Sunny Bundaberg

Unfortunately, due to my recent laptop downgrade, I cannot decorate this post with scenic photos. Fortunately, due to the fact that I am currently hanging out in a motel room wearing a towel, the photos probably wouldn’t be of interest to the general public anyway.

My day started at 4am with the realisation that I had no clean clothes other than those on the line, which were all wet. 30 minutes of ironing solved this problem, and I was ready for my cab right on time.

Flying Qantas for the first time in over two years was quite eerie. I really dislike the concept of being called ‘sir’ by hospitality staff; aren’t we supposed to be living in an egalitarian society? Even more odious is the flagrant use of the title “Mr Auld”. This name is reserved for my close friends only. If you don’t know me, it’s “Stuart”, or “mate”.

Anyhow, I survived not one but two Qantas flights, replete with bland bakery products and inferior tea. Upon landing in Bundaberg I realised that I should have hired a car, and so called the bean-counting department to get things moving. 45 minutes and 3 different forms later, I was on the road.

Having had consulted Google Earth about a week ago, I was fairly confident that I would have no trouble locating the distillery. However, a dream I had on the weekend completely confused me; I caught a taxi through the middle of Bundaberg and it was full of overpasses, bypasses and used car dealerships. After driving for ten minutes and not locating anything but endless fields of sugar cane, I resorted to Plan B: drive towards the chimney stack I can see in the distance, while simultaneously calling the office for help.

It was at about this point that a friendly member of the local constabulary stepped out on the road and motioned for me to pull over. He provided clear and concise directions to the distillery, for the bargain price of $100.

Is it possible to contest a speeding fine on the basis that you were driving a Tarago? I tried for the rest of the day to get it above 60 km/h, but couldn’t manage it. How he clocked me going at 72, I’ll never know.

Anyhow, I arrived safely at the distillery and was presented with an orange vest, a yellow hardhat and a rubber strap for my boots. The tour shortly commenced.

I think that the biggest insight of the day for me was learning where these “special blend” 18-year-old one-off bottles of spirits come from. Of course, the naive punter (aka me, 24 hours ago) would naturally assume that the liquor in question has been “hand crafted from the finest ingredients, before being laid aside in premium oak barrels for an extended maturation period”. In fact, the reality is somewhat different.

Engineer: “Hey, I just found some barrels that we stored in the wrong place 20 years ago, and have been sitting here gathering dust”.

Marketing department:”$$$$$$$$$”

To cut a long story short, I shall be heading to Bargara tomorrow morning to catch some surf, before departing for Brisvegas at 2:30pm. Adieu!

Monday, Monday

As we continue our inexorable march towards spring, I find myself standing on the tarmac in Melbourne. The temperature is 4 degrees, the sun is shining, and a light breeze blows from the direction of the city. Glorious.

With the chaos of last week’s performances of Man of La Mancha (including the consumption of enough alcohol to keep Billy Ray Cyrus happy for a month), work was quite difficult. This week should give me a chance to refocus and catch up on everything. Two days in Melbourne to start the week should help; my efficiency seems to increase by about 60% when I’m not around the office.

The phenomenon of Mondayitis is one which has been puzzling me of late. Is this simply an invariable symptom of the human condition, or can we overcome the Monday blues on a personal level? For years I have been content to write Mondays off as a waste of time, however I am now starting to believe that perhaps there is hope yet.

Consider the working week. We are locked in to a pattern of anticipation; eagerly counting down the hours until 4pm Friday, when we can crack open a beer, fire off the last couple of emails for the week, and then hit the town. The rest of the weekend is invariably spent trying to do as little as possible, while hoping that time will somehow get stuck somewhere around 3:30pm Sunday afternoon so that we can spend the rest of our lives drinking tea in the sun. Sadly, this is yet to occur.

The problem at hand then becomes one of expectations. Once we accept that it is simply not feasible to have a productive Monday, we can take measures to use the time wisely. You know all those pointless meetings which sap your valuable time on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday? Reschedule for Monday! Weekly shopping, cleaning out your desk/inbox, conversations with HR – all these time-wasting exercises are perfect to start your week off.

Anyhow, I can’t stay around here all day; I’ve got reference material to alphabetise. Adieu!

Countdown

My most ardent anthropoids,

Over the past five years I have lived with ten different people in five different dwellings. Friendships have been forged and broken, good times have been had and I am still on speaking terms with 70% of the people who I have been lucky enough to share a roof with.

For the past two months, I have lived by myself for the first time. Although it was slightly lonely at first, I had my dog with me, and spending most of the time out and about also helped. Now, just as I am getting used to being able to crank out the guitar at 1am every evening, this are about to change again.

In under 48 hours, the infamous internet celebrity Joel W. Courtney shall be moving in to my humble abode.

No more walking around the house naked, no more late night songwriting, no more storing underpants in the microwave.

On the other hand, we now have some sweet photography adorning the walls, I can have a quiet beer at home again, and there will always be someone to cook for. Here’s to a long and prosperous marriage!

Conclusively, comprehensively and definitively on top

Yes, I know of late that I have been espousing the virtues of Melbourne, however I am a Sydney man through and through. Sure, in Melbourne the bars may be cooler, the coffee and wine nicer, and the people friendlier, but at the end of the day you’ve gotta love this city for its body and not its soul. We’ve got the harbour, we’ve got the bridge, and we’ve got the beaches.

So it is nice to see that, in possibly the most important competition between Australia’s two major cities, Sydney has come out on top.

Sydney is officially grouped with NYC and London is the global edition of Monopoly. The positions were decided by a global poll; interstingly, although Sydney won the most votes worldwide, Melbourne was the most popular within Australia. I guess this proves that Melbournians will try anything to get one up on us.

Viva Sydney!

An auspicious day

I’m on a roll; I’m on a roll this time
I feel my luck could change

I am reluctant to comment on the human rights situation in China. The media in this country, even our beloved ABC, seems to be phenomenally biased against the current regime. On the other hand, the Chinese media is so blatantly pro-red that a sizeable grain of salt is required with their reporting.

AM this morning reported on a spontaneous gathering of people in Tienanmen Square chanting the Chinese equivalent of “Aussie Aussie Aussie”, and immediately made the implication that it was some kind of state-run conspiracy to make it look like the Chinese people are all in favour of the Olympics.

Isn’t a more feasible explanation that the residents of Beijing are actually looking forward to three weeks of party time? Remember Sydney 2000? Drunken revellers swamping the city every night? Maybe Bob Carr put something in the water and we were all acting under the control of the state back then.

On the other hand, it is undeniable that there are big problems in China. After the recent unrest in Tibet, I received an email from an expat living in Lhasa which was quite chilling. China has two faces – the progressive, developing capitalist nation being presented to the world, and the secret, totalitarian communist regime firmly guiding the destiny of a billions plus citizens in the background.

Was it wrong to give the Olympics to Beijing? I don’t think so. Increased attention on the country can only be good, and as China learns to be a part of the world maybe it will absorb some of the western freedoms that we take for granted.

As for the Olympics themselves, well I don’t really understand why people get so excited – it’s basically a bunch of sports that noone really cares about, and it makes my scores at trivia evenings go down for a few weeks.

With one exception: go the Olyroos! 1-1 with Serbia and Montenegro is not a bad result, but given the tough group we have we’ll probably have to eke out a win against Cote D’Ivoire on Wednesday.

I’m back

Dear friends,

Let us not mince words. Times have been very bad. In the course of the past two months, I have experienced the deepest lows of human emotion. I have teetered on the brink of self-destruction, and been pulled back by close friends on more than one occasion.

However, every bad situation brings with it opportunity. The human condition is by its very nature ambivalent; to embrace the future while lamenting the past is fundamental to our nature. Opportunities are thrown at us haphazardly, and at times they can be slippery, whether they be in your personal or professional life. Occasionally, one is hit with a deluge of opportunity, and must make decisions which will affect their life in a big way.

These are the trappings of life. My stated goal is to provide the world with beer and sympathy, a task which has fallen off the radar in recent times. Now, I am back and ready to start with the sad story of the town of Whakatane; temporarily wiped from the face of the internet due to a slight pronunciation-related misunderstanding. Don’t feel downhearted Whakatane, it could be worse: think of all the poor people in Wetwang, England. At least NZ has decent weather.

Melbourne

So, after having my personal life collapse on itself over the past few weeks, I have escaped to Melbourne for a week to get some business done. Alas, even south of the border I struggle to achieve much on Mondays, but this is something that I’m working on. Still, I have five days in which to convince myself that I have what it takes to head down my current career path, and the rewards await.

On a whim, I brought a guitar along for the ride – after all, one can’t work non-stop for five days!

Last night was spent at the Waiter’s Restaurant – a must see fine wine and dining experience. Right now, I’m off to grab my lunch and then hopefully get some substantial work done this arvo.

Weekend work

So, after a two-day week (Monday being a public holiday, Tuesday-Wednesday on Brampton Island), I have about three days worth of work to catch up on the weekend. The system doesn’t work, I tell you! Somehow I also have to find the time to clean the house and get various other bits and pieces back together.

It’s at times like this that the Start -> Shut Down function may just come in handy. Later.

Iemma’s metro-tastic rail vision

Finally, Sydney has been promised a public transport infrastructure to rival the finest cities in Europe. Let’s compare.

Paris

Vienna

London

And now, thanks to my inside source in the Laboured Party, I have managed to obtain a special advance copy of the plan for Sydney’s very own Metro system.

This comprehensive “network” comes at a price tag of just $12.5b. And that includes the $16m Iemma paid a consultant to draw the above network diagram.

Best of all, Iemma has flagged expansion of the network in the future:

Mr Iemma says future metro lines could run from the city to Parramatta, out to Moore Park and Maroubra and across the harbour to the northern beaches, but there is no timetable yet for those.

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A little less vision, a little more action

March 18th already, and the year really has flown by. The mighty Combat Wombats suffered yet another defeat (or two) last night, although morale is high due to an after-match pub visit by the team faithful.

We recently passed the much trumpeted 100 days of Rudd Rule, and much was made of his achievements. With 70% support as preferred PM, Rudd was lording it over the opposition for quite some time there.

Now however, Dr Nelson seems to have cottoned on to the secret. Noticing that Rudd was having visions more frequently than John on the island of Patmos, Nelson will today outline his own five-point vision for Australia.

With all these visions flying around, I’ll be very surprised if the we don’t start seeing some major drug use allegations pointed at both leaders in the very near future.

Seriously though, I think the time for talking is just about over. Education and the environment are in a diabolical state, and the economy will soon follow. With all of Rudd’s talkfests, it is likely to be at least 2010 before we get any real idea of how we are going to reduce greenhouse emissions, and probably at least 2020 before we start getting enough skilled labour into the workforce.

Hopefully ol’ Kev can get over the novelty of being in the top job and get on with it.