Staying put

I’m really not doing very well at keeping this up to date am I. In my defence I am rather busy with my job, beating Red at Street Fighter IV on the XBox 360, studying for exams etc. etc. The only reason I’m getting round to posting this now is that I’ve been off sick (soul destroying as a contractor!) the past few days with a viral infection that has given me a rather bad case of Kieron-Chris*. Anyway, I’m not really travelling any-more so this has become ‘The stay-still log of a bugger’. More on this later though.

Okay so first off I need to issue a retraction; in my last post I said I had yet to see LCD Soundsystem live, this was a big fat fib as I actually saw them a few years ago at the Manchester Academy. Splendid and tremendous they were too. Right, glad we got that cleared up.

I’ve been listening to The Black Keys a fair whack lately, both new and old stuff. Dan Auberch is a serious contender to Jack White for the modern dirty blues and garage-rock crown, if not the King incumbent. Go get their stuff – all of it.

Rugby league has definitely become my sport of choice over here as I was into it as a kid and Aussie rules footy does very little for me. Sydney Roosters should probably be my team as they are the local one but I have been to a few New Zealand Warriors (formerly Auckland Warriors) games as my house-mate Red is very much a Kiwi (“Want some chips bro? Have a chip cuz”). With there being loads of Sydney teams there’s plenty of opportunities to watch them over here, I got out to see them at Manly and also against Rabbitohs at the Olympic Stadium (Manchester should have had that!) in Homebush. The season is over now but next time round I might get into it properly.

I finally had a trundle round Darling Harbour (quite touristy but impressive none the less) recently as me and Claire went on a whale watching trip. The trip itself was a bit of a washout for me personally, as I got pretty sea-sick (without actually barfing) and had to spend most of it off deck, it may have been related to being on the razz the night before though. I think I did see a tail out the window a couple of times but that was about as close as I got to Moby Dick and pals.

Surry Hills and Crown Street in-particular seems like the coolest area in Sydney (though Newtown is good too), it’s close to where I work so I have had plenty of oppurtunity to explore the vintage shops and pubs. The Cricketers and The Shakespeare are probably my favourite 2 bars in Sydney so far, the latter doing great cheap grub so fast becoming a regular haunt.

The Broken Social Scene gig at The Metro I went to with Claire a couple of weeks (well, months now actually) ago was pretty good, they certainly bring plenty of energy to the stage. It’s a decent venue too with good views and bars everywhere, I’ll be looking out for other gigs there in the future.

I ran the City2Surf 14K run a few weeks back (erm, actually thinking about it was months again), it was quite the experience. 80,000 people running from the city-centre to Bondi beach, it took me 1 hour 23 minutes which isn’t too bad considering I very much neglected the training side of things. Next year I’ll be looking to shave a fair few minutes off that.

Wandering down into Bondi Junction the other day I was greeted by a young pair of buskers playing all sorts of weird stuff with a pretty unique and individual style, the highlight being the Jungle Book medley they belted out. I dined on a Japanese pizza (very much like this one) while taking in this spectacle, a most enjoyable half hour or so it was.

My pal (and personal scooter mechanic when on British soil) Joey has asked me to mention his plumbing business here and I am very happy to oblige. If you’re in Chester, The Wirral or North Wales {basically any of those parts where they talk funny) and you need your u-bend sorting or a dog’s bollocks power-shower fitting, Joey is your man. Cavalry Plumbing – “You’ve used the cowboys, now call the Cavalry.”

The company I now work for (Nexus) have offered me sponsorship and I have accepted, all the paperwork still has to go through though so it’s not all 100% yet. What this basically means is that I won’t be coming home or going travelling next March and I will probably be here for a couple of years at least.

Never mind that though, the biggest thing I have to report in this post is that I FINALLY GOT A VESPA!!! Have a look at the beauty below, it’s a 1963 Vespa VBB and was restored about 18 months ago by Gasoline Scooters. The engine has been replaced altogether and it now has a 150 LML in, but the frame is original and that’s what matters for me. It just means I get the benefit of modern power and reliability. I did pay considerably more than I would have liked to but I should get most of it back when I come to resell and I will get plenty of joy out of it in the meantime. Saga over eh.

I had looked at a small-frame Primavera a few weeks prior to getting this one, I liked it but turned it down as it was stupidly over-priced. The test ride was great fun though as the seller was an Italian guy who worked in the movie business over at Fox Studios, I got to tear-arse around the site for 15 minutes. The casting directors must not have been about as no offers were made, my visions of being projected to fame were scuppered. I guess the remake of The Great Escape (on a Vespa) will have to wait eh.

In other news, Simon has left the house and is now mooching round Asia for a bit on his way home to Northern Ireland. Catch up with his travels and travails here.

I saw ‘Inception’ at the IMAX for my birthday, blimey it’s a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a … It’s enough to make you reach for the paracetamol.

So with the sponsorship thing making it very likely that I’m going to be here for a good while I’m going to suspend blogging for Sydney. I will however post when I visit other parts of Australia (like when I got to Adelaide next month for a wedding) and to any of the islands, I might even venture into Asia. So once more, I plead with you to sign-up to the email list to be automatically notified of all STBB updates. Dead simple it is, just whack your email address in where it says so in the sidebar at the right of your screen up near the top. Easy as peasy innit.

Summer is most definitely on it’s way and apparently Sydney really comes alive then, that should be good it should. Being English, I’ll probably just end up whinging about it being too hot though. TTFN then reader(s).

*Dyer-Rea