Way to Fall

The end of the Australian financial year meant party time at work. So as 5.30pm rolled around, our modern staff room was filled with helium balloons, a frozen cocktail machine wheeled in, finger snacks covered the worktops, beer and wine populated the two refrigerators, music and videos played from the plasma screens. Everyone rolled in and hours later, filtered out. After using the last of my energy up at a club, I cabbed it home and watched as much of the Germany Vs Argentina match as my tired eyes could manage.

It was then the day of the England Quarter final against Portugal. Australia time meant a whole day to kill before this so I opted for a visit to the NSW art Gallery, Sydneys Chinese Gardens and dinner at restaurant I’d had my eye on – “Rib Specialists”. They were indeed great ribs!

The Chinese Gardens were as ornate as you could imagine, and bared a very striking resemblance to the ones I’d already seen in my time in South East Asia. Hard to believe that you’re actually smack in the middle of a busy metropolitan city.

Trying my best to culture my Essex-self, the art gallery was next on the hit list of things to do. The old stuff is admittedly wasted on me although I still managed to find some humour in the old oils. In the gallery’s sub terraenean levels, there was a lot photography and modern art that was far more fascinating to my eyes before the lights were killed and we were ejected at closing time.

I caught some early evening Z's before heading to the pub for the England game. The game wasn't anywhere near as well supported as the opener against Paraguay but the atmosphere was still pretty lively. It wasn't to be Englands year yet again. Beckham leaving injured (almost a blessing in disguise had we have got to play another world cup match) and then Rooney getting sent off, brought out the best football I'd seen from England so far - but still no ability to finish the 2nd rate team off. As Chris Ronaldo blasted in the decisive pen, bitter Aussies let out there laughter just to make the defeat even worse. Though I'd given Sven my support up until this world cup, I had grown tired of him this time around. Roll on Steve Maclaren. Ah well, there's always next time in Austri-tzerland '08.

Half way through Sunday I emerged from bed with a sad, sad hangover - made infinitely better by the news of Brazil also having an "off day" at the office. I went for a bike ride around the Centennial Parklands to burn some of the belly I'd gained over the previous 2 evenings. stopping by to watch the world go round; or at least some geese, horses and roller bladers.

I had to get a picture in here relating to the new Superman Movie which I saw last week. Most of the street scenes were filmed in Sydney, and you may notice a fountain that Superman lands in front of holding a car. It's a minute or two from my work, and here's Luke thinking he can fly after a couple of beers...