Charity Chewsday

A mate from UK is doing some sort of run/swim/bike thing. I'm told its called exercise??

Anyway, in recognition of Chatty Chewsday, the day has been changed to Charity Chewsday. He's raising funds for sick kids with leukaemia so its all going to a really good cause.

If ya feel like donating the price of a couple of beers or even the price of a Porsche 911, feel free to click here and do ya thing If only to see a pic of Plew in his shorts. Gotta be good for a laugh if nowt else!

It's all for charity and think of the poor, poor, poor children.

Seriously though, dig deep and click here

Chatty Chewsday

Anyone piss you off recently?

Anyone been getting on your nerves?

Anyone been drinking your vodka and not replacing it?

Anyone been getting on their high horse when they should be climbing from a Shetland Pony?

Let Rip! Tell em what you really think......and you can do it anonomously if you like. I wont tell.

Vent your spleen here! .........................

Scenic Sundays

Just around the corner from where I live there's a pretty cool looking building. I like it so much, I'm gonna let you have sneak peek.





Cool huh? It's actually an old train station no longer in use. It was orignally called Mortuary Station as this was its only use. Load up the bodies of your dearly and recently departed and ship them off to Rookwood Cemetary, 15km's out west.



Maybe the train was a sleeper? Sleeper, dead...get it? Oh why do I bother!

Chatty Chewsday

This week for chatty chewsday, I thought I'd make it into a competition. A spot the difference competition. Below are two pictures of Daniel Radcliffe. Circle those bits you think are different.

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry of Harry Potter fame

Daniel Radcliffe as Alan Strang in the controversial play Equus

Answers on a post card....

Darling Harbour

Darling Harbour is a harbour. It's name has nothing to do with the overly affectations’ of the camp people who adorn it, but rather it gets its handle from one of the old Governors of NSW (Back in the old days). A Lietentant General Ralph Darling if you will.

The whole harbour and the surrounding area was 'done up' for the 2000 Olympics here in sydders and is now a riot of colour, water, shops, exhibitions, marinas, apartments and loads of tourist trappings. Its a really nice place to go for a stroll on a weekend.

It's also one of the more expensive tourist traps in sydey. I was charged a whopping $3.80 for a bottle of water that, if I could have been bothered to wait 20 minutes, while I walked to the nearest Woolworths would have only cost $1.35. Being a Brit and complaining tend to go hand in hand here. Aussies call all Brits "whinging poms" regardless of whether or not you do. With this name already given to you, you tend not to complain as much cos you dont want to playout the sterotype, so I just handed over my money and grunted in a Brit like fashion and left the "Over-priced, robbing bastard, thieving wankers shop" without saying a word.

I crossed over Pyrmont Bridge (above) which has the monorail running over it and went into a shopping mall. Just to browse. Whilst browsing I came across a pair of Levi 501's.

You may think "So what?" but let me tell you it the first time I have seen them since I arrived. NOWHERE sells them anymore and have been told on numerous occasions that "Australia is fading them out"

How can you fade out the worlds number one selling jeans? Anyway, they are the mainstay of gay fashion so I decided to buy them. That was until I saw the price of these bloody things. $190.00! Thats right. One hundred and ninety bloody dollars! I spun on my heel and walked right out of the "Tourist trapping, money stealing, wallet grabbing house of fashion" and had a Mackee Dee instead. Called Mackers here by the way.

I decided I needed something to soothe me, so I walked back across the bridge to go the aquarium. About halfway across, I saw an elderly lady (127yo or there abouts) dressed in a miniskirt, fishnets and half a boob tube. She had really really high hair. It had been teased more times than a bed wetter.

By the time I reached the aquarium, I had stopped laughing. That is until they charged me $29.00 to look at some fish. I politely paid my entrance fee to the "Water sodden, purse snatching, highway patrolling cashier" and walked in.

All said and done I walked out. It was pretty good and I spent about two hours in there. If you want to know what it was like, then send a cheque or postal order to the attention of....

Thar she blows !

Every year around this time all the whales that live in the Southern and Antartic Oceans start heading north in their annual migration to warmer waters. Up in the balmy climes, they mate and give birth to their calves with which they were impregnated with only the previous year.

Anyway, this isn't mean to be biology leasson on the Humpback, but rather a post to let you know, as they pass Sydney, I went whale watching at the weekend.

Sunday, up the crack o' dawn (Again, she didnt seem to mind), I made my way to Circular Quay for the 9am boat. It was a cold start seeing as we are in the middle of winter here and my ears were burning with cold thanks to the Pearl Harbour weather (Nip in the air).

Mermaid

The trip out to The Heads takes about 30-40 minutes. When past them, you're out in the Pacific Ocean with only water and air around you and within minutes, right off the coast of Sydders, you can see small puffs of steam in the distance.

"Thar she blows!" yelled the skipper as we loaded our harpoon. As we bore down on the hapless catacean, we took aim..........Oh alright, we never. Put your pens down and stop writing to Greenpeace!

As we approached the whales we were told there were two pods, one of two whales and the other, three. It was pretty amazing to see these creatures, tail slapping, diving, breaching. At one point after their downtime, they resurfaced, really close but on the opposite side to which we were all standing.

So close.

The sea was a bit choppy, so to see 50 people swaggering and swaying to get to the other side in a rush was a bit Keystone Cops. Trampling over one very sick chappie, who had taken refuge in the middle of the deck as that was the place rocking the least in the swell, in their efforts to get from port to starboard. Leaving said sick chappie with footprints on his arm. He skulked away below decks and spent the remainder of the voyage throwing up into a bag.

Actually, when I did venture below decks myself, I was amazed at the number of people who had been unable to cope with the boat and its motion. There was a young woman, lying down across three seats looks VERY green. A couple were clinging to each other and crying with their hands over their respective mouths trying not to be sick whilst consoling their loved one. One grandad, sitting forward in his chair with a very full bag permanently locked at his mouth.

Seriously, I thought I had walked into a M.A.S.H. unit with all the groans and wails!

Wails! Whales! Get it? Oh never mind.

High and not so dry

Pretty Polly

Saturday saw the 43rd annual party of Sydney social club Pollys.

Originally it was started as a social group that would hold small fundraisers for various charities, but now holds small fundraisers for HIV charities only. They meet every three months or so in Marrickville Townhall. Glamourous, however Saturdays affair was held at The Roundhouse at Sydney University.

We had a table of ten of us, with all the usual suspects and a few of the more unusual ones too. There was everything from dragqueens to leatherqueens with everything inbetween in all shapes, sizes and ages. It was actually really nice to be in a place that wasn't segregrating itself from certain types of clientele.

We sat at table 50, which was right next to, but at the side of the stage where, performing, was probably one of the tackiest, most talentless, horrendous drag shows I have ever seen.

I LOVED it!

As we were at the side of the stage, we had gone upstairs to watch the show from the balcony, to ensure we got a good view of the dames a la drag. Straight after the show, they held the fund raising raffle for which I had acquired $20 worth of tickets.

The evening had ticked by and it was about midnight now. The passing of time, can only mean one thing.....the longer the time has passed....the more drunk I probably am. I'm telling you this so that you may understand my reason for badgering (read yelling and shouting at) the raffle man to "Pull a different one" as no-one had claimed the prize in the 0.003 seconds since he announced the number.

He did this three times and no-one claimed the first prize. So again I cajoled (read heckled) him to stick his hand back in the box....

"RED, C, 22" he delivered into his tinny mic.

YA FUCKING HOO!!!!! I screamed as I ran downstairs and up to the stage to collect my prize.

An alcoholics dream....a 24 bottle wine cooler (read vodka!)

Seems Jesus loves me after all.....

the Lord is my shepherd

I have a friend. I know this might seem odd to a lot of you, but I have a friend. I met him not long after landing on these fair shores. He was drunk in a bar and, naturally, I honed in on him and we got drunk together.

We’ve spent many a night, getting drunk, exchanging woes and generally setting the world to rights.

As we all know, you can only set the world to rights after copius amounts of alcohol. And so it was.

During all the time we’ve spent together, he has had a problem. A problem that he has wrestled with alone. He has been unable to even give me a hint as to what the problem is. So, as I couldn’t know what the problem was, we decided to give it a name.

“Hows things with "Bob?” I'd ask

“Ahhhh, 'Bob' is ok” would come the reply “No change”

And so it was. We would talk about 'Bob', but I would never know what 'Bob' was. In six months, I’ve never found out about 'Bob.'

This weekend I got a call from my mate asking to meet for an afternoon beverage. Of course I obliged, only to find my mate there, sober. Not only was he sober, but he was scrubbed up.

Sober, scrubbed up and in a dog collar. For all the world to see, he was a priest.

Turns out, 'Bob', was a drinking problem and my mate was “suspended” from duty until a minor charge of being drunk whle holding a sermon was investigated.

He was going back to the church, and I would not see him again in a pub. Good for him I thought!

“Would you like to hear my service?” he asked…”I’d like to thank you for you help over the recent months”

…Hmmmm, not sure about this one, but “Go on then, why not?” was the reply.

The next day was Sunday and I headed off to the church. Now I’m not exactly a God fearing man, but today frightened the bejeezus out of me.

Lord have mercy!

Here comes something big

Five and a half thousand sailors arrived in Sydney yesterday aboard the USS KittyHawk aircraft carrier.




Despite attempts at avoiding congestion, the roads around the harbour were at gridlock just as they were on a previous visit by a big ship.

The ship is berthed (docked?) at the naval base in Wooloomooloo. I kid you not. There really is a place called Wooloomooloo and the only reason I dont live there is that since arriving here, i still cant say it after a few pints.

What in Gods name am I going to do with 5500 sailors?

I thought I might pop down to Woolymewotsit for a few beers after work. After all, the PM boarded the ship yesterday and said that they would find Sydney "Warm and welcoming."

Hello sailor



All for one and one for all.....that's my motto. Wish me luck !

PM hassled by budgie smuggler

A Speedo clad muscle bloke ambushed John Howard (the PM) today at a community tea morning in the northern NSW town of Bega.

Protesting about the 'greenhouse effect' he stumbled towards the PM shouting "There is no snow, there is no snow"

Snow wonder he was quickly bundled away into a nearby toilet !

The upside to Gloabl Warming

Space

Rubbish map, but you get the idea...!

At some point over the weekend, Australia got it's 21st millionth resident. The Fed Governement had been running some sort of complicated algorithm type thing that measured, births, deaths, immigration etc etc and concluded that the latest resident would arrive circa 9:30pm on Friday.

The UK already has over 60 million folk, making it, by comparisom a very crowded place to live, which is fine if you like crowds. In actual fact it isnt much better in Australia. A quarter of the whole country lives in Sydders, with the remainder spread over 7 cities (towns). There are a sprinkling of sheep shearers and aborignals somewhere in the middle. Australia is huge, but basically empty.

Given the worlds crowds, where would you like to live?