As the Rush Comes

Lily Allen (Luna Park), Australia Day and Kasabian (Enmore Theatre), Party Time (again!)

Wednesday night. Last day in the office. First Brit gig in Sydney since seeing the Zutons back in the middle of last year.

A small flurry of artists are playing around this time of the year here since it’s the festival high-season, so I made sure to claim a couple of tickets early on to a few English acts since I have no idea when I might get to see them again. The first of a weekly double act was to be Lily Allen playing Sydneys Luna Park.

Katy and myself would eventually meet up with Gemma and Marla – a couple more Poms out here in Sydney. But before, we managed to get seats at the Spicy Wok, an awesome little Thai restaurant in Kiribilli just next to the gig. As time ticked by, the support acts played inside the Big Top, we arrived just in time to catch the last of these – possibly the worst DJ I’ve ever seen playing live… think ‘kid brother with his first set of record decks going nuts with his new found ability to scratch a record’. It was truly dire.

Finally Lily came out on stage and turned things around for the better. She was backed by a wind section which really injected a load of fun into the show, and along with some cool covers of The Kooks and The Specials it was a really great show with all the tracks off her album.

So Thursday would be my first day technically unemployed, so I spent a bunch of time getting some odd jobs out of the way before hitting the job searching again. This would be relatively short lived since Friday was Australia Day – a public holiday.

After an Australia Day lunch in the city, I managed to pack in a wander around Darling Harbour; which was rammed with crowds awaiting the evenings firework celebrations, then a trip out East to Clovelly beach to hear the final part of the JJJ (Triple J radio station) Hottest 100. A track by Augie March was voted 2006s best track to some amazement of the Aussies around me. After this it was time for my most anticipated event of the New Year so far…

Myself and Aaron headed out to the Enmore Theatre to see Kasabian. The Enmore is probably the most similar venue to some of the London ones like the Forum or Brixton, as such, it was a great atmosphere once inside, and in similar fashion to those British establishments, it was stupid hot.

The Northerners came on stage and belted out their hits from 2 albums gone, the majority of the crowd unsurprisingly English lapped it up. From the last time I saw these guys playing at Glastonbury (where they had a spectacular lighting rig accompanying them), they had to rely on raw performance, and I reckon they managed it pretty well. A highlight of the evening was leaving the theatre with the crowd in full football-fan style voice belting out LSF. This carried on on the pavement for another 20-25mins whilst we watched on chowing down on a Garlo pie. Awesome.

We topped off the evening with a couple more drinks down at the Coogee Palace before going separate ways… after that day, I was ready for nothing but a long sleep.

However, the middle day of the long weekend, and it was time to revisit the Randwick Pool Party… except the weather wasn’t quite on our side this time. Speedy winds and grey skies kept everyone but the hardcore out of the pool and by or in the house. However a huge turnout still made it along and helped polish off a whole keg of Pure Blonde before the memory police showed up…

A great weekend, that still fortunately had an extra day to recover. I took time out and went taking pictures around the city before facing my final week before V-day (Visa day!)…

The Boy with the Thorn in his Side

And so it is... Australian employer No.5 in less than one year is now an ex-employer. Damn, I'm sure I used to be better at holding down jobs than this!? Of course I've been restricted to a 3month maximum contract, and several of those jobs have been very temporary. Who could forget my week spent in a Perth chicken factory chiller unit!?

It is however, the end of an era, in that my working holiday visa; valid from February 2nd 2006 to February 2nd 2007 is soon to expire. With that came a big choice, a tough decision and another new challenge. (One of) My original plans were to head off to New Zealand to try my hand at working there for a while, however, life in New South Wales has quickly become lifestyle for me and home is now Randwick. Career is in the Central Business District of Sydney and England now seems to be a holiday destination. So for the last week I've been back in the job-searchers market with the difference this time being that I need the prospective employer to offer me sponsorship to stay in the country past the expiration of my official document.

Meanwhile, life has calmed down and I'm simply enjoying all that the Summer here in Sydney has to offer. These last couple of weeks have seen me regaining some colour, wining, dining, barbequeuing, exercising more than any other time in the last 14months and swimming in as much water as I can, be it in the ocean, a swimming pool or water park. Last weekend myself and a few friends headed to Jamberoo waterpark... it was going to be something I'd write about in my blog, however the park was overcrowded, due to the school holidays which made for more time out of the water queueing than time having fun... ah well, I guess you can't win em all.

Land Down Under

An Englishmans Reflections of Australia

I thought to myself, that since I'm not really travelling so much these days, I'd take an irregular diversion on my bloggings. Here's my little look at some Aussie culture, I hope you enjoy some of the stuff that's made me smile in discovering it this last year.

Through my travels, I've found that adopting local colloquialisms is key to forging good relationships and to being understood. This could be some polite phrases in Thai, a custom of removing your footwear on entering someone's home or a change in many of the way you say things. My native accent traditionally blunts the letter T, drops H's and turns a 'th' into an almost embarrassing 'f' sound. I quickly had to rectify this and really emphasise T's in order to be understood by most foreigners.

However in Australia, without really making any effort, I've now lost count of the amount of times English and Australians have mistaken me for an Aussie when they've first met me. However even with this initial confusion, there's still a whole sub-language here that I've been learning over these last 300 or so moons. There's the obvious shortening of a tin of beer to 'tinny', flip-flops become 'thongs' , a cool box becomes 'eski', although I still don't recall an actual Australian referring to the toilet as 'the dunny'.

My favourite by far though is the all too common shortening of words that may only be two or three syllables in the first place - to 'first syllable + 'o'. My case in point:

Bottle Shop (AKA Off License) - Bottle-O
Service Station - Serve-O
A Musician becomes - A Muse-O
Ambulance Driver - Amb-O
and my favourite, though I'm not sure it's that common - Hungry Jacks (Burger King to the rest of the world) - Hungo Jacko's

It was a week ago when I found myself cutting my adopted hometowns name of Randwick, down to Rando... it's rubbing off on me.

On from the language, to the fashion differences. On my first take, people dress kinda similar to the UK or even the US, but as time ticked by, more and more things became apparent. For me personally, I'd wear a casual shirt with the very top button undone. Here, I've had the 2nd one whipped off too, and told only dags do that button up. In contrast when I returned back to the UK, I kept that 2nd button undone, and was told to put 'it' (in reference to my rug) away. It's also pretty regular to see people wandering around with no footwear, a lot of singlets (vests) and corked hats (I'm joking of course). In the formal world, it also seems perfectly acceptable to wear the dodgiest tie and shirt combinations under the sun... something I've not moved over to just yet ;)

Don't get me started on the sunglasses that most of the young girls have been wearing this last year...

I'm nearly done, but I'll just take a moment to mention one of my favourite unique Australian snacks.

When I first scanned the ice cream refrigerator, I clocked a lot of the usuals - Cornettos (Drumsticks), Calypo's & Magnums. But one day, I spotted the Golden Gaytime. I nearly died laughing. Imagine asking for a "Golden Gaytime"! or "Let's you and me go and have a Golden Gaytime"... I'm not sure that name would cut it back home... although I've since learned that they've been around for forever and a day... dating back to when gay meant happy and innocent.

It was my duty to try it at least it once. With the wrapper off, it's biscuit crumb, followed by chocolate coated ice cream kinda looked a little alien to me. My first few bites were uncomfortable. I didn't know if it was right that I could be enjoying something with that name. Though you have to try all things once, right? I soon became comfortable with my Ice-Creamiality. Now, I'm completely unafraid to simply walk into a shop and in front of a line of people, look the shopkeeper in the eye and demand a Golden Gaytime. He may give me a strange look but I've even given my mates a Golden Gaytime, and they're always grateful for it too.

I Go Hard, I Go Home

So with a new year, seems to have come a radical new schedule, especially in comparison to month number twelve of 2006. My lifestyle has been flipped on it's head over the last 7days. I've improved my diet (a little), been for 3x5km runs in the mornings (also resulting in starting & finishing work earlier) and given up beer for January (more so just to detract from any spontaneous pub outtings).

Back at work all week, other than the public holiday on Monday of course, I once again couldn't wait for the weekend to roll around. Friday night was the most fun I've had since... well Christmas and New Year I guess, with a boys outing around Darling Harbour, taking in sun-down at Bungalow 8 and the Loft before being unashamedly the first on the dancefloor at Cargo Bar. A slightly later night than anticipated, but a well earned wind-down from the first week of work in 2007.

Saturday, Sydney was treated to an absolute pearler of a days weather. I met up with a new friend Katy, and the two of us went for a visit at Toronga zoo. Really quite a different zoo to any I've been to before, with some great views over the harbour and city - as well as some cool animals, favourites being the huge leopard seal (something I'd read a bit about recently) and the platypus's. The sun's hot gaze was fended off by a great breeze, though most of the animals seemed unfazed - except the echidnas that seemed to have dug a hole so deep that they wouldn't or couldn't be coming up to the surface any time soon.

Sunday was an easy day capped with a BBQ on a rooftop in Newtown and some quality much needed quiet time where I got a chance to kick off a novel I've had knocking around for ages.

As I enter my final week of my contract, I can only wonder where this roller-coaster of a section of my life will take me in the next 3-4weeks. It was nearly a year ago that I finished up in South East Asia and dropped into Perth, WA - I had no idea back then I'd still be in Australia a year on. As much as some unpredicatble stuff has happened, this has really been the first time I've had no idea about how the future will shape itself. I'm looking for another new job right now, that may then give me the chance to stay a little, or a lot longer... on the other hand, if I don't get that kind of opportunity, then I must leave the "land down under" for the "land down under and to the side a bit" at the beginning of February to pursue the next phase. Watch this space and wish me luck...

Break the Night With Colour

Christmas break: Pool Party Thursday

Aaron and I took advantage of the days off between Christmas and New Year as best we could. Thursday morning, we took a shopping trip to buy some supplies for what was to be a real highlight of the break - a long overdue pool party.

During the preparations, I managed to walk into a table – head first. No, I wasn’t already crawling, but a mis-hap as we raised a picnic table up high meant I would get to spend the afternoon with a ridiculous red graze smack in the middle of my forehead. That’ll be the Christmas/New Year bad luck kicking in then…

I’m pretty sure Az has done this before, preparing blank canvasses with poster paints for all attendees to sign in on, play-dough and a pool full with inflatable toys. The guests drank, shot hoops and fuusball, swam, bounced the trampoline and munched on BBQ – in-between basking in the sun.

Unfortunately, a number of our male guests didn’t make it along and so sadly we had to endure a 2:1 female to male ratio. Bummer. Really.
As night fall fell, the party looked to be gearing down, before everyone was once again back in the water – along with a bunch of glow sticks to provide one of the best party props I’ve seen in a while. A great way to spend one of those Christmas in-between days.

Moruya Friday & Saturday

The fallout from the pool party felt very much to me like it might last an awful long time. With some persuasion however, Az got me in the car for a road trip down to visit one of his old uni mates in a town around 5 hours South of Sydney - Moruya. He promised, peace, quiet, the possibility of surfing, golf, fishing and more importantly - an alcohol free environment. Golf & fishing were the two here that didn't happen...

We took what must have been the most segmented drive down, with many a stop off at McDonalds, greasy spoon kebab parlours and Servo's. Somehow we made it before nightfall.

Up early-ish the next day, Evo took us down to the beach for a surf. I was honestly quite dubious about trying what has in the past yielded the most injuries per hour of any sport I ever tried. The rocks visible around the beach and break compounded this further, but with a bit of a "whatever" attitude I made it down to the water.

I managed to surprise myself. After barely getting my feet on the surface of a buoyant surf board during my whole time in Australia, I nailed around 4 out of 5 waves that came my way. Factors contributing to this: shallow water- I could literally walk to the waves, no rip, reasonable size waves rather than killer Luke-flipping big mama's. This was enjoyable surfing as I remember it back in the UK and Thailand. (Although I have some shots of me cutting back into some huge 6ft barrels, I figured you'd sooner see me fall over than show off...)

An afternoon in the pub gave more surprises and another first for me - except this time not the variety I really like. I took a break at the pool table, and didn't get another shot all game. Evo cleared up on me and it was time to drop trou and do a lap of the table as forfeit for being on the wrong end of pools most impressive feat.

After all this excitement, the 3 of us wandered back for a BBQ and general chill out session culminating, not necessarily at the same time, in the 3 of us passing out in front of the telly.

The final day of the year dawned, and we took an early exit to get back to Sydney in good time for an evening of more celebrations.

There's a few more pictures on my photo site from the Moruya trip. (www.fonfara.blogspot.com)

New Years Eve

The last day of the year, again. I've become a grumpy old man when it comes to New Years. Bad stuff seems to happen to me around this time of the year traditionally (I get the Flu, I fall off a motorbike or the night just ends up being such a big let down due to the nature of an over-hyped event). Today I tried my hardest to forget it was new years and to just pretend I was just going along to any old barbeque/pool party at a luxury house on the North Shore of Sydneys harbour.

From 2 or 3 o clock in the afternoon the final big drink of the year got underway, everyone in attendance in high spirits. After that initial period of meeting a bunch of new people, we were soon messing about and playing drinking games. Though as more and more people (also read - girls) left the playing area, we knocked it on the head for some grub.

9 o clock ticked up and with this came the family fireworks display - or practice run for the main event. Far too soon we’d been back to the house and were back out looking over the harbour toward the Opera House and bridge awaiting the countdown. 7 years ago I’d climbed a tree and watched the millennium fireworks over Big Ben, this year I scaled a wall and sat on the front of someone’s balcony, lucky the party didn’t mind so Az & Moretti followed me up plus some randoms - everyone loves a random afterall.

A little hazily I recollect nothing of a countdown before the fireworks were unleashed. A pretty great show, which I did absolutely nothing for in the shaky photographs that I took. I've thrown a couple on here for token representation... just don't look too closesly!

3hours later, we finally made it back to Manly where we crashed out during those first hours of 2007. Finally a succesful New Years Eve, I even managed to wake up with a smile on my face.

Happy New Year!! Have a great 2007.

A Spaceman Came Travelling

The Christmas bumper issue,

Twas the Thursday before Christmas and all most of us were thinking about was knocking off from work for the weekend... even though Friday was still to be worked. You see, work shouted a full lunch in honour of a guy leaving our department for one of the English offices, so with a few beers already inside us, you could understand the mentality there.

I finished up and went to meet some friends from back home visiting Sydney for the first time - Hev and Sarah. After dinner at Five-O's, we headed into the palace where we kinda got Christmas off and running early, Az, Jazz and their folks showed up later in the evening and somehow I found myself out a bit too late on a school night.

Despite only being a 5hour day, Friday dragged beyond belief... I did however manage to make it an AFD (Alcohol Free Day); oh, aside from 2 beers after work. Must try harder.

Saturday had been planned for a few weeks, and a bunch of us met at Dirty Nelly's Irish pub in Paddington for the first leg of our "12 days of Christmas" pub crawl. After meeting our fellow crawlers, we headed onward down Oxford Street to pubs 2, 3, 4 and so on... Christmas hats were purchased, pool & pokies were played, many a joke told. By pubs 7, 8 & 9 in the city we could see the end in sight, but still realised just how far we had to go. Eyes got tired, the conversation degraded and some people started downing pints - a great idea only at pub 8 and beyond!? Nightfall and we hit the double figures for drinks and pubs in close quarters to my old job Macquarie Place... my memory of what happened from here is probably a little too hazy to try to recall... but I remember making into those final doors and slowly making my way through my final Tooheys New of the day. Taxi for Fonfara...

Christmas Eve, some Christmas shopping, some chilling out, a nice BBQ dinner in the evening and again a very low alcoholic content - no wonder after the previous days epic.

Shrimp on the Barby!


I started my Christmas in a very untraditonal way. I went for a run about town and the local park - almost an attempt at 'pre-burning' some of the culinary delights I was about to assault my body with later in the day.

Without any breakfast I met up with Aaron & Jarrads family and we headed off in a taxi to the Carlton Crest Hotel for our all-you-can-eat Christmas dinner buffet.

The forecast had been bleak, but with a weather forecast that makes the Blighty one look 100% accurate, anything was possible, and as the afternoon started, the sun was out and made for a nice temperature. Meanwhile, the seafood was being devoured. Prawns, Crab, Oysters, Yabbies, Salmon to name a few... I was nearly full when I finished my seafood - but then moved on to some more traditional Coq Au Vin - well, traditonal in France maybe! The afternoon drew on with wine & beer and finally a huge swoop to the dessert section. When we made it home, with bellys full of food making us feel like whales as we plunged the pool and basked in the afternoon Christmas sunshine.

A Racing Song n Dance


Eversince I knew that the Southern Hemisphere had hot Christmases, I'd always wanted to experience one on the beach in Australia. On Boxing Day I finally got to fulfil this desire. The sun was shining, though the wind was up so after a kick around on the Randwick oval, 30minutes sunbaking and a quick swim we were done.


I then headed back home to get changed, walked a out of my front door and around the corner at met some friends at the Randwick racecourse - free to internationals today!.

The earlier winds had died off and the weather had turned into an absolutely gorgeous day. The whole gang ended up drinking Champagne to celebrate.

After the races we headed into the city for a good ol' knees up at the Lowenbrau beer cafe where as well as food & beer (yes, beer after champagne - never a great idea!), the hosts belted out some sing/shout/clap along numbers and everyone had a ball.

Then some bright spark suggested we go karaoke (can you guess?), 2minutes later and one of the guys; Brian, had phoned ahead and booked us in!

Sometime around the turn of midnight, Christmas was over for another year and I was sleeping off a heck of a good party.