An Angry Irishman

Last night I went here:














...to see the rather delightful yet angry Dylan Moran. Despite slight issues with the sound, which was too trebley IMHO and thus made his diatribes somewhat tougher to listen to, it was a very good show, with Dylan truly showing the full brunt of his rage. However I can't help but feel that although the Opera House is an unarguably fantastic venue, the sort of crowd it attracts isn't necessarily his target demographic. Case in point being when he got very angry at some posh hooligan taking a flash photo of him (understandably so) mid flow he launched into a tirade against the offending party. Now most audiences would respect the performers wishes at this point and stop bothering him with needless flashes (I say needless because the majority of morons exhibiting this behaviour seem convinced their flash will make a difference from some 100+ feet away - morons reading this: it doesn't). However, the number of morons probably increased after this point, whether they were trying to try and attract his attention in order to have some "witty repartee" with him, or just annoy the "performing unintelligible monkey" I will leave as a thought excercise for the reader.

I should also point out at this stage, that I wasn't alone at the theatre, but with two very good friends Rich and Lucy (who have been begging me for another blog mention), who provided both excellent company, and a half time gin, which is always gratefully received. They are only in Sydney for the rest of the week however I think they will be glad to see the back of my "date-crashing" by the time Friday rolls around :D I was out with them the previous night, and tonight for curry night (Roogan Josh for those suitably curious).

As with any move, the hardest thing to get used to missing is the small things, whether its your local pub, or greasy spoon, or some online service that isn't available in your new place of residence. Trans-continental moves I guess are much more pronounced in that respect I guess and I'm currently looking for equivalents for many regularly used sites such as ebuyer, and toptable. However occasionally you find a gem which wouldn't be possible in your old home for one reason or another. Though my usual daily browsing, I've just discovered rewine which I look forward to trying out as soon as I have a permanent residence sorted. I'm also contemplating using a service such as smartypig to save for a decent camera for taking photos of the beautiful cityscapes Sydney has to offer. Rather than relying on the grainy snaps which only a camera-phone can accomplish.

My first week

What a weird weird place this, the sun rises at 6am and sets again at 5.30pm, and yet the average peak day temperature is about 20 degrees at the moment. It's like having a half day of summer in England, very odd and certainly not helping my jetlag - which is currently causing me to drift off at about 7pm.

Added to this is a ridiculous dawn chorus which begins around 5.30 am and comprises the most god-awful screeching from unidentified bird-life. This is then followed at about 7 am by animalistic grunting emanating from men playing tennis behind my apartment, and the couple in the next apartment.

My life thus far has been fairly low key, I've had one night out with other Nick and Rich & Lucy who are currently visiting from Melbourne. We went to a place called The Clove, on Crown St and I was expecting the worst as most people have told me that Australia curry is pretty dire. However I was pleasantly surprised to be served an edible Lamb Dansak, and the peshwari naan was also pretty commendable, so I will definitely be visiting again. A nice touch was that it was BYOB so we had three bottles of red between us which temporarily negated my crushing drowsiness.

Got a cab home as the buses here are somewhat of an art form. I will probably follow that up in a later post once I've had a bit more experience of them. The tricky part is knowing when to get off as I suspect I've been somewhat spoiled by the disembodied voice on London buses. I'm contemplating investing in a GPS to aid me in this....

Went for a walk down to the beach again yesterday, but it was dark and I didn't feel like being dragged to my death so didn't go in the sea, just bought a pizza from a friendly independent Mediterranean place, I think the guy called it "Pizza Hut", and snarfled half whilst watching prison break. The rest I had for lunch today.

My flight and first day

FIRST POST!

Right so I should probably start at the beginning.

After a few emotional goodbyes, I finally carried through with my threats, and got on a plane to Hong Kong (the first of 2 legs to Sydney). This was mostly uneventful due mostly to the fact that it was 11pm by the time I'd eaten my second dinner, and as I'd had countless booze throughout the day and a few glasses on the plane I dozed off watching Quantum of Solace. Woke up some time later, unfortunately due to the fact I wasn't wearing a watch I actually have no idea how long I slept, but it didn't feel like very long. However bacon is a very hard smell to sleep through and I soon woke up once I'd been handed breakfast mere moments later, the coffee also helped :)

About an hour later we landed in HK, at ~17:00 local time (WTF - I just had breakfast) and had just enough time to stretch my legs and find some time to send some emails which I'd drafted on the plane. Thankfully the only wireless internet was at the other end of the terminal so my legs got a much needed stretching trying to get online. Before I knew it, it was time to get on the plane again - joy - but the lovely stewardess handed me a glass of champagne to ease the blow and we were soon airborne again.

Unlike the first leg I had someone seated next to me on the second. Unfortunately rather than helping to break the monotony he didn't speak much English, and just spent the entire journey asleep. I also managed to acquire a special laptop cable for the plane as by now Candy was running distinctly low on power, this enabled me to catch up on the latest Doctor Who amongst other things. However after about 2 hours of telly I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, dispite the fact I'd only been awake about 6 hours and I fell asleep to the dulcet tones of Dave Gilmour.

Once again I wake up to the smell of bacon, rather worryingly nearly missing the food trolley in my slumberful state. Just a bacon and egg roll this morning as we were only airborne for another hour, so I watched some Simpsons and eagerly awaited our descent. Another uneventful landing and into the airport where my first encounters with Australians were to begin.

Firstly, and rather oddly, there was duty free on the way into the airport. As it happened this was rather fortuitous as I'd been unable to acquire a UK -> Oz power adaptor for Candy. Whilst browsing the shelves I was accosted by the weirdest noise I have perhaps ever heard. It turns out a sales assistant was asking me if I needed any help, which took me half a dozen attempts to decipher. In my defense my brain had barely woken up and the guy sounded stoned out of his tree - still it allowed me to calibrate my accent filter so hopefully my next encounter with the wildlife would go slightly smoother.

The next encounter was quite honestly the most miserable person I've ever met. He was on the passport control desk, and to be quite honest don't think he said a single word to me. Luckily it didn't take much to interpret his shrug/grunt/hand-gesture to mean "everything seems to be in order, please carry on your merry way". Next up: customs/quarantine where suddenly everyone was very friendly. I was particularly worried as I'd ticked "yes" to three of the questions on the customs form. First guy asked me what items I was bringing in that were worth over $900, so I told him I had a laptop. He asked if it was a nice one, I stared blankly at him for 30 seconds trying to work out if this was a trick question. I just shrugged and he let me go - phew. The other "questionable" items I had were animal products (though it turns out leather doesn't count) and a box of tea. Customs guy asked me if it was black tea, to which I replied in the affirmative, and he told me I had to have my bag X-rayed. (I'm curious what would have happened if it was green) but all was fine - no wildlife in it, and I was free to enter the country. w00.

I was then wondering what to do next and the idea of getting a bus to my apartment fleetingly went through my mind for all but the briefest nanosecond, by which time I'd autopiloted to the taxi rank - thank goodness for my sub-conscious - and in another half hour I was there! Sort of... You see it turns out it was 7.30 in the morning, and there was nobody around at such a godforsaken hour. Except a random maintenance guy who generously let me stash my bags in reception until it opened.

With bags ditched, I did what any sane man would do after 24 hours on a plane. I went to the beach, in my jeans and clumpy shoes I have to say I felt a little out of place strolling along the sand surrounded by joggers - haven't they got better places to be at 8am? Was pretty warm in the sun but it suddenly clouded over so I wandered to find some internet to send some more emails.

With emails sent I wandered back to the apartment complex, where the lovely Rosa let me check in early (should have been 1pm). Turns out she has a daughter living in Pimlico, small world... I had just about enough time to take a shower, holy god that felt good, and unpack before heading into town to meet my namesake for a chat.

After a bit of confusion as to where we were meeting, we went for a late lunch at Westfield (those guys are everywhere). Bought myself some essentials: a mobile, a skype headset and some kangaroo steaks for dinner before disappearing off home. With steak cooked and eaten, it was impressively tasty, I went to bed for some much required sleep.