Linds and Paul's trip!

14th June
Welcome back readers, it’s been almost 2 months since I wrote our last blog, so my apologies for the delay. Someone once said that a lot can happen in 24 hours, so there's a lot to get through. One of the main things we accomplished was going to our first live game of AFL, or Aussie Rules football – 'fuddy' as the natives call it. As it turns out, AFL is the number one sport in Australia, not cricket. Everyone, and I mean everyone supports a team, talks constantly about the previous or upcoming weekend, players, scandals, you name it. There are at least 3 or 4 programs per week devoted to talking about the game, a sports pull-out in the papers every single day – its everywhere. Much more coverage of the sport than we cover our football back home, which was surprising. A lot of the programs actually bring fuddy players into the studio and grill them over choices made or kicks missed, live on air, which is bizarre. Imagine Gary Linker asking Wayne Rooney on Match of the Day why he thinks he missed a shot in his previous game – exactly, it just wouldn't happen, but the fuddy players over here get grilled, named and shamed or applauded, depending on how they have done.

For those that don't know, AFL is a strange hybrid of soccer, rugby and Gaelic football, comprising 36 large men on an oval pitch beating the crap out of each other for over 2 hours. When they are not attempting to kick the ball in between large rugby style posts, they beat the crap out of each other, and then depending on how they are doing during the match, they may decide the beat the crap out of each other some more. The game is excessively violent, with players bashing each other, mostly off the ball and completely within the boundary of the laws of the game. There is even a 'Top 5 clashes' section on one of the fuddy shows, repeating over and over the biggest and best bangs, clashes and confrontations, no matter how graphic. What would Sunday mornings be without showing fuddy players covered in blood and unconscious on the floor? The presenters regularly laud praise on the bravest players, which is usually the guy who’s just had his pallet smashed in. Anyway, we just had to see a game live, and so we got tickets for North Melbourne vs Essendon at the Etihad Stadium just outside Melbourne city centre. Tickets to see top-flight fuddy over here are only about £9, which puts the Premiership to shame. Etihad stadium is really impressive, holding nearly 60,000 people with a full roof, good clean facilities etc, and only a 20 minute walk from where we live, and it was great weather on the day of the match.

The first difference we noticed when inside the stadium, was the fact that fans are not segregated, again completely different to football at home. There were, however, just as many jester hats as back home, which is never good. Another major difference is the fact that you can sit in your seat watching the match and get a cup of beer from the bar. Granted, the beer is way over-priced and it’s in plastic glasses, but you can still enjoy a beer at major sporting events here in Oz. With no segregation and beer on the go, we were now praying to be sat in the correct set of fans! We looked around us and the majority of shirts, flags and jester hats seemed to be blue for Melbourne, and so we agreed to support them, for fear of being lynched by Essendon fans.

The next major thing we noticed was the time. Each AFL match is split into 4 quarters of 25 minutes each, a 5 minute break after each quarter and a 15 minute half time. That’s 2 hours and 10 minutes of normal play, which is long enough. However, during the quarter, if the ball goes out of play or play stops, so does the clock. Its 25 minutes of actual live gameplay, not consecutive minutes. Therefore, games regularly head toward the 3 hour mark, which is just crazy. I think during the match myself and linds had 3 meals, 12 drinks, a walk, a few chats, spoke on the phone, daydreamed and so on. As the last quarter of the game dragged on with the match all but sewn up, we decided to bail out early and beat the crowds out. The game lasted that long it was now Tuesday and we'd missed a day of work – only joking, but it did take most of half a day from start to finish. It was a good game all the same, and if you want to see 3 hours of huge Aussie blokes knocking each other out, it’s bang-on the money. £9 well spent.

I can't remember if Lindsay mentioned the RunMelbourne event in her last blog, so I’ll start from the beginning. Basically there is a charity fun-run coming up here in Melbourne at the end of the month (Sunday 28th), and myself and Lindsay are taking part. You can do a 5km, 10km or half-marathon, and so Linds is in the 5km and I'm in the 10km. We are raising money for charity in the meantime, with Lindsay choosing the Anthony Nolan Trust and I chose the royal children's hospital to donate to them any money we raise. So over the past few weeks we have been in training for the big day, going out jogging 2 or 3 times a week around Melbourne, which has been great as we have really noticed a difference in our fitness. We have picked some great circuits to run as well, taking in some great scenery of the Yarra rive, the MCG and south Melbourne. There’s even an Anzac day memorial statue on the way, which we have dubbed the 'rocky steps' as it’s a nightmare to run up all the steps, much in the same way as it was for Balboa. Its more of a barometer for our fitness, as each time one of us has run the steps, it has got easier and easier as we got fitter and fitter. Jumping up and down at the top of the steps is of course, optional. We even went out and bought proper running trainers we have been taking it that seriously. There's meant to be 18,000 people taking part on the day, so it’s a big deal and we're really looking forward to it. The best part has been having something to build up to, target ourselves on and work towards something, it’s really made a difference, forcing ourselves to go out and hit the pavement, rain or shine. Well, shine anyway.

Speaking of the weather, it is of course the middle of winter here in south-east Australia. Well, it’s like the height of summer in Manchester if we're being honest. It’s still sunny during the day, reaching temperatures of 15-16c on a good day, and about 2-3c during the night. We still walk to work without coats, it rains once a fortnight and is generally quite pleasant. You could describe the colder days as 'crisp', but that’s about it. Obviously the Australians don't stop complaining about the cold, wrapping up in layers and saying they are going to die in this cold. We simply laugh at them, having spent countless winters in the north of England. This is nothing we tell them, cackling away as we go out at the weekend in shorts and flip-flops, in typical English oh-my-god-the-suns-out-lets-have-a-BBQ mentality. Its winter, and I’ll still burn if I’m out too long in the day – hilarious.

I'm sure you're all well aware of the swine-flu pandemic that has been doing the global rounds over the last month or so. Well the state of Victoria and Melbourne now has the most concentrated outbreak of swine-flu anywhere in the world. Whole rugby teams have been quarantined, an entire cruise ship liner was sent away from these shores, and I think the confirmed number here in Victoria was well over 1000. It’s really weird when you see Asian people wearing medicinal face masks walking past you in the street, much the same way we saw on the news when SARS or the bird-flu broke out. And it is only ever Asian people who wear the masks – maybe they have it or just don't want it? Who knows, anyway, myself and Lindsay joked that maybe the big man upstairs really doesn't want us here in Melbourne – first there was the 46 degree heat, then the bushfires, then the earthquakes and now a global flu pandemic concentrating heavily in our town. How pleasant. Thankfully there have been no confirmed deaths in Melbourne, and we're hoping it doesn't turn into a Dawn of the Dead sort of outbreak. Oddly enough, Melbourne has the biggest stockpile of anti-influenza drugs in the world (coincidence?), so there's enough to go round if we start making pig noises when we sneeze etc.

Obviously as we have been working over the last few months, our leisure time has been limited mostly to weekends. We've had the usual nights at the casino complex, including last week when we both left about $200 up, and having eaten and drank all night, which was awesome. There's this little Chinese place tucked away inside the complex that does the most amazing food, which we now go to regularly. Buying things with money won is definitely sweeter than with money earned, as Lindsay's dad once said to me (in a bookies). Lindsay has clearly taken on some of Col's tips for when at the tables, as she had 5 numbers come up in a row on a roulette table, netting her well over $150 and in about 10 minutes. For those that play at blackjack tables, you'll know that you meet all sorts of characters when sat side by side. We had the serendipitous meeting of a charming young lady from London, who opened up some dialogue with us by saying that she 'hates scousers' and 'doesn't trust us'. Our retort was to take lots of pictures of her, stalk her around the casino for the remainder of the night and generally wind her up. She eventually offered her hand to me to shake, which I accepted. Ignorance is bliss, and this pleasant young lady, certainly was, ignorant. I think Lindsay was more wound up than me, and so we decided to stop taking pictures of her and have another cocktail.

Anyway, I think that’s it for now, if we think of anything else we'll certainly let you know. Who knows, we may be seeing you soon anyway wink wink nudge nudge ;-)

P n L xxx

p.s. please sponsor us, its only takes a minute, thanks!

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Well, firstly apologies for the delay. We are very much back in the land of the working again - nooooooo! Both Paul and myself are now firmly entrenched in our respective companies (me at Candle ICT and Paul at Talent International - and no it's not a brothel/escort agency!)

Now that we're getting used to the 7am wake-ups the bed times are now getting earlier unfortunately - and that means less guitar hero practice time but more time to watch our ever expanding collection of dvd's. I think we are single-handedly paying the wages at JB-Hifi! I have also officially won Paul over to the world of reality TV and american docu-soaps, with One Tree Hill and The Hills counting as our 2 favourite shows. I'm sure the large amounts of ladies in there has something to do with it, but I don't care because I get to watch my programmes all evening!

Not much other goss really - the last two weekends have been fairly quiet while we're waiting for pay day. We have taken to eating out for brekkie on saturdays and sundays - we find a different place every time, usually a little cafe down a random alley way that serves amazing eggs benedict. Mmmmmmmmm!

We're going out tonight though I think - meal out then we're going to see a live band play - "undoubtedly Melbourne's finest seven piece soul/funk/r&b outfit. Their consistently engaging, dynamic and high energy performances reflect a decade of solid performing experience with their current line-up in numerous Melbourne and interstate venues. Their mixture of fresh, soulful originals peppered with nasty deep funk tributes is executed with a depth of feeling and improvisational personality which has earned them a reputation as one of the most entertaining and colourful exponents of their genre. With a fully original debut album currently in the pipeline, these seven brothers from different mothers are an unstoppable musical funk force." - Roz and Marv you'd love it!

Anyway I better go and pretend to do some work!

We'll update again soon...

Love Linds and Paul xxx

13th April
Monday night here in Melbourne, the end of a glorious 4 days off from work due to the Easter break. Its been funny how many people back home have asked us did we get an Easter break over here, and did we get days off either side of the weekend, like Christianity never made it all the way to Australia. To set the record straight, yes, we did get Friday and today off and people celebrated Easter as per the usual. The only thing that was different was that our clocks went back as we head towards our winter, and for those readers of ours who reside in the northern hemisphere your clocks went forward (hopefully you have already done this by now!).

Thursday night was the usual, with me playing 5-a-side football in south Melbourne and Lindsay out with the girls from work for a meal and some drinks. We were up early on Friday in search of a cooked breakfast and a coffee, with very little plans for the day. This was a good thing, as one of the main differences we have noticed from here to the UK is that when Australians have the opportunity for a day off, they take it. This extends to cafés in the city centre being shut on weekends for example, unlike in the UK with nearly all businesses open 7 days a week. We found in the city that nearly all stores, cafés, restaurants and off-licenses were shut for the full 4 days over Easter, and this included our local Safeway, so we couldn't buy any food. It was a good job then that we spent $70 on alcohol on the way home from work on Thursday night.

Luckily for us a lot of the oriental restaurants in town are run by orientals, and so not working on weekends seems as alien to them as it does to us. This meant we had the choice of Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and all Sushi places, or alternatively we could go to 7-11's and get chocolate. We settled on a Thai place around the corner from us and got loads to eat, leaving very full on pad Thai, chicken skewers, dumplings, samosas and spring rolls. We spotted one other business open on the same road, which happened to be a very cool independent record store. We wanted a nose around the place more just because it was open rather than to buy anything, but in the end we managed to procure some really cheap DVDs, including some classics such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Day of the Dead and Pulp Fiction, all for about $30, which we watched over the course of the rest of the day.

We had bigger plans for Saturday, heading out early on to find some supplies for tonight's festivities which included cooking a big dinner, drinking lots, watching the Liverpool game and hitting the casino complex later on. Lindsay wanted to find a specialist hair shop she had passed not too long ago to acquire some weird and wonderful shampoos and so on, and so we headed off in the direction of where she thought it was. This happened to be as far away as humanly possible, but still in the city centre so not too bad. When we got to the area she thought it was, it was clear to us both that it wasn't, and so we did a 180 and headed back in the same direction we came from. As we did this, international comedy super-star Dylan Moran walked right past us, with his young son in tow, kneeling on a skateboard and pushing himself along. I clocked Dylan the minute he walked past us, and it was clear he was also looking for something or someone, as he seemed in quite a hurry and was looking at every shop front he went past, telling his son to keep up. I stopped in my tracks, whispering to Linds it was Dylan Moran, both of us being stunned at who it was and the fact we had tickets to see him the following night. He turned around and came back towards us, and I debated doing the 'you're him aren't you?' routine and getting a handshake. As he was clearly in a hurry and getting annoyed at his son, we bottled it and let him be as he turned down a side-street and moved off in the opposite direction, his son following not far behind.

As our clocks went back and yours forwards, the early Liverpool game was kicking-off here at 9.45pm – a great time to watch a match in any country. We went to the Celtic club here in the city centre, which is where the Melbourne Liverpool Supporters Association (MLSA) meet up for games. The MLSA is basically an international bunch, with only a few Aussies in the crowd, one scouser (me), and people from god knows where else - but think of every international stereotype you can think of, and there will be one. The one constant is the support for LFC which is first class, and its the closest thing you can get to a match, with constant singing and shouting throughout the game. The pub filled up quickly but we managed to get two good seats in front of the huge tele, as the lads who run the MLSA sold Hillsbrough memorial items to raise cash to send back to Liverpool. It is the 20th anniversary of Hillsbrough this week, and it was good to see we did our own minutes silence here at the Celtic which was well respected, even though some people had clearly been drinking solidly for about 5 years or so. This included the two gents in front of us, one of which looked like the scariest man alive. He was about 5'4”, skinhead, trakkies (no, he wasn't scouse) and jail-house tattoos all over him, including full arms and around his neck, and it was obvious he was bladdered, so we had him clocked as one to avoid. The tattoo on the back of his neck was an odd one, with it going from left to right as an upside down cross, then the letters VOID and then another cross which was the right way up. It was obvious it wasn't done by a professional tattoo artist with surgeon-like dexterity, but more like it was done by some dude called Bubba in an Aussie prison. However, me and Linds couldn't stop laughing because it looked like it could have been an ambigram of the word “Devo'd”, and we thought the guy who had drawn the tattoo for him did it for a laugh – quality.

Anyway, at half-time in the match and with Liverpool 2-0 up we bailed from the Celtic and grabbed a taxi passing by to take us to the Casino complex. This took about 20 minutes as taxis over here work differently. Some have two lights on top, some have one, some have none – so we spent 20mins waving manically at every cab that went past, which invariably were full of people staring out at us like we were loons. Eventually a cab pulled over and we jumped in, and we enquired about the light system. Unfortunately the cab driver hardly spoke a word of the Queen's English, and so we still have no idea about how to hail a cab here, but we nodded along politely anyway so he wouldn't feel bad. As soon as we find out we'll let you know.

At the casino complex I headed to the sports bar to catch the rest of the match and Linds hit the roulette table. Meeting up after the game rather than the usual routine of us drinking and handing our money over to the owner of the casino, we headed to one of the many clubs within the complex. There was a live band on inside and so we watched from the bar as they went through cover songs and then did a 20minute medaly of cheesy songs, which Linds obviously loved. Through the powers of alcohol we also hit the dance floor and threw some serious shapes, before finally being drawn to the gambling tables again – that gambling has a powerful tractor-beam doesn't it? Ooh I don't know.

We were smart this time around, and at about breaking-even point we decided to do the sensible thing and head home. We didn't want to be too cabbaged tomorrow in preparation for Dylan Moran. Sunday was spent sleeping in, before Linds decided I should walk to McDonald's and get breakfast in. After several sausage and egg McMuffins later, we watched TV and generally did very little in preparation for Dylan Moran at Hamer Hall, just outside the city centre. Now Hamer Hall was a completely different world from the show where we saw Tim Vine. At Tim Vine we were squashed into a tiny room on small chairs – Hamer Hall is the concert hall where all massive concerts, including opera and orchestras perform in Melbourne. Its buried deep underground, seriously fancy with ushers showing you to your seat and so on, and it probably holds a couple of thousand people. Dylan Moran was on at 8pm and he was really good, totally different to Tim Vines comedy but equally brilliant. We filed out at nearly 10pm and debated hitting the town again, but sense once again got the better of us and we headed home.

We woke up this morning and didn't know how to spend our last day of freedom, so decided to do something different and head out of town and away from the city centre. We'd heard from different sources that the area around Chapel Street in south-east Melbourne was a cool place to hang out and kill time, and the weather today was beautiful with it being the hottest its been in a couple of weeks. We got the tram far enough south and then walked the rest of the way, enjoying the weather and the new surroundings. Chapel Street didn't disappoint, being a massive road lined with cafés, bars, charity shops, specialist pastry shops, record stores, tattoo and bong shops – very similar to St.Kilda with a bohemian atmos and cool people hanging around in the open air bars and cafés We pulled into a café that had a spare table in the sun and had some amazing food, before slowly mooching up one side of the street and back down the other. Again, it being Easter Monday several establishments were not open but this was cool with us as we weren't in the mood for tattoos or bongs anyway. With it being similar to St.Kilda, Chapel Street also had its fair share of weirdos – when I say fair share I mean more weirdos than currently reside in Manchester, which is quite a lot. There was the guy sat on the bench wearing a hair band that had a fluffy bunny attached to it, the crazy blind guy who was shouting at himself (and then me) in 4 different voices, the guy behind us in the green sweater and green combats making noises like a dog that was out of breath, and then finally the guy riding the push-bike covered in different signs. The large signs were hanging off him by string, and included phrases such as 'Hooker', 'Homo' and 'Kok', and he had plenty of other such things hanging off his bike. Crazy Town was in full flow today – maybe it was the heat, we don't know...

anyway, I think that's the weekend in a nutshell, more craziness will ensue, we're sure of it

P n L xxx

Hey all, its Linds here!

Paul usually writes the blog as he's better at telling the stories than me (i have a habit of going off on crazy tangents!) but I'm at work and just thought I'd say hello.

We booked a night at the comedy festival last night (its here all month, with some really good acts on) and we went to see Tim Vine. He is the guy that holds the world record for the most amount of jokes in a certain time. He's kind of like Tommy Cooper in the type of comedy he does and it was soooo funny. Last night it was mostly 'puns' and they came thick and fast for over an hour! It was really good but it was quite intense as you don't get time to breathe. We were also unlucky enough to get plonked on the front row! Very brave, as everyone decided to tell us! Luckily it wasn't that kind of comedy so we escaped unscathed. Paul got picked on a couple of times when Tim asked him his favourite bird or if he had been to Uni, but it was more to set up the joke than to embarass Paul so it wasn't too bad.

We've also got tickets to see Dylan Moran on Sunday night so we're going to make an evening of it and go for drinks before and then the casino after which will be good. i'm still in love with the casino and would go there every day if i could! might get a job as a croupier...

Its a 4 day weekend this week for Easter so I'm looking forward to some hardcore chilling out. Our obsession with One Tree Hill has reached epic proportions, with us watching about 15 episodes last weekend. Lets see how much we can fit into 4 days...! If its sunny tho I'm definitely going to sunbathe as my tan is very faded! its all fake from here on in!

Anyway, better run and do some work, booooo!

Love to all, Linds and Paul xxx

4th April
Well at lot has happened over the last couple of weeks. I for one have returned to the world of the employed, after a roller-coaster 4 or 5 weeks on the interview and job-hunt trail. In the end I got 2 job offers, and I took the position at a company only 10 minutes walk from our flat which is really handy. As it turned out, I had to start my new role on the 28th anniversary of the day of my birth – in other words, I had to start work on my birthday! My new work-mates were nice enough to get a cake and sing happy birthday to me which was mightily embarrassing, as we had all only just met for the first time. Lindsay was obviously happy for me to be back in work, as I think she was getting sick of hearing about my gruelling day-time unemployed regime of sleeping in and watching TV.

As my birthday was landing on a Monday, we both decided to do something the previous weekend to celebrate. Luckily enough for us the opening weekend of the F1 Grand Prix was starting right here in Melbourne, and so it seemed like the perfect way to spend a day out in the sunshine and not get too drunk before having to start a new job. Lindsay was kind enough to treat us both to a pair of Sunday tickets, which meant attending the actual race, post-qualifying and all the other rubbish that goes on on the preceding days. As an added bonus, it was predicted to be a scorcher, nearly hitting the 30 degree mark and not a cloud in sight.

Now me and Linds have never been the biggest F1 fans, only ever having nothing more than a passing acquaintance with the sport when channel surfing on a Sunday afternoon. However, we had heard several times in the build up to the weekend that it is a really good day out, with lots going on throughout the day. Plus, blue-rinse rockers The Who were going to be closing the day on a massive stage within the arena. Again, not massive Who fans, but an added bonus to the day out all the same. We decided to spend the day predominantly eating, drinking, sitting down and getting some class A sunshine.

Albert Park where the race was taking place was only a 10 minute tram ride away and so we loaded up the bag with out picnic rug, sun cream, shades and other bits and bobs. The race program said ear defenders of some sort were essential, and several people in the week leading up the Sunday had warned about the noise during the day, but we knew better being veterans of watching motor-racing events haha. As we arrived at the course at about 12pm there was already a race underway, as some minis were speeding around the course. The track was protected by 12ft chicken wire all around, obviously in case of debris coming off the race comes out towards the crowd. Not sure what chicken wire would do in the case of an air-borne F1 tyre travelling at 200mph, but there you go. We had a map of the course and headed over one of the foot bridges into the main area of the course, making a bee-line for the bars and food stalls that were near a good view point of the track. Now the main race wasn't on until 5pm so we killed time by mooching about the course and taking in the sights.

Albert park itself is a beautiful area, with the track surrounding a huge lake that is lined with palm trees and one of the best golf-courses in the world. There is also 2 or 3 AFL pitches, a football pitch, swimming arenas and probably more there that we didn't see. As we were sat by the lake we were introduced to the huge black geese population that live in Albert Park. When I say introduced, I mean Linds was stared at and consequently pecked by a massive goose, which I thought was the funniest thing of all time, but Linds found terrifying – see photo! There were other races on before the main event, and we would find a good vantage point now and then to watch the cars screaming past. The main highlights before the race though was the aerial displays. There was a massive parachute jump by soldiers spewing different coloured smoke from their packs as they spiralled through the air, there was a really low fly-over from a massive Quantas jet, a display from 4 Australian Army blackhawk helicopters and then the best of them all, a 30minute display from an F-18 fighter jet. The noise from the jet was incredible as it turned and and shot over Albert park several times before the best move of all – the pilot flew over the area we were stood, then simply turned the jet so he was facing 90 degrees to the ground and flew directly upwards in a straight line until you could no longer see him - believe me, it was incredible to see. This was obviously one of Lindsay's worst nightmares coming true, as planes of all shapes and sizes flew extremely low to us over and over again!

The main race was starting soon enough, but we soon learnt that getting anywhere near the track was going to be very difficult. Some enthusiasts had found their spot from early on in the day and had not moved at all, keeping their spot with camping chairs, and some had even climbed trees to get a better view. We had general access tickets, which meant moving anywhere inside the track except for the 'corporate' ticketed area. Basically the corporate seats are the best areas, with their own grandstand seats and bars and toilets and so on, whereas the general access have to scramble around with no seated areas and try and find a good spot. Those people you see on the tele in seats next to the track? They are corporate seats and those people had to pay almost £100 for a day ticket on the Sunday.

Anyway, the race was about to get underway so we headed for one of the raised hills nearest to us, and found a spot where we could just about see an S-bend in the track. We looked about and noticed that nearly everyone was wearing large ear-defenders or had ear-plugs in. We couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about until the race started, and then we heard it. Several hundred thousands of revs from F1 engines all went up at the same time, and it was completely deafening – plus, the cars were quite far away from us at this point, the power was simply awesome. As the cars went past our section, you had to force your fingers deep into your ears to protect them, it really was that loud – despite this, it was hard not to be impressed by the sheer power and feeling in the air as the cars went past, a proper display of engineering and power.

As I turned to Linds to exclaim how impressed I was by the power and the noise, I think I got a 'what?' as Lindsay turned up from the latest copy of OK and wondered what all the fuss was about – haha, the difference between men and women was clear here! After the cars had shot passed our section 2 or 3 times at ridiculous speed, things did get a bit samey, and it became hard to see who was winning in the end. We went over to the huge XXXX (Four X) party bus that had a massive screen of the race and no queues at the bar, and found a spot to sit down in the sun. We weren't the only ones here, as plenty of people sat about in comfort and enjoyed the race from several camera angles and the bar within touching distance.

The race finished without much drama and so we headed over to the huge stage that The Who were going to be playing on. Now most people under 30 probably have no idea about The Who or their career, and that 'most people' included me and Linds. I mean, it would be like watching your Dad playing the guitar – I know, weird or what. There was a band on before them who were quite annoying, playing thrash metal and doing a lot of screaming into the microphone – a very weird choice of warm-up band. As so often happens me and Linds are on the same page before we know it, and it only took a simple glance and nod before we decided to bail out on The Who and head home to beat the crowds. To reaffirm our decision we agreed that The Who were 'crap anyway' as we left Albert park and shot off towards the tram-line.

Our tan and sun-burn came up nicely when we finally crashed out on the sofa back at home (Lindsay's tan and my sunburn), and we were getting ready for the working world the following day. It was funny to remember just how enjoyable it was to iron 5 shirts on a Sunday night when all you want to do is pass-out in bed! I was clever enough not to wear a hat to the Grand Prix, and this was evident the following day when my red scalp was perfectly visible through my short hair, much to Lindsay's amusement. Good thing I wasn't meeting new people today....oh wait hang on, this was my first day at my new job and I was going about with a white face, brown arms and a red, flaky head – awesome. Not sure what my new colleagues would have made of me blowing out the candles on my birthday cake as half my head was falling away, but there you go.

That's it for now, catch up soon!

P n L xxx