Well apologies, dear reader, for such a long length of time since my last post. Since writing to you last I have been very busy with work producing the current series of You’re Dead To Me for the BBC and Nappy Days for MTV. And before you go grassing to the Australian Home Office about me working illegally here, some news – my visa has come through! That means, much like football, I will not be coming home any time soon.
I am now allowed to work here, which is good because I can start earning money, but bad because I have to start working for that money. Not being legally allowed to work was a great government-mandated excuse to be lazy, and it extended to housework too (possibly, I don’t know, I didn’t want to risk it.)
So much has happened since the last post. I am a member of a pub quiz team with Rach and two of her friends. The first time I went, my friend quite rightly said that the TV round will be tough for me as I won't be able to answer questions such as "Who was the first host of Donkey Dingo?". He was largely right, however one of the answers I was able to put forward was a correct guess at “What was the name of the cooking show that accompanied last year’s State Of Origin competition?”. And just a couple weeks later myself and Rach won the whole bloody quiz on our too.
The State of Origin is a big annual rugby league competition between Queensland and New South Wales. I’ve adopted rugby league as my sport of interest here and the Brisbane Broncos as my team. They finished 14th out of 16 on the NRL Ladder (league table) this year. Absolutely classic – my one chance to be a glory hunter and I’ve chosen the Arsenal of the NRL. (In case you’re reading this in the future, at the time of writing Arsenal are uncharacteristically at the bottom of the Premier league. That’s right, Arsenal are in the Premier League as this is written, a fact I presume will change.)
This photo is from mine and Rach’s trip to the seaside town of Noosa. If you’re English and reading this, you should remember that ‘seaside town’ in Australia doesn’t equate to ‘absolute shithole’ like it does in the UK. For example, Richard Branson owns a house in Noosa. He doesn’t own one in Bognor. That was a lovely trip. Although on the beach, I read in Christian O’Connell’s (very good) book about Stone Fish and therefore vowed to never go into the sea again unless it’s too hot not to.
Two weeks later I went for a swim in the sea. I swam from our friend Scott’s (yes I’ve made a friend) boat to the beach. I’ve been told during that swim, the rest of the party, still on the boat saw a shark. I am now never going into the sea again, unless it’s too hot again.
In Noosa, a leaf/branch sort of thing fell from a tree right next to me, but with a sort of glide to it. At that moment, I thought it was a flying snake. I then said to myself “if flying snakes are a thing, I’m going back to England”. Fortunately a quick google says whilst they are a thing, which is absolutely insane, they don’t live in Australia. Good news really as my visa was not cheap.
I’ve been fairly productive of recent too. I have, from scratch, built a bar table for our balcony. We figured it would be much cheaper to build a table rather than buy one. I spent $400 dollars on tools and materials in Bunnings, so very much wrong on that note. Still I’m very proud of it, having drawn on my GCSE Design and Technology experience. If anyone does have Mr Loftstadt’s, DT teacher of Langley Park School Boys circa 2008, please do pass along the below picture just to let him know that his work was not in vain.
Overall, I’m still having a lovely time and enjoying the warm winter (don’t worry Britain, I’m sure they’ll come to you soon). However I am missing Reggae Reggae Sauce. They don’t sell it here. Extensive research has shown that it was on sale at the supermarket Woolworths until 2012 when it was stopped due to low take up. Other than that, I must say, it’s great to finally to be in country that takes BBQ sauce seriously. It’s available everywhere.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Speak to you soon.
Oh. And if you hadn’t already guessed, it was Plate Of Origin.
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