Off On Me Todd

Finally I have finished at DealBoard.  It's not the hardest job I've ever done, the people there were pleasant enough, but I have never been so embarrassed to have my name associated with a company.  I have shaved off the penance beard that I grew during my time there and now feel able to greet the sunrise with words other than "fuck my life".  In one of those things that remind you that, despite it's ludicrous size, Australia is in some ways quite a small country, my position is being taken over by Ollie - one of the Brummie lads who was staying with us at the Blue Parrot.  Out of courtesy I did actually email him when I saw he was interviewing for the role, letting him know how bad the company is at what it does (how bad, you ask? * stretches arms out as far as they can go* This bad), but the guy needs the money so can't fault him for taking it.

We were out in a place called Croydon last week for Tia's birthday.  Bob, who knows her better than I, was charged with present buying.  He got her a sky diving trip - which is quite easily the most ostentatious thing I've bought for someone who is, essentially, a casual acquaintance. Also went out to Newtown mid week at the request of Erin, who was joined by Louisa, a girl we'd met last year, and Caitlin - a girl that Bob knows previously from Canada and who he seems to believe is his nemesis - though she showed no signs of reciprocating this antipathy.

Bob is still questing for additional farm work.  At one point it looked like his work was going to put him in touch with a farmer in the hunter valley who would sign him off for the days he needed without him actually having to turn up.  Unfortunately this fell through and he's going to have to get his hands dirty again.  He's managed to secure a tree planting, tending gig at a place called Griffith.  He's flying out there via chartered aircraft a week on Monday (cue flying doctors theme tune).

As I've only got five weeks left I won't be going with him.  Instead I'm heading north tomorrow, up towards Byron Bay for a couple of days.  After that, don't really know, but I suspect Brisbane for a week or so before back to Byron (assuming I like the place) for their yearly writer's festival.  Bob may or may not be joining me again, depending on how soon he gets the days needed.

This is a bit of a concern in that, as I've noted previously, I can be cripplingly shy and sometimes it helps to have someone like Bob around who has verbal diarhea.  Primarily though, the only real bummer, is that he's me best mate and it would have been nice to see more of the country with him by me side.

Never mind.  13 hour train journey tomorrow.  I shall buy a bumper colouring book and a big pack of jellies to make the time pass quicker.

Love and  Fishes 

Dave Denton

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

The cold that will not die still lingers.  I estimate that at this point my body is 90% snot and whatever the purpley grey stuff I've been coughing up is.  I also haven't been sleeping much.  One of my roomates has a mechanical monkey that only comes out at night to throw crackers at an indian guy and it keeps me awake with its incessant robot chirping.*

It's July 4th.  A day when Amercans everywhere eat barbecue, drink beer and try and pretend that demanding people pay taxes was the worst thing the British Empire ever did.  Of course anglo-australian relations have never really deterioated into the shooting each other in the face stage, our dfferences primarily being articulated through cricket sledging and Mel Gibson killing us in films of varying quality.  As such the big thing here was the fnal day of the State of Orgin series.   I was hoping for a New South Wales win, this being the state where I currently live and have spent the most time.  Unfortunately Queensland won again, making this the seventh series in a row - which'd depress, except I don't have any real emotional investment.

I've handed in my resignation at my job.  This was earlier than I planned, but more than one person has commented that it was making me seriously unhappy.  At the end of the day  got tired of being made to feel like a complete dickhead every time I answered the phone and being paid peanuts for the privelige.  Luckily it's the end of the tax year here so I am, theoretically, going to receive a large(ish) wad of cash as soon as I can be boshed to fill out the appropriate forms.

Me and Bob met up with Erin down Newtown, who has just finished various exams.  It was nice to see her again as we only saw her for a few minutes at Tia's tea party thingummy.  

Went and saw Prometheus by wor Ridley the other day.  There's potentially a very good, intelligent film there.  Unfortunately it's hidden behind a slightly stupid film where earth's top scientists prod alien hell beasts to see what happens and a ripped Lord Voldemort beats up a young guy in old guy make up... because...because... *film makers shrug and distracts audience with tentacled vagina monster*

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

P.S. Happy birthday to wor fatha who patiently endured my drunken ramblings when I finally manage to ring him, and congratulations in advance to Alice, the littlest sistah, who is graduating shortly.

* I am aware that this is probably something I imagined as I lay sprawled across the border of the waking world and dreams, but part of me really hopes it wasn't

Stack 'Em High Sell 'Em Cheap

It's raining in Sydney and I've been full of cold longer than I care to remember. 

I've managed to stick at the new job for two weeks now.  Although everyone I'm working with is canny enough I can't say that I'm that impressed with the company.  My job is essentially damage limitation.  What the company does is source goods from overseas and sells them in Australia at a discount.  All well and good.  What they don't tell customers until after they've paid is that there is a 2-10 week delivery period.  What they don't tell them ever is that 2-10 weeks means 10 weeks - which, because things go wrong, often stretches to 12-16 weeks.  If you think that waiting a huge chunk of a year to receive a product that you paid for today, only to then find it's a cheap Chinese knock off that often doesn't work, is all kinds of bullshit then, congratulations, you're pretty much in agreement with everyone I've dealt with.  Add in the fact that I've not really had any training and don't have access to a lot of the information that I need to do the job and I'm exhausted.  It also transpires that one of my colleagues has been dumping part of his workload off on me, either out of laziness or crossed wires I'm not yet sure - which I'm less than happy about.

Bob, on the other hand, has been in his job a week and has received a pay rise, the jammy bastard.  He now earns $235 dollars a day despite doing (his words, not mine) absolutely fuck all all day.  I can't help but regret that I've never taken that much interest in the world of computers.

Paddy and John, fellow inmates from the caravan in Walkamin, have staggered broke and bleeding* into town, having had marvelous adventures in a camper van up and down the east coast.  They're now living in County Bondi with approximately fifty percent of the population of the emerald isle.  Went out for a few swift pints with them yesterday.  Well, we had a few swift pints.  They drank half the pub.  They were very happy when we left them.

We're moving out of Kings Cross to a place in the city centre tomorrow.  Will be glad to go.  There's nothing especially wrong the place we're at, save for a very narrow kitchen and a curious profusion of Italian charvas, but for some reason my entire time here I've felt like I've been in the way.


*may be a slight exageration.

City of Lights

For the fourth time since leaving the UK, I am now gainfully employed.  This time it's for a company called DealBoard as a customer service and administration manager.  It basically sounds like I'm going to get shouted at all day by people who're annoyed that their electric butter knife is late being shipped out.  There's also a small issue in that the position is permanent and - barring some sort of intervention by a higher power - I'm getting kicked out of here in about 12 weeks.  I therefore had to, well, not lie exactly, but be slightly conservative with the truth in order to get the position.  I'm feeling bad about this as they seem a canny bunch, but unfortunately finances dictate that I'm going to have to be slightly ruthless.

Bob is also employed.  He in fact got a job approximately half an hour after me, which was pretty much the perfect outcome for him as it meant he got to prove wrong my assertion that he'd find work before me without having to undergo any undue stress or money problems.  He's working for the star casino, the same company as he was last time he was here, only this time as a floor walker.

We returned briefly to the blue parrot yesterday.  It was the youngest of the Harrison brothers 20th birthday, so we felt it was only right to go and make an offering of tequila.  The place is more or less the same as it was when we left it, except that most of the faces had changed (naturally).  That said there were a number of people there who I'd apparently met back in January who I didn't know from Adam - though given where my head was at the time, this probably isn't surprising.

We're in the middle of the Vivid festival.  It's basically the same as Durham's Lumiere festival only played out on a far larger scale and in a place that people might have actually heard of.  It's also national reconciliation week, where every white Australian is required by law to cast their eyes to the ground, awkwardly kick at the ground with one foot and have a bloody good think about what they did*.

Currently feeling slightly homesick.  The weather is very reminiscent of England in that it is constantly pissing down.  Never mind, it'll pass.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton.

* Please, please, please note that I don't want to make light of the often abhorrent treatment of Australia's indigenous population.  Rather at the wishy washy tendency of modern politicians to offer apologies and kind words for past wrongs, rather than any sort of tangible effort to tackle the very real and visible problems that continue to blight many of these communities.  I accept that societies need to talk about these issues openly and frankly, but if all your doing is talking, then what you're essentially doing is indulging in a sort of smug, liberal circle jerk.

Only an Idiot Returns to the Scene of a Crime.

I am experiencing deja vu.  We are once again back in Kings Cross, in Sydney, in desperate need of work.  As stated previously the rational behind this move was that we should theoretically be able to find regular work with relative ease.  This seems to be proving the case with Bob, who has already had an interview and been told off the record that there should be a position pressing buttons and shouting at computers available to him if she want it.  I have had somewhat less interest.  Luckily I have firm, high buttocks and a pretty mouth, so if worst comes to worse I can always sell my body for spare change and jelly babies.

Happily Bia and Liana, ze two german girls that we met on the  Great Ocean Road tour are here, so we are currently cramping their style by hanging around with them.  We're also meant to be meeting up with Erin and Tia this coming weekend.  The former is hosting some sort of tea party to raise money for cancer charities.  I don't like tea, but I hate cancer more so I suppose I will be donating.  Till then I shall content myself searching for jobs and taking photos of all the things that I didn't the first time round.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

I Knew I Shoulda Taken Dat Left Toin at Alberquerqe

Hello from Tasmania. You should come here.  It's windy.  You won't find me here though, as I'm leaving in the next few days.

We landed in a small city called Devonport.  It's one of those Australian towns that consists of a splatter of low rise, low density housing that eventually gives way to a few strips of drive thru eateries, before spluttering into a half hearted city centre and then falling uncerimoniously into the sea.  Bob likened it to Chester-le-Street, except with a port, and in all honesty he's not far wrong.  It's not a bad town, nor is it a good one.  It's one of those places people come from, rather than go to.

The hostel, on the other hand, is a bit shit.  It has the clinically threadbare air of a second rate care home, is at least five degrees colder inside than out and the hob in the kitchen is so crap I am unable to boil water on it.  Oh, and it smells a bit.  They did, however, help us find work on a nearby farm peeling leeks, plucking carrots and getting very, very muddy.  It was bloody cold work, but easy and compared to the banana farm the atmosphere was much more positive. 

Unfortunately we're only employed on a casual basis, which means that we could work forty hours a week or we could work six.  This became an issue for two reasons.  Number one we received our visa extension forms back from Greg, our employer back in Mareeba (henceforth known as "the fat prick").  For reasons that I am charitably putting down to incompetence rather than maliciousness he has credited us with working fifty three days rather than the eighty four we're legally entitled to or the fifty eight that the fat prick initially said he'd give us.  This isn't much of an issue for me as I don't intend to extend my stay, but it's a kick in the nuts for Bob.  Secondly, Bob's English bank have shafted him, removing his overdraft without informing him and charging him a small fortune for the privilege.

Therefore the work we've got is not going to be enough to get us either an extension on our visas or allow us to save enough for further traveling.  Bob therefore wants us to return to the mainland, where he's confident that he can find a fairly well paid computer doctor thingy job with a minimum of fuss. Personally, I'm leary about leaving paid employment as I don't share my traveling companion's confidence that I'll find a new one.  But if I stay here I'm essentially going to be doing little else but tread water for the remainder of my time.

It's a bit of a shame though, as I quite like Tasmania (or the little I've seen of it anyroads).  It's very green and reminds me of England.  The rest of Australia seems to have two cliche's about here.  Number one it's climate is subartic (which is melodramatic bullshit) and number two it's inhabitants are weird.  I don't know if the latter is true.  Beardier? Yes.  Given to a slightly more *ahem* husky build?  Perhaps.  But generally the people here seem incredibly genuine and friendly.  That said I did pass a wifey the other day, feeding a mob of seagulls through her car window with a spoon, which struck me as a tad unusual.

So it's been a bit of an abortive exhibition. Never mind.  On to wherever.

Love and Fishes.

Dave Denton

P.S.

Here is a short educational film about Tasmania:

The Perfect Blend

I'm not much of a fan of camp.  This is mainly because I find it hard to ironically enjoy something and would much rather genuinely enjoy something.  I am, however, a big fan of sentimentally and nostalgia.   This is one of the reasons that I have never, ever been considered cool and also why I found myself attending a Neighbours evening at a pub called the Elephant and Wheelbarrow.

Neighbours, for those who are neither British or are younger than twenty five, is an Australian soap opera of some renown.  It follows the American template for soap operas (pretty people overcoming ludicrous problems) as opposed to the British (ugly people overcoming problems marginally less ludicrous), it's served as a starting point for more than a few Ozzie talents such as Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue and Natalie Imbruglia and it is utterly naff. My understanding is that it only ever found a modest audience in its native country, but when they exported it back to the mother country we poms went absolutely mental for it.  This was mainly due to a canny bit of scheduling.  The show was broadcast in the dead hour between the end of CBBC and the time that most people had their tea.  This being in the days before we had hundreds and hundreds of digital channels to choose from, it therefore had a captive audience of tweens and early adolescents who lapped up whatever twaddle Toadfish, Lou and the rest were getting up to this week, confident that Ramsay Street in that Erinsborough was the most glamorous place in the world*.  The audience demographic and the easy on the eye cast also meant that Neighbours also served as a sexual awakening for more than a few young men and women and part of the reason we were going was to give Bob a chance to wiggle his eyebrows at Libby Kennedy.

Like most people, the last time I watched the show Bill Clinton was still regarded as a loving family man and I wasn't feeling that enthused.  The fact that the venue was half full with housewives and studenty types didn't help either.  An over excited Irishman bounced around a stage, telling us we were about to have the night of our lives, which seemed a bit optimistic to me.  After a few drinks, however, the stick up me arse shifted slightly and I began to enjoy myself.  The lovely Libby didn't show (perhaps forewarned about Bob's eyebrows), but her dad, Dr Karl (or Alan Fletcher, as he insisted on being called), did along with an attractive young man and woman who are apparently a couple on the show and looked like they would rather be anywhere else.  They did a Q & A and then wandered round the room, asking us if we'd like a picture with them.  I now have a photo of me and the anonymous actress.  Needless to say, I look fantastically awkward; partly because I detest having my photo taken, partly because the young lady in question is undoubtedly very beautiful and my Mr Potato Head mug is always going to suffer in comparison, but mainly because I didn't have the first fucking clue who she was and she blatantly thought that I did.

The evening culminated with several competitions of the and a quiz.  We won a tour around the neighbours set. Which was great.  I suppose.  The tour consisted of us driving at paedophile cruising speed past the school that used to double  for Erinsbrough High School, another Q & A with another actress who I didn't recognise and about half an hour stood at the end of Ramsay Street (In reality it's called Pin Oak Court) waiting to see if they would let us up to have a peek at Harold Bishop's old house (they didn't) and trying not to look bored (we failed).  I'm very relieved we didn't pay any money.

The great ocean road tour on Tuesday was much more edifying.  The road was a government infrastructure project initiated to link the various coastal communities of Victoria and to provide work for the thousands of squaddies returning from WW1.  The road is noteworthy - the logistical dificulties involved in it's construction aside, for winding through some of the most spectacularly beautiful countryside Australia - or indeed the world - has to offer.  Every few kilometers there are limestone and sandstone rock formations, most stunning.  I also spent money that I don't have on a helicopter ride over  the twelve apostles - which was probably the most fun I've had with me pants on for quite some time.  Also - you lucky, lucky people - I have finally come to terms with the fact that the camera that I brought with me is not going to miraculously fix itself.  So I've bought a new one and can therefore bore you with the various pictures what I gone done took:

The Grotto.  Where Santa lives.

The 12Apostles.  If you noticed that there are less than 12 of them, congratulations you win a jelly bean

Bob at Loch Ard Gorge.  Moments later he went for a bit plodge.

We were also lucky enough to find ourselves part of a very lively tour group.  Jude, our Aussie guide, was a lovely, personable woman, who was a mine of interesting facts and anecdotes about the various sites and did a great job of geeing everybody up.  There was a definite sense of camaraderie within the group and Bob and three German girls (Bia, Liane and Katie) arranged to go to a AFL game the following day - I was invited, but had romance related duties to attend to.  By all accounts they enjoyed themselves, despite the fact that none off them were sure of the rules.  We saw Bia and Liane a couple more times; first on a failed penguin hunting expedition, at a comedy club (or Bob did.  I was again occupied elsewhere) and yesterday at the museum of moving images.  They depart on their own separate journeys today.  They are lovely girls and I wish them all the best and hope that their futures include nothing but nice things, like flowers and puppies.

My date on Tuesday went well.  Well enough that I've spent the majority of the week with her.  I can't escape the feeling that if I wasn't leaving this might have been the start of something.  But I am. So it is.  This has bummed me out slightly.  But - he says, trying to put a positive spin on things - I'm lucky to have met and spent time with her.

We sail to Devonport in Tasmania later today.  Everybody tells us we're going to freeze our nuts off and have a bastard of a time finding work.  I have no reason to doubt they speak the truth.

Love and Fishes

Dave Denton

* Additional fun Neighbours fact!  Many people mistakenly believe that the national anthem of Australia is 'Waltzing Matilda'.  This is wrong.  The national anthem is in fact the theme tune for everybody's favourite daytime soap, with the word "neighbours" changed to "Australians".  Try it.  It sounds so right.