions, potions and new-fangled notions.

2009-05-18T20:22:00.002+10:00

I know some people who really miss their younger years. They hark back fondly to their twenties, before the wrinkles began to appear and their metabolism began to slow; the days when they could wear the latest fashion without worrying that they looked like mutton dressed as lamb, or admit to liking the latest young bands without fear of being labelled a tryhard oldie.

It's not a problem I have, thankfully. After all, it's a lot easier to grow old as a man than it is a woman. I don't have a whole heap of magazines parading skinny little girls in boho boots as the only acceptable face of the female in public, nor do I have Eva Longoria implying that I need to have been using the latest anti-ageing face cream for at least a month before I should venture out during daytime. The media and advertising puts increasing pressure on women to stay thin and young whilst championing the suave sophistication of older men like George Clooney and voting 40 year old Hugh Jackman the sexiest man alive. It's no wonder that women are increasingly neurotic and insecure and that men just look at them and wonder why they're making such a fuss.

Me, I like being older. I had fun in my teens and early twenties and did all the things you're meant to (plus a few things you're not, but that's another story for another day) and somehow I find myself approaching forty never having been sacked from a job and not having been arrested in 20 years. For a while there, admittedly, I could have gone the other way - turned to the dark side, as it were. I tend to look back and think that I'd never really have turned to the dark side though - career criminals and serial killers would have laughed at me openly rather than paid me respect around the prison freeweights and, if I'd have gotten myself into the kind of trouble that my parents feared, I tend to think that I'd have finished up somewhere between the accountants in luxury open prisons on charges of embezzlement and the guys in for persistent traffic offences, rather than being thrown in high security with the murderers. Thankfully it looks like I'll never know what could have been and, for that, I'm grateful.

So yeah, I'm 37 and proud of it, not to mention the life I've managed to luck into. Forget all this "40 is the new 30" nonsense - I don't plan to need consolation prizes and platitudes when I reach that milestone - I'll just drag my greying, middle-aged self down to the Pacific Ocean and go for a swim, as I've done every birthday since I arrived in Australia. Salt water may be bad for your skin but hey; I'm not Eva Longoria's target market. If as a man I get older, the media tells me that I get sexier - so why worry what a bit of sea salt's going to do to your skin tone?

Vanessa makes the occasional song and dance about how cute she was in her twenties and how she wishes she had that time over again. Sure, she was skinny as a rake but I look at the photos from back then and think she looks much better these days. As much as I wish I'd met Vanessa years ago, I really do think I got her at her prime and that the years ahead aren't so much about focusing on our hair greying and our skin sagging as they are about embracing the inevitable change, living our lives with as much happiness as we can pack into it. After all, we're still a long way from the end and I plan to enjoy the decades ahead as much as I'm able.

Why? Because I'm worth it.

Crisis? What crisis?

2009-05-14T21:01:00.003+10:00

Everywhere you look today, there’s one story dominating the local news. Is it the Government’s budget report or the fact that Australia’s now officially in recession? No it’s not. Is it the government’s plan to invest billions in improving the transport infrastructure to combat the global financial crisis? Not that either. Is it the sacking of Matthew Johns by Channel 9 for his part in a menage a dix some 7 years ago? Yep, that’ll be the one.

For those of you who don’t know, Matty Johns is an ex footballer (by which I mean rugby league footballer). He’s been retired for some years and now works as a tv presenter. He works on The Footy Show and also does colour commentary for the 9 Network’s televised NRL games. As presenters go, he’s a natural. He’s funny and easy in front of the camera and everyone thought the world was his oyster. That was until last week.

Last week, a show on the ABC called Four Corners ran a piece in which Matt Johns was named and shamed for a group sex encounter with a woman in New Zealand whilst on a pre-season tour with his club 7 years ago. From what I understand, the woman was in her late teens back then and went back to one of the player’s rooms with two of them. One thing lead to another and they ended up having sex. Then a whole load of the players’ team-mates climbed in through a window and either stood there watching, backed out of the room disapprovingly or joined in – depending on whose version of events you believe. Matt Johns seems to be the highest profile of the players (and quite possibly the only one with any profile these days) and was duly dragged through the papers, the television news and every radio phone-in within three states.

Nobody is denying that the woman and the rugby players ended up in the room together. What seems to be up for grabs is how involved Matt Johns was. He says she beckoned him forward to participate and he chose to back out of the room. Other reports are at odds with that, but the two facts that aren’t up for dispute are these: The woman raised this matter with the police at the time it happened, some 7 years ago. They investigated the allegations and did not bring any charges against anyone alleged to have been involved. The second fact is that Matthew Johns admitted this indiscretion to his wife at the time it happened and they managed to work through it, to the stage where they’re still together today.

Opinion is polarised over here. The radio phone-ins are full of people saying that it was known about long ago and admitted long ago, that his wife was the real victim and that he shouldn’t have lost his tv contract because of it. The newspapers are running a more balanced view; that being that his position became untenable as much due to the current furore surrounding rugby league as it did his behaviour all those years ago.

It’s a sensitive and contentious subject, but I tend to believe Matthew Johns’s contrite apology. I do believe that he regrets the hurt and embarassment he caused his family, and regrets that they now have to live through it again 7 years after they began dealing with it. Having said that, it’s shameful that his initial apology was brief and solely to his family, rather than acknowledging the girl who claims to have been so badly affected by the incident though. Even if the liaison was as consentual as Johns claims, the very fact that his first apology didn’t extend to the woman (who claims to have been suicidal since as a result of the experience) probably goes some way to indicating the attitude a lot of rugby players seem to have towards women in this country.

A few years ago you couldn’t go more than a few months in the UK without some footballer being accused of rape in the tabloid press, or some girl saying she’d had group spit-roasting sessions with the England reserves or similar. Whilst those incidents haven’t been eradicated I honestly feel that UK footballers are much more aware of the scrutiny they face these days and tend to act more responsibly in general. Furthermore the whole heavy drinking culture in UK sport is slowly being replaced with a sensible approach to diet, responsible living and prolonging your career. Sure some footballers still stagger out of clubs at 2am in the morning every so often or plough their cars drunkenly into stationery objects, but I honestly believe it’s a lot worse over here in Australia than it is in the UK right now.

For one thing, Rugby in Australia is a laddish game played by blokey blokes. They play their game, they go to training, they relax by going out, they get pissed, they take a bird home. One senior player was quoted in today’s Herald as saying that he believed the players would still indulge in group sex sessions; that it couldn’t and shouldn’t be eliminated and that it was a part of ‘team bonding’. One group’s team bonding is another person’s potential trauma though. It’s altogether possible than some women actively target sports stars because of who they are but it’s equally possible that some sports stars abuse their position and the aura of invulnerability that they believe surrounds them.

At the start of this season, Brett Stewart who plays for Manly was accused of raping a girl in an incident after the official NRL Season launch party. That in itself is bad enough, but it was made worse by the fact that Stewart was there as one of the NRL’s official ‘role models’. He pleaded his innocence but was immediately suspended by his club pending internal and police enquiries. The post mortem began in the media and even got a mention on The Footy Show, where I clearly remember Matt Johns talking about players and the NRL needing to realise that they had a responsibility to the game, to the fans and to the public in general – and that this sort of behaviour belonged back in the last century. I just didn’t realise at the time that he was speaking from personal experience.

There have been reports of rugby tours going awry ever since I got here and before. Various teams getting into hot water with a girl or girls whilst on pre-season trips have been reported over the years and the inquests have been carried out but nothing serious has ever transpired in those instances. Now we have Brett Stuart officially charged with rape and Matthew Johns sacked for a morally dubious encounter 7 years ago. The authorities and the National Rugby League are starting to take it seriously but I think there’s a long way to go before the sport’s really cleaned up. Telling players not to do something is one thing; getting them to buy into the reasoning behind it and act accordingly is something entirely different.

I don’t really know where I stand on this whole affair, in all honesty. Non-consentual group sex is obviously a very bad thing and I couldn’t and wouldn’t condone it. Consentual group sex isn’t my bag but if it’s what you choose to do, I’m not aware of any law you’re breaking. I do, however, think you probably come across as a dickhead but that’s no crime in itself. What I do think is that if this had surfaced again last year as opposed to this year, Matthew Johns would most likely still be in work. He’d have gotten a lot of bad press and done a number of grovelling statement interviews but the 9 Network would have stood by him, on the basis that it happened a long time ago, was known about a long time ago and that it couldn’t be seen in any way as a new story. As it stands today, I reckon the NRL’s already-tarnished image did for Johns’s career as much as – if not more than – his actions 7 years ago did.

If this whole sorry story’s highlighted one thing for me, it’s how far removed NRL players are from the ethics of the body which puports to govern them. The NRL as an organisation talks the right talk but it doesn’t seem as though the philosophy is filtering down fast enough to the teams, the managers, the players and the culture that they breathe. Until they get that right, no amount of governing body rhetoric is going to convince anyone that the problems have gone away and I can only imagine that there are a lot of professional footy players looking nervously over their shoulders right now, knowing full well that it could easily have been them in the news this past week.

For what it’s worth, I believe in redemption and second chances. If Matthew Johns’s version of events is to be believed, the treatment he’s received could be perceived as harsh in some areas. All I hope is that everyone affected by this whole sorry affair can get some peace and get their lives back on track – and hopefully the last four months will go some way to showing people that you just can’t behave in certain ways and expect it to be tolerated and accepted.

Three for six.

2009-05-13T17:29:00.000+10:00

After being demoted to the ranks of a penniless (or should that be centless) pauper yesterday, I was very pleased with how the day ended up. Vanessa and I went out for dinner to Paul's Asian Affair. Sounds a touch seedy but in reality it was great. We're not short of good places to eat in Newcastle but I'd never been to this place before. Vanessa's sister had said positive things about it so we thought we'd give it a go. It turned out really well and we stopped in for coffee at Felicity's after dinner to tell her about it before getting a (relatively) early night.

Today it's business as usual really. The autumn sun was shining and it was a pleasant 20 degrees outside. The only problem is when the sun sets and the temperature plummets. By 'plummets', I really mean 'drops to around 4 celsius' and I appreciate that's not really cold but it's more what you're used to than what you've experienced. Also our house is built out of wood with poor insulation and no real heating. You tend to stick a jumper on before you fire up the gas heater, that's for sure.

We have an offer of dinner tonight too - out at the Rec Club with Vanessa's mum, Paul & Felicity and their kids. The problem is that they always want to eat at 6pm and Vanessa & I always feel that's too early. Paul and the kids get hungry apparently, hence the early sit-down time. Vanessa and I rarely have dinner on the table much before 7.30pm so Henry's pretty well used to eating later. If nothing else, I've always thought that eating at a later time is one of the signs of adulthood and, as strange as it sounds, I don't want to eat dinner at 6pm because it makes me feel immature. The same's true of going to lunch at midday rather than 1pm when at work. In my warped little mind, only babies go on 12 lunch. I know it makes no sense but that's how I feel and it's tough to rationalise it - not that I have any desire to, in all honesty. As idiosyncracies go it's pretty minor.

In the past we've turned down dinners rather than bow to the pressure of getting there for 6pm. It's unappealing enough even before you remember to factor in VanessaTime - that can often kill an early dinner outright, or have us turning up to eat just in time to watch everbody else finish their dessert and get up to leave. Mind you, my wife's been at work all day and so have I. We might not have anything in the freezer for dinner and, if we have, it might take a while to defrost, let alone cook. Maybe we'll end up swallowing our pride along with the Rec Club's $6 meal deal at 6pm tonight. When Vanessa gets home, I'm sure all will be revealed. I won't tell you how it ends up though - I'd say you've suffered enough sitting through this entree. Let's face it, when days are routine it takes a special person to make them seem otherwise. Today I'm not that special person. Maybe next posting? Feel free to come back and see.