Hello again everyone.
Well, following more badgering (mainly from the same 3 people…you all know who you are) the time has come for another update on the life of me.
My weekdays continue to be dedicated to earning money (don’t worry, I’ve not turned into a total mercenary…more just a desperate soul) in order to continue my adventures later in the year. Don’t be fooled into thinking that work itself is not an adventure though, as I arrive into the office every morning waiting for some of Australia’s most stupid citizens to call, which has become a cultural experience in itself. I think my two favourites so far have been the lad who, after I
asked him what his name and address were, replied: “Hold on, I’ll just ask my mum”, not to mention the man who, when using his own brand of the phonetic alphabet to spell his name said to me: “I…I, for England”. At that point if I remember rightly I shed a tear of blood after stabbing myself with a stapler. It’s nice to know that Britain doesn’t hold a monopoly on the brain dead isn’t it?
Anyway, “What have you been doing with your free time Vinny/Ian?” I can hear some of you ask….well, those of you who haven’t already given up and gone back to ‘Facebook’ or ‘Youtube’. Well, let me think.
Several weekends ago I seem to remember heading over to the Olympic Stadium here in Sydney (ANZ Stadium/Homebush) for my third AFL game. My team, Collingwood, were in town facing the Sydney Swans, and with tickets available for $22 a piece it seemed almost rude to not attend. The game was reasonably eventful, with Collingwood victorious. The high point was definitely the moment Barry Hall (recently back from a 7 match suspension fo
r punching Brent Staker in the face and breaking his jaw) decided he still had some pent up aggression and thrusted the back of his elbow in the direction of Collingwood defender Shane Wakelin’s head. Here is the now token picture of me standing in a sports stadium whilst action is going on in the background, and further down I have included another one, though in that one I am at the SCG, after I bagged myself a pair of free tickets to another Swans game a few weeks later. The game at the SCG proved to be a little more exciting, and came as close to recreating the atmosphere of an English sporting event as I have experienced since arriving in Australia.
The following day I headed down to ‘The Rocks’ for the annual coffee festival. This certainly brought out lots of tourists and locals, so I spent much of the time trying to fight through the crowds in order to sample a tasty ca
ffeine hit. All I got my hands on was a standard long black though, as I seemed to find myself being drawn to the food stands instead (anyone who has spent longer than 2 minutes with me in the last 12 months will not be surprised by this revelation).
Now, along with catching up with friends, the main reason for my attending the coffee festival had been to drink enough coffee to ensure that I could stay awake for a further 15 hours or so, in order to watch the Wimbledon men’s final. Shortly before it began my hopes of a quick final and a few hours sleep took a knock when I rang home to get a weather report. “Well, it’s raining in Derby” was not the response I hoped for from mum, but hoped that perhaps the rain in Derby might mean it was not over London. The match finally got under way on this side of the globe at around 11.30pm, and after sitting through the opening set I had to admit defeat and retire to my bed in the hope that rain would shortly stop play, leading to the rescheduling of the match to the following day. Sadly, as we all know, this did not happen, and the next morning I awoke to statements such as this:
“The men's 2008 Wimbledon final on Sunday is already being talked about as one of the best tennis matches, if not sporting encounters, in history.”
This confirmed my feeling that, although I am enjoying living in Australia, that fact that events such as this and Premiership football are played whilst I am sleeping is testing my patience…to be honest I would go as far to say this pushed me fairly close to breaking point, well what I thought was my breaking point (‘Channel 7’ have managed to push me even further during the Olympics, but I’ll get onto that later).
On the plus side, having sport on whilst I’m asleep means I don’t have to subject myself to watching 11 ludicrously paid footballers with 3 lions on there shirts, doing what appears to be impersonations of Benny Hill (just replace the scantily clad lady for a football). After his fantastic start to the season it made sense that Fabio Capello wouldn’t be picking Gabriel Agbonlahor for his latest squad (well what need would he have for the quickest player in the league in the goal scoring form of his life I hear you ask?), plumping instead for the Arsenal bench warmer and the striker with the record of 5 goals in 45 appearances…hold on, make that 46 now. Haven’t we been here before?….more than once.
Anyway, enough of this, lets get back to Sydney.
Half way through July the city was invaded by hundreds of thousands of touri
sts for World Youth Day. ‘WYD08’ as it was branded in much of the advertising literature, appeared to be a money making scheme organised by the Catholic Church, which resulted in the city being flooded with badly dressed pilgrims. The event itself ended with a huge Mass hosted by the Pope himself, for which tickets were available at a bargain basement $135 each. How much of this the Pope got as an appearance fee I don’t know.
The reason I mention this is that one of the events organised to keep the masses happy saw the closure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to traffic, meaning that people were able to just wander over without fear of being mowed down by a ‘Holden’ Ute. As this event was free, and it appeared that you didn’t need to be an official pilgrim to take part, I headed down with my friends Laurence and Carrie and enjoyed a wander over the bridge on what was a delightfully warm winter afternoon.
This good weather continued for the next few weekends, which was lucky as Ebony and her friends headed my way for a weekend break/drunken session. This meant I finally got to meet Ebbo’s cousin, none other than Michelle Scully from Neighbours. Michelle, or Kate as she likes to be known (these stars with their demands), doesn’t li
ke talking about Neighbours, so I was on strict instructions to adhere to a ‘NO NEIGHBOURS TALK’ rule. I was cool and calm throughout, not once finding myself just staring at her wondering if she sees much of Flick these days. After meeting with them at 10.30am (at which point they were necking Bloody Mary’s) we then worked our way around various bars, before I bailed out mid-afternoon. I think they ended up back at there hotel at some point the following week.
With the Olympics on the horizon I had cleared room in my schedule over next few weekends so I could do nothing but watch the quest for gold.
Now, I had been told before the games that the coverage would be extremely Aussie focused, which didn’t surprise me, as the BBC can be fairly biased during events such as this. What I didn’t expect was all round incompetence on behalf of ‘Channel 7’ (the station that screens Olympic coverage ove
r here). Here is a list of my major issues:
1) Thanks to the American audience the swimming finals began here at midday each day. This meant that a lot of people were at work whilst they were being screened, so you would think that they would show highlights of the major events to ensure everyone got a chance to see them. This highlight show was shown each day I am told, at around 5 o’clock, when most people are still at work.
2) With so much to show ‘Channel 7’ found it rather tricky to decide what to show and when. As a result they would normally screen 2 minutes of something, then hop to something else, then flick back to the event they had been showing (by which point it most certainly was not live), before then realizing that there must be an Australian coming 17th in something, and assuming that the nation would much rather watch that instead.
3) The need to give every sporting team a nickname. I initially found this to be quite endearing, but that soon ended. Can’t you just call them the Women’s Softball team?! Or, better still, don’t even bother showing the sport and let me see Michael Phelps win a gold medal in the greatest swimming relay in history instead!
4) Punditry/Commentary. No punditry whatsoever, and talk about the scraping the bottom of the barrel for commentators. Having to listen to Raileen someone or other (who I think came third in her school sports day 50 metre dash in 1952) took a little of the shine off Usain Bolt’s record breaking exploits.
5) Adverts. I would wholeheartedly support a boycott of any company that advertises actually during a sporting event…not at half-time or after the event, but during. If someone were to tell me tomorrow that ‘Red Rooster’ had gone bankrupt then I would probably celebrate it like I had won gold.
Now, following our fine performance over the last 2 weeks I thought some of you might be in need of a reminder that there were a few loosers out there in Beijing. Here were my favourites:
1) The Australian commentator who confidently told me that Louis Smith did not stand a chance of winning a medal following his Pommel Horse routine, just before he was inserted into the silver medal position. He went on to claim Bronze.
2) The weightlifter who couldn’t grip the weight with his right hand, leading to his elimination without performing a lift. This would be bad enough, were it not for the fact that he is Colombian, and if I remember rightly they don’t carry a great deal of sympathy over there for sporting failure…just ask Andreas Escobar.
3) Anyone involved the organistation of any kind of ceremony at London 2012.
4) Grant Hackett, the only Australian I actually wanted to win a Gold medal. Sorry Grant, it looks like I might have brought some of the English football teams luck along in supporting you.
Amidst all of the hype surrounding the British success in Beijing I think a small sporting success over here may have been missed by most major media providers back home.
Just 2 days into the Olympics I ran in the annual ‘City to Surf run’, a 14km jog through the streets of Sydney, ending at Bondi Beach. Hoping for
a sub-1 hour performance, I sadly came in at the 64 minute mark, however there were extenuating circumstances. As I hadn’t participated in last years run I was not able to start in the top 2 groups, and due to my lateness in registering I was only able to get a position in the final group. This meant that several thousand people started ahead of me who decided to crawl the 14km (slight exaggeration there), and so I spent most of the race slaloming grandmas and simpletons who signed up to start in the third group, even though the 
entry form clearly stated that if you intended to walk then the final group would be the best bet for you.
Another excuse there courtesy of the Alex Ferguson book of ‘there is always someone else to blame’.
And so, I think that brings me up to date.
I’ll try not to make it too long before my next entry…purely for the fact that this has taken me far too many lunch breaks to write this.
Take it easy.
Vinny/Ian
A few observations:
Tea bags over here are a disgrace. The Aussie made ones lack one slightly important feature….taste. As a result I’m buying the fine British brands, but you only have to pour the water onto them in a slightly powerful motion and they rip, leaving me with a mouthful of loose tea leaves.
The Sydney sky. On a sunny day this would definitely be my favourite feature of Sydney. The richness of the blue is breathtaking.
Does anyone else think that Rebecca Adlington looks like a polar bear?
There is a town called Vincent in Queensland!
Oh, and one more thing. Congratulations to Ellie and Tim for getting married. I know Ellie has been angling for a mention in ‘I’m glad it’s me and not you’ for a while now, so didn’t want to disappoint.
This month Ian was clothed by the ‘cast offs’ collection by Declan Gilbert.
Well, following more badgering (mainly from the same 3 people…you all know who you are) the time has come for another update on the life of me.
My weekdays continue to be dedicated to earning money (don’t worry, I’ve not turned into a total mercenary…more just a desperate soul) in order to continue my adventures later in the year. Don’t be fooled into thinking that work itself is not an adventure though, as I arrive into the office every morning waiting for some of Australia’s most stupid citizens to call, which has become a cultural experience in itself. I think my two favourites so far have been the lad who, after I
asked him what his name and address were, replied: “Hold on, I’ll just ask my mum”, not to mention the man who, when using his own brand of the phonetic alphabet to spell his name said to me: “I…I, for England”. At that point if I remember rightly I shed a tear of blood after stabbing myself with a stapler. It’s nice to know that Britain doesn’t hold a monopoly on the brain dead isn’t it?Anyway, “What have you been doing with your free time Vinny/Ian?” I can hear some of you ask….well, those of you who haven’t already given up and gone back to ‘Facebook’ or ‘Youtube’. Well, let me think.
Several weekends ago I seem to remember heading over to the Olympic Stadium here in Sydney (ANZ Stadium/Homebush) for my third AFL game. My team, Collingwood, were in town facing the Sydney Swans, and with tickets available for $22 a piece it seemed almost rude to not attend. The game was reasonably eventful, with Collingwood victorious. The high point was definitely the moment Barry Hall (recently back from a 7 match suspension fo
r punching Brent Staker in the face and breaking his jaw) decided he still had some pent up aggression and thrusted the back of his elbow in the direction of Collingwood defender Shane Wakelin’s head. Here is the now token picture of me standing in a sports stadium whilst action is going on in the background, and further down I have included another one, though in that one I am at the SCG, after I bagged myself a pair of free tickets to another Swans game a few weeks later. The game at the SCG proved to be a little more exciting, and came as close to recreating the atmosphere of an English sporting event as I have experienced since arriving in Australia.The following day I headed down to ‘The Rocks’ for the annual coffee festival. This certainly brought out lots of tourists and locals, so I spent much of the time trying to fight through the crowds in order to sample a tasty ca
ffeine hit. All I got my hands on was a standard long black though, as I seemed to find myself being drawn to the food stands instead (anyone who has spent longer than 2 minutes with me in the last 12 months will not be surprised by this revelation).Now, along with catching up with friends, the main reason for my attending the coffee festival had been to drink enough coffee to ensure that I could stay awake for a further 15 hours or so, in order to watch the Wimbledon men’s final. Shortly before it began my hopes of a quick final and a few hours sleep took a knock when I rang home to get a weather report. “Well, it’s raining in Derby” was not the response I hoped for from mum, but hoped that perhaps the rain in Derby might mean it was not over London. The match finally got under way on this side of the globe at around 11.30pm, and after sitting through the opening set I had to admit defeat and retire to my bed in the hope that rain would shortly stop play, leading to the rescheduling of the match to the following day. Sadly, as we all know, this did not happen, and the next morning I awoke to statements such as this:
“The men's 2008 Wimbledon final on Sunday is already being talked about as one of the best tennis matches, if not sporting encounters, in history.”
This confirmed my feeling that, although I am enjoying living in Australia, that fact that events such as this and Premiership football are played whilst I am sleeping is testing my patience…to be honest I would go as far to say this pushed me fairly close to breaking point, well what I thought was my breaking point (‘Channel 7’ have managed to push me even further during the Olympics, but I’ll get onto that later).
On the plus side, having sport on whilst I’m asleep means I don’t have to subject myself to watching 11 ludicrously paid footballers with 3 lions on there shirts, doing what appears to be impersonations of Benny Hill (just replace the scantily clad lady for a football). After his fantastic start to the season it made sense that Fabio Capello wouldn’t be picking Gabriel Agbonlahor for his latest squad (well what need would he have for the quickest player in the league in the goal scoring form of his life I hear you ask?), plumping instead for the Arsenal bench warmer and the striker with the record of 5 goals in 45 appearances…hold on, make that 46 now. Haven’t we been here before?….more than once.
Anyway, enough of this, lets get back to Sydney.
Half way through July the city was invaded by hundreds of thousands of touri
sts for World Youth Day. ‘WYD08’ as it was branded in much of the advertising literature, appeared to be a money making scheme organised by the Catholic Church, which resulted in the city being flooded with badly dressed pilgrims. The event itself ended with a huge Mass hosted by the Pope himself, for which tickets were available at a bargain basement $135 each. How much of this the Pope got as an appearance fee I don’t know.The reason I mention this is that one of the events organised to keep the masses happy saw the closure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to traffic, meaning that people were able to just wander over without fear of being mowed down by a ‘Holden’ Ute. As this event was free, and it appeared that you didn’t need to be an official pilgrim to take part, I headed down with my friends Laurence and Carrie and enjoyed a wander over the bridge on what was a delightfully warm winter afternoon.
This good weather continued for the next few weekends, which was lucky as Ebony and her friends headed my way for a weekend break/drunken session. This meant I finally got to meet Ebbo’s cousin, none other than Michelle Scully from Neighbours. Michelle, or Kate as she likes to be known (these stars with their demands), doesn’t li
ke talking about Neighbours, so I was on strict instructions to adhere to a ‘NO NEIGHBOURS TALK’ rule. I was cool and calm throughout, not once finding myself just staring at her wondering if she sees much of Flick these days. After meeting with them at 10.30am (at which point they were necking Bloody Mary’s) we then worked our way around various bars, before I bailed out mid-afternoon. I think they ended up back at there hotel at some point the following week.With the Olympics on the horizon I had cleared room in my schedule over next few weekends so I could do nothing but watch the quest for gold.
Now, I had been told before the games that the coverage would be extremely Aussie focused, which didn’t surprise me, as the BBC can be fairly biased during events such as this. What I didn’t expect was all round incompetence on behalf of ‘Channel 7’ (the station that screens Olympic coverage ove
r here). Here is a list of my major issues:1) Thanks to the American audience the swimming finals began here at midday each day. This meant that a lot of people were at work whilst they were being screened, so you would think that they would show highlights of the major events to ensure everyone got a chance to see them. This highlight show was shown each day I am told, at around 5 o’clock, when most people are still at work.
2) With so much to show ‘Channel 7’ found it rather tricky to decide what to show and when. As a result they would normally screen 2 minutes of something, then hop to something else, then flick back to the event they had been showing (by which point it most certainly was not live), before then realizing that there must be an Australian coming 17th in something, and assuming that the nation would much rather watch that instead.
3) The need to give every sporting team a nickname. I initially found this to be quite endearing, but that soon ended. Can’t you just call them the Women’s Softball team?! Or, better still, don’t even bother showing the sport and let me see Michael Phelps win a gold medal in the greatest swimming relay in history instead!
4) Punditry/Commentary. No punditry whatsoever, and talk about the scraping the bottom of the barrel for commentators. Having to listen to Raileen someone or other (who I think came third in her school sports day 50 metre dash in 1952) took a little of the shine off Usain Bolt’s record breaking exploits.
5) Adverts. I would wholeheartedly support a boycott of any company that advertises actually during a sporting event…not at half-time or after the event, but during. If someone were to tell me tomorrow that ‘Red Rooster’ had gone bankrupt then I would probably celebrate it like I had won gold.
Now, following our fine performance over the last 2 weeks I thought some of you might be in need of a reminder that there were a few loosers out there in Beijing. Here were my favourites:
1) The Australian commentator who confidently told me that Louis Smith did not stand a chance of winning a medal following his Pommel Horse routine, just before he was inserted into the silver medal position. He went on to claim Bronze.
2) The weightlifter who couldn’t grip the weight with his right hand, leading to his elimination without performing a lift. This would be bad enough, were it not for the fact that he is Colombian, and if I remember rightly they don’t carry a great deal of sympathy over there for sporting failure…just ask Andreas Escobar.
3) Anyone involved the organistation of any kind of ceremony at London 2012.
4) Grant Hackett, the only Australian I actually wanted to win a Gold medal. Sorry Grant, it looks like I might have brought some of the English football teams luck along in supporting you.
Amidst all of the hype surrounding the British success in Beijing I think a small sporting success over here may have been missed by most major media providers back home.
Just 2 days into the Olympics I ran in the annual ‘City to Surf run’, a 14km jog through the streets of Sydney, ending at Bondi Beach. Hoping for
a sub-1 hour performance, I sadly came in at the 64 minute mark, however there were extenuating circumstances. As I hadn’t participated in last years run I was not able to start in the top 2 groups, and due to my lateness in registering I was only able to get a position in the final group. This meant that several thousand people started ahead of me who decided to crawl the 14km (slight exaggeration there), and so I spent most of the race slaloming grandmas and simpletons who signed up to start in the third group, even though the 
entry form clearly stated that if you intended to walk then the final group would be the best bet for you.Another excuse there courtesy of the Alex Ferguson book of ‘there is always someone else to blame’.
And so, I think that brings me up to date.
I’ll try not to make it too long before my next entry…purely for the fact that this has taken me far too many lunch breaks to write this.
Take it easy.
Vinny/Ian
A few observations:
Tea bags over here are a disgrace. The Aussie made ones lack one slightly important feature….taste. As a result I’m buying the fine British brands, but you only have to pour the water onto them in a slightly powerful motion and they rip, leaving me with a mouthful of loose tea leaves.
The Sydney sky. On a sunny day this would definitely be my favourite feature of Sydney. The richness of the blue is breathtaking.
Does anyone else think that Rebecca Adlington looks like a polar bear?
There is a town called Vincent in Queensland!
Oh, and one more thing. Congratulations to Ellie and Tim for getting married. I know Ellie has been angling for a mention in ‘I’m glad it’s me and not you’ for a while now, so didn’t want to disappoint.
This month Ian was clothed by the ‘cast offs’ collection by Declan Gilbert.
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