Wednesday 31 March 2010

The Sydney Sessions - Sydney FC vs Melbourne Victory

February brought the return of 'Jamie Jacobs' and Jon from the East Coast with many a tail to trade with it. They clearly one on the better stories front, again another reason for me heading up north. This event also finally brought me out of the halls of 1D to move on up to the safer ground of 3D and all of us dorming together. The first night set the standard for the week with us smashing the place randomly while watching Arsenal vs Chelsea game, I personally will never forget that Tomato sliding down the tv,Cornick's "dance moves" and Jamie Jacobs' complaints of suffering from double vision.
The week that followed was just a tremendous time of randomness, partying, terrorizing, Bruno's, suresuresures, surly Germans and me don't think so's. Repeating the tales of nights out would be troublesome but one event that was rather good would be Sydney vs Melbourne, not only was it the final game of the season but whomever won would also be crowned A-League champions. Much on the line there was.
As i recall the night before was a big one (standard) and may have also been home to the great ocassion where i happily ordered a round of Jaegerbombs for me and Jon despite having no cash at all so he was left to pay. I also sent one of the great all time drunken texts from his phone and spent two hours wandering around in the rain looking for another hostel but that's a story for another day. Anyways after we gayed it up on the taxi journey there, with me being the first to break thanks to a particularly disturbing Jon comment we arrived at the pub for pre match drinks. We made the decision to be Melbourne fans so got tickets to the away section with hope it would all kick off, surprisingly here you can drink beer in the stands which is just another thing that would lead to mass carnage back home. Jon did meet a lovely chap in the bogs though, greeting him with something like " The cops have just put me through the ringer mate" "Why" "They know who I am"......He clearly must be a big deal.
In the stands it was east to notice quite a few people who looked potentially hectic and on edge. They were dressed like English hooligans, not in colours but the Ben Sherman, Burberry and the like and were very skinny types resembling Francis Begbie. There was of course the standard skinhead there too. One odd thing was that there were four blokes (including guy from the bogs) standing with their backs to the pitch, leading the crowd in various chants ant telling them to man up. Aussies ain't good at football chanting, they just have no sense of timing or aggressiveness to do it properly.
Much to everyones delight (especially Adam "English Defence League, i love hooliganism really" Skinner) it didn't take long for trouble to start with a mini "riot" ensuing. It was all handbags really. I think it started with someone throwing a bottle on the pitch leading a policeman to grab said person and then it all just snowballed from there. This caused the crowd to siege forward, then the police jumped in, flares/smoke bombs went off and it turned into one giant grapple fest. The old bill had no weapons so it was quite funny watching them try to get people out by the scruff of their neck. The Italian police would have loved all this, cracking many a skull and dishing out blows to kneecaps all round. I think about 30 people got thrown out in the end but it certainly made our day worthwhile, especially how casual we all ere as it all unfolded directly in front of us. Always fun to have the opportunity to shout a "You fucking what??!!1" or a "Who are ya?" too.
As far as the game goes, the standard was absolutely shocking, i don't think these teams could've even competed in League one back home. Melbourne refused to shoot at all, despite being given countless opportunities and it was so frustrating, we'd only been supporters for 60 minutes too! I'd still take this then Mick McCarthy's Sunderland era, god how i hated going to those games and his none stop smugness. Sydney ended up winning 2-0 with two of "the A-leagues" greatest ever goals. The first being a shin kick and with the second, John Aloisi took the ball from his own half, ran with it as the defenders literally ran away from him until he had no choice to shoot. It's clear to see why Robbie Fowler loves it over here. All in all a good day though, it was a shame to see Jamie Jacobs and Skinner leave the next day with Jon following on the Tuesday to NZ. The hostel never had the same atmosphere after but it was great to hear of Skinner and Jacobs lasting 45 minutes fruit picking before dropping their baskets, doing a runner and then having to hitchhike back to the middle of nowhere!. Amazing.

Here's a video of the "mini riot" I've got a hat on and the other three are on my right.

Tuesday 30 March 2010

The East Coast Sessions - Surf Camp to Byron Bay to Brisbane

Well i finally managed to escape Bedlam, Sydney and The Cross after near five months of living there; I say "escape" but truth be told i'd never have left if i had the choice really. I was very settled there ( too much probably), had great friends, lived in a great city and didn't have to spend hardly a penny on nights out due to the glory of wristbands! ( Drunken runs to McDonalds, Pie face or Kebab shops excluded of course, something i never do back home). Anyhow after realizing there was just too many nights out, my friends were all moving on and mainly since i'm running out of time over here ( Despite my visa finishing in November i need to be back home in June for Glastonbury, Alfie's Hello/OK! Wedding(the deals not done yet apparently), my brother's baby coming and finally court dates too, so it's all busy.) so i realized i needed to get a move on to see as much as possible.
Before that happened though there was much to do, first thing first was finally getting a camera which i got down from $330 to $240 so i was pretty happy my Thai negotiating skill were still in order. That took me all of 3 minutes but then i had the daunting prospect of saying goodbye to both Miss Claire Scott and French Mafia boss Louise Peltier within five minutes of each other. I'm crap at goodbyes so i was a bloody mess but i just about managed to keep it together before doing an Andrew and bawling my eyes out, "Man Up!" haha. Francois, Jonas and Nina also returned for one final goodbye which really brought a good atmosphere to the hostel again for my last few days and it was great to see them all.

I also finally managed to get on one of the works that had been running for months with me seeing the world before midday, a very rare occurrence. I couldn't hive timed a better day to see everything though and walking from Coogee to Bondi was pretty cool actually, Laurence actually knew his shit despite being the 'King of Cheese' and i actually managed to get some much need photos. All that was needed now was to plan my trip up the coast. Laurence being a former bus driver on the Oz Experience was a big help in planning where to go and where not too, Within twenty minutes i had four weeks of activities planned and it's not like i'd be hanging around anywhere so there was much to do. Passing my plan around to everyone who'd done it already confirmed i was basically hitting all the good places so that was a good start. Before i confirmed everything i had to shoot off to see Claire for a final final farewell and to gain a copy of Crime and Punishment from her too which was nice, her directions aren't quite that good though leaving both of us thinking they other had stood us up haha. Bloody women. This all took awhile so by the time i returned it was too late to book and i had to stay another day but i didn't mind at all. I'd easily take an extra day there and have a chat with her then shooting off into the night. Also i did feel al lot better for not being a quivering mess or shaking this time too haha. I wish i was joining her for Lady Gaga that evening though, she's the new Prince I tell thee.
Laurence had informed me that my pick up was Saturday 7:45pm but when i came down on friday night Craig told me to be there for 6:10 am, quite the fucking difference. This meant i'd have to stay up all night and miss saying goodbye to some people but it had to happen sometime and at least i'd be sober on the bus. It did feel quite surreal waiting for it, much like how i felt back in the departure lounge way back in September but it was cool to have Paul and Owen steaming drunk to see me off, just like they were when i first met them in November. We'd certainly had a good run and the words "They're might be another Gary but never another you" certainly were nice to here. Off to new adventures it was then.














1. Surf Camp

One thing stressed about going on the Oz Experience was that the bus journeys were a lot better with people being a hell of a lot more social and this proved definitely true for me. Within minutes i got talking to a Danish girl called Barbara and at our stop a bunch of us all sat down and had a good bit craic on. A guy called Sam seemed a bit weird to me though, he certainly proved to be later.....
The first stop was surf camp arriving there about 5pm after a 6am start, our driver was named 'Disco' and despite having the German affliction of wearing socks with sandals was spot on. Once arriving at the camp we were giving a tour by the night manager Wayne who proved a character to say the least. Most people thought he was a massive prick due to him "largin' it" at every opportunity but he was a harmless self parody really and you have to be a loud dick to do that job anyway. I did laugh at his claim to drunkenly "lick faces" when drunk just like Rick James and myself from time to time.
We ate dinner then hit the goon for some drinking games with me Tom, Tom2, Hannah, Katie, and Katie 2 completely smashing it. Katie especially earned everyones respect for her steller ring of fire performance. They were a few groups there so we all merged together for this domino like drinking game but the North Americans took it way to seriously treating it like the "world series" (it's in one country you losers) and having a go at others who were too pissed to flip the cups. They really are a continent of load mouth wankers, the yanks know it too as they even go round pretending they're Canadian since they're hated so much. They can't fool me though. By this point everyone was steamin' so we moved onto the fire thing and talked complete bullshit to each other and everyone else. Tom also started "prangin' out" thinking he lost his wallet, then finding it, then thinking he'd lost again and then being sick everywhere. Tremendous scenes. I had a few conversations with sobers where i could see the fear in their eyes cause they knew they were with a raving drunk and were thinking of exit plans and then i hit my shack for sleep since we had a 7:30 start( some poor bastards had to get up at 6 ). One problem was i kept going in the wrong rooms and freaking people out until finally Dan informed me "it's the one on the right mate". I was extremely confused though waking up at 6am to darkness and not having a clue where i was until i remembered i was no longer in Sydney, that really is a horrible feeling. Three times i've woke up expecting to be in my bed back home until it all comes back within seconds.
Obviously everyone was a bit rough for our lesson but the beach and water really proved to be the best hangover cure ever. Now anyone that knows me can easily predict how awful i'd be at surfing and i surely didn't disappoint. Much like Paul Campbell i could barely lay on the board never mind stand up on it! The most difficult thing was shifting all your weight onto my front left leg, i'm so heavily right sided in everything i do it just became to unnatural to remember despite me knowing what i was doing wrong every time with the board sending my flying backwards every time.  A sigh to see it was. Others were flying all over the shop but i was happy just to reach my goal of the day and standing up, as standard i got way to pleased with myself when i eventually did and went somersaulting into the sea but it was good enough for me. Surfing was actually really hard graft so after a few hours of that, swallowing copious amounts of sea water and flying about i was wrecked. It is also worth mentioning how much my wet suit resembled that of a gimps but without the hood. After surf anf lunch it was on the bus and off to the next stop of Byron Bay.










2. Byron Bay

I was so tired by the time we got on the bus so my "head drops" made an appearance again, thankfully they weren't landing on Holly or anyone else this time, unlike our Bangkok to Phuket bus ride. Wayne and the mojo surf tossers joined our bus giving it the big lad and just making fools of themselves, " oh man i'm so fucking wasted dude". Pipe down you've had about three bottles, give me a call after three bottles of Whiskey then we'll talk.
We were staying at the Holiday Vilage with Dan, Sam, Tom and me getting an apartment there which turned out to be a pretty sweet deal. Byron immediately looked like a rather nice spot with just one main high street leading onto another amazing beach. We get very lucky with the weather so hitthe beach the next day; before that though we had a rather odd night. As previously stated i thought Sam was a freak straight away and once again my primed instincts didn't let me down. He casually announced he was popping out to meet his girlfriend that he'd never mentioned before and "wasn't expecting to see her here". Then an audience with the two of them dispelled any doubts of them being fruitcakes, i'm sure they were siblings actually. During the night our room was pitch black to the point of zero vision, Sam was on the bunk above me and started making weird noises then suddenly went "oohhh ahhh, do yo want some of that do ya?" Pervert. Fuck knows what he was doing but i was seriously disturbed, Tom obviously the same shouted "Sam, what the fuck are you doing?" only for Sam to mumble another odd response. He was blatantly trying to crack one out. Thank fuck he left the next day is all i can say. Our neighbors were thankfully less weird and had managed to get from Cairns to Byron in just two weeks, hardcore to say the least. Stupid as well obviously.
We spent most of the next day on the beach with the waves, gutters, and rips really giving us a hammering. About twenty seconds after getting into the water i nearly got took out by a surfboard but the owner just happened to be my old roommate and legend Jonas Linde. Unbelievable Jeff. We had a bit craic on which was good until he had to shoot off to return the surfboard. The beach soon wore us out so we returned home with the intentions of "getting on it" and the whole bus had a table booked at cheeky monkeys. We had a few free jugs which is always nice but the music was just like everywhere else here......shite, so no matter how hard we tried you can't have a truly amazing night without spending half the night at the bar. One novelty was that the place didn't actually have a dance floor so you had to dance on the tables all night, unique i guess. Much like other backpacker joints it also had stupid games, the highlight of which involved one guy fitting 44 marshmallows in his mouth, i bet he was so proud. One thing i was proud of at this point was how the Sydney catchphrases were taking off, people were manning up, getting involved and suresuresuring everywhere. Not too much Bruno's going on sadly.







3. Nimbin

We awoke yet again to more hangovers and this time it was coupled with torrential rain, thankfully we'd booked a day trip to Nimbin so wouldn't be wasting a day in Byron. Nimbin is a pretty famous place here on the east coast for being the Amsterdam of Australia, so basically everyone goes there to smoke weed, do mushrooms and eat hash cakes. It's quite baffling who a place like it could exist really but it stems from an Aquarius freedom festival held there in the seventies, some no good dirty hippy got busted for smoking weed and then the rest stormed the police station. Out numbered they let him out and the rest decided to never leave so i was eager to see what it was like, especially after Lee informing me it was full of "fucking weirdos". Tremendous.
The "town" itself was just one street and resembled what i'd imagine San Fransisco was like during it's late sixties free love and psychedelic period, the place was stuck in one giant time warp and full of old hippies, bums and oddly a group of aggressive english charvers(not chavs) whom were all pushing drugs.  At this point all i could think of was the potential look on Alfie's face if he was here to witness it all, never a man would have appeared more uncomfortable or be surrounded so much by everything he hated. The place didn't have much to it all really, just cafe's, hippy clothing stores, hemp shops and a very odd "museum" made out of what seemed to be paper. The day was made though when Louise Peltier made a special guest appearance out of nowhere and it sure was great to see her, trade a few stories of what had went down in her absence and of course do the mandatory high fives before i had to jump back on the bus. Initially i though a couple of hours at Nimbin was a bit short but it proved to be too much if anything, a very odd place.
Thankfully the rain had cleared earlier so by the time we headed off to our BBQ the sun was blazing, the pub we had it at was nice if strangely big for the middle of nowhere. A lot of places here have bookies inside the pub and i just couldn't imagine that being the norm back home, it would be carnage everywhere.
From there we headed off to a secluded waterfall spot to do some jumping and have a bit of a dip in a small lake. It was good fun actually especially with the driver being nuts jumping off all manner of dangerous places and even scaling a massive tree to scale off. The days events done we headed back to Byron.










4. Back To Byron

On our return we found we had some new flatmate's who had all just jumped off their own respective Oz Experience bus. Once again they were all sound and there was even a guy from Wanstead amongst them,  soon after i remarked that how after all the time i've spent away the only two local people i'd met was a girl from wallsend back on phi phi and the notorious Melanie Freeman from Whitley Bay "Melanie you have the x factor!, can i get a spoon?" a guy from "Jarra" walked in. I've never seen a man more happy to find out i was from South Shields and he literally climbed over people to shake my hand. We bantered for a bit with all the usual talk of "Do you know such and such"? and " Do you drink here and there?" and he turned out to be pretty sound. One thing that did amuse me was the prospective delight he took in adding me on Facebook just so he could see how many "mutual friends" we had, ah the small delights eh.
With the next day being blazing hot again me Tom and Dan decided to take the trek along the beach to get to the most easterly point in Australia and visit the Lighthouse too. It was quite the steep walk but once again was made all the better when Louise randomly popped out of the middle of nowhere again, she remarked how i must have a GPS on her but we both know she's got me tracked everywhere and doing plenty of stalking, suresuresure. Having been away 4 days i'd randomly bumped into four people i knew already so it was proving to be a good trip already. The rest of the day we just dossed about looking for AFL tops for some reason until Tom got excited by the sudden prospect of a Dubstep night, I myself was a lot more skeptical and proved to be right on when he turned up at the door to be told the promoters hadn't turned up haha. Not surprised at all, they really couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery in this place.

5. Brisvegas

The trip to Brissy was the first time our group got splinted up since we all met in surf camp. Dan stayed on in Byron, Will was shooting straight up to cairns, Olly to Rainbow, Tom to surfers and myself heading for Brisbane. I could've easily stayed in Byron  longer but time is short so i had to move on. I was slightly horrified at our first drop off when Tom told me to lookout the window only for me to see Sam waiting to board. Bollocks. I literally tried to hide from him but it was to no avail, he tried to rip me off with some Base card scam that he wanted to sell to me but i told him to try it on some other mug. Thank fuck he wasn't gan to Brisbane.
I despised Base in Sydney so god knows why i checked in the Brisbane one (well we all know it was laziness) to find it was exactly the same as the previous one, worse if anything. No atmosphere, antisocial prison cell like dorms and nobody wanting to talk. With me only staying two day and the weather being nice i thought fuck it and set out to have a wander round the city/ I quite liked it there to be honest, it's very much like Newcastle(it even sells the Viz) but obviously a lot cleaner, nicer and a distinct lack of tracksuits about. Unlike most cities here it's based on a river not the coast so they even have a man made bech to make up for that one. There's not much you can really say about the place as it's like all cities really and i wasn't doing any "activities" there, just being a tourist. I did enjoy a visit to the culture south bank with it's libraries, theatre and an arthouse very much like the Baltic, always a good thing.
Staying on the toon theme i managed to get a conversation out of a couple of people in the room to my shock. One guy was from North Shields of all places and as standard for the place was a complete moron, he wasn't a dick or anything and maybe i'm harsh but he couldn't finish his sentences he was that dumb. I though he was pissed at first so was trying to guide him to the end but it turned out he was just amazingly retarded. There was a Swedish couple here too who seemed nice enough but then i had a look at his reading habits and it freaked me out a little. He had three books: "How to start conversations and make friends", "The definitive book of body language" and my favourite "How to please your woman in and out of bed". Okayyy then, that's just a bit wrong isn't it? Especially when he's already got a girlfriend. Some people. Oh and finally it is definitely worth mentioning that both him and the guy from North Shields were working in a meat packing factory, must be a common trade up this east coast eh Jon Cornick? haha. I couldn't stop laughing when i heard that one. Tremendous scenes once again! Destination Noosa next.





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Wednesday 10 March 2010

Veevers and Campbell vs The World and Australia Day

There has been many a crazy a night staying in the hostel, some nights just go too far to blog about, some are just too shameful, some end in homo erotic wrestling and disrespect from Chinese fuckers (what a night that was) and sometimes Paul Campbell gets bottles of whiskey, we drink far too much, far too quickly and end up terrorizing people all night. This is never planned, it just kinda happens......
This Saturday was no different in that aspect, Paul had informed everyone that his plan for the day was "to get a bottle of whiskey, sit in the tv room from 2pm and get absolutely fucking steamin'". He certainly stayed true to hos word. I had no plans to drink and the weekend coincided with that of Big Day Out Festival so not only the city was jammed but the hostel was brimming with Aussies, something i'd not seen before. Skinner and I were outside and got cracking onto a couple of girls from Melbourne whom were going to the festival but were rather keen to hit the cross for drinks afterward with us, never a bad thing. The highlights fom the previous day at the festival were on the box so we parked ourselves in the tv room for the afternoon, the setup didn't quite compare to the festivals back home but Lily Allens voice live did pleasantly surprise me while Dizzee Rascal doing bonkers looked perfectly insane, i'd have been in my element. Next thing you know though Paul has swindled me as usual into being his drinking partner for the day and the whiskey is going down. Lee and Amy are on it too with a case of cans so i'm sure a few of them came our way too. Far too soon Paul's off for another bottle, i've added goon to the events and we're all getting a bit too loud for some.
We decided to head to The Gaff since that's what usually happens when drunk, to get the wristband for free drinks all night we needed to get at least ten people to come with us, oh and i must add at this point i had no clean clothes due to them being in the laundrette for a day. That didn't seem an issue at the time though. The second bottle went down faster than the first and the terrorizing began, our politely "asking" people if they'd enjoy a night out with us was actually us shouting " ARE YOU COMING TO THE FUCKING GAFF?" at every single person who walked into the room while we sat in the corner surrounded by booze. I must say if it was my first day in the hostel and i walked into us i'd have been rather intimidated. Actually i had become one of the people i wrote about in November on my arrival. Oh dear.
The rest of the night is a mixture of blackouts and blurs really. The last thing I clearly remember was Paul's brother Owen informing us that we were crazy.....this is from i guy who gets so drunk he puts boxes on his head, shouts "I'm Ned Kelly" and bulldozes everything in sight. That can't be a good sign right? I also remember saying the clothes situation had to be adressed; Paul came up with a quick solution to that one whic i daren't have done sober. Since Andrew was away for the weekend we decided i should just take his clothes for the night, Paul was more enthusiastic and casually ripped off the tags from his Brand New purchases and i stook them on. It's a very odd feeling actually wearing someone else's clothes, i didn't feel quite myself and it was an odd image in the mirror. My next memories are being on the bus talking shit to kiwi while Louise and Marie looked on in fear, then Paul's getting me a drink at the bar, then we're on the dancefloor and then i'm back home wondering what happened. That's all i could recall but unfortunately the blanks would be filled in soon enough and they were pretty bad. Probably the most horrible i've ever been including the night at the Head of Steam where i kept knocking the djs decks over and couldn't actually hold my own weight up. Bad times.
Before i got filled in on all that though i manged to create more havoc while waiting for people to come back. I got chatting to a guy from Leeds called Joe and asked if i could borrow a light off him, he asked if i was going for a smoke and i sarcastically replied "No' i'm going to burn my arm". He thought i was just being cocky but soon changed his mind when that's exactly what i started doing. Idiot. I then dropped his lighter down ignorant as possible just like Depp does to the midget in Fear and Loathing then walked off before Skinner returned to tell me of my infinite shame.
I justify my actions to myself through denial. I genuinely couldn't remember the stuff one hour after doing it which proved very confusing to me and i guess to me it never really happened.  If only that were true.....firstly it seems me and Paul decided to do a "round up" of the hostel to get people out. What actually happened was we barged into every single room in the hostel with me going first. I apparently was incredibly rude and aggressive shouting "Coming to the fucking gaff like" then acting like a big baby if they refused, throwing a strop, telling them to fuck off and all the rest. Oh dear again. As if i wasn't bad enough by myself Paul would follow in speaking in his inaudible Irish accent and freaking them out more, then Skinner would be left to apologize profusely on our behalf. This went on for 45 minutes and i have zero memory of any of it. The worst treatment seemed reserved for 2E, apparently (that word is creeping up a lot) i found a guitar and threatened to smash it up unless they came, thankfully i wa so out of it that when i lifted it up over my head Louise grabbed it and i nearly fell over. I then threatened to kick their bags of food all over and when someone said it wasn't theirs i kicked it as if i was going for a field goal winning kick in the Superbowl sending it flying everywhere. What a prick. A great first impression to make on Troy and Ben i must say. The bus drive was just as bad, firstly i annoyed Becks with my "you erd love" catchphrase, that always goes down well and then told Marie and Louise i hated them cause they always say bad things. Idiot. In the gaff  went up to marie shouting "MAAARRRIIIIEEEE" then proceeded to pour a drink over her. Then me and Paul were the only people downstairs but we still went mental on the dancefloor with me lifting him on the stage and then i got thrown out after about 20 minutes. Shocking scenes. Oh and how could i forget when leaving the hostel to the tune of "Let's go fucking mental" I picked up a chair and was about to throw it through reception before Brado asked what i was doing. I just put my hand up and daid no bother mate then carried on. I probably shouldn't admit to these things but they do happen and it can't be all nice nice. That wouldn't be painting the right picture of myself, i have been very well behaved since though.

Australia day did bring more madness though. The hostel had switched owners and the first thing they did was put on a free bbq at the empire for us. We drank goon and then headed over, to say it was a shambles was an understatement and we seemed to be around there for ages before getting food. They did set the precedent for trying to get into every girls pants with the ladies first rule that led me to shout " It's not the fucking Titanic you know", Australia is rather behind on equality though. Skinner didn't get much luck with the food though, i think he went up 3 times to be told there was more coming then when he got there none was and this repeated through the night. We eventually left thim there until he got back about half an hour after with a plate full of sausages as he was definitely getting something despite being absolutely livid. We then headed over to the sugarmill for free jugs and we seemed to acquire others too, Skinner disappeared into the vip room which i knew would be a bad thing and he ended up blowing 150 dollars despite being skint. With it being Australia Day there was a special Teenage Kicks on at world bar, shame about the 15 dollar entry though. Thankfully i managed to get a few people together and randoms from the queue, bullshitted the doorman telling them i was ene entertainment manager for a hostel and we all got free entry plus a free drink. Not bad work. Once again the fun didn't last though. Joe was rather wasted and while i was walking out of th etoilet he kicked the door sending it right into my brow. I know now what the lyric by Franz Ferdinand "An eyebrow burst" is all about. I'm a terrible bleeder and within seconds it was dripping down my face onto my arm, Steve said i needed to go to Hospital but i refused as ever. I tried to wash the wound out and close it but it was far too wide and deep so i had to head back to the hostel with everyone questioned me on the way if i'd been battered or not. Once i returned to the hostel i had my first meeting with the lovely Miss Claire Scott, being covered in blood is always an ice breaker it seems. I'd seen her twice before on the way to the Sugarmill and around the Hostel but never actually spoke to her, she nicely insisted that i really should go get stitches and get it cleaned out but of course i refused being a stubborn idiot that i am. In hindsight she was completely right, as i'm not a big fan of my latest scar to the collection over my brow but it's not the first time i've refused medical attention and no doubt the last. It was worth it though as if i'd not hurt my eye then maybe i'd never have got to know her at all and this trip would've certainly been missing something.
I've just realised this was all the day before Australia day actually. I think on the day people just stuck Aussie flags "Get your shit stars off our flag!" on themselves and wandered about. It must be just like bank holidays back home where the Sunday is always the main event. One thing i will say is the next few weeks after were easily the best i'd had and Rock N Roll Thursday really kicked off....

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Catching Up With Events Part IV - The Great Job Hunt

Since arriving in Sydney way back in November the search for a job has shown varying degrees of success for everyone i've come across. Guy for example found a job waiting in a hotel within five minutes of dishing CVs out, it took Melanie another two months to get hers and the majority had no success whatsoever. Me fitting into the latter category obviously.
I never actually brought a C.V. with me so that probably wasn't the best of starts i must say, it also took me far, far too long to produce one of any standard but they a bit of a bastard to right from scratch. Once completed i still only lasted a day handing them out to retail shops and the like before getting disheartened by the whole process. It's night on impossible to show any value or personality  in 5 seconds to some dweeb while with it being Christmas no manager really wants to spend five minutes jaw jacking with yet another backpacking job seeker. Oh and who can really afford to keep printing this stuff out? These were all justifiable reasons to me to just concentrate on seeking for jobs online or hoping to get work through an agency too.
Ah but the agencies proved to be yet another dead end too. I was expecting to get an actual, you know "agent" of sorts but that proved to be a bit too much to ask for, I couldn't even speak to someone face to face with all the offices strangely being situated outside Sydney. I must have registered online for about nine different agencies in total, each of varying type but I only actually heard back from one and thaqt was a glorified computer system. All it did was give you e-mail updates of new jobs going online based on keywords, I could've bloody done that myself! All the jobs were "career" type too which was totally unsuitable really. The least amount of responsibility please.
Much like every other backpacker i gave it the "i'll do anything for work......except yadda yadda yadda" speech. Those yadda yadda yaddas always right off quite a few jobs i must say, mine including all sales work and bar jobs so that's a prety hefty chunk writen off in one go. The only reason there's plenty of sales jobs is that people don't last two minutes due to the shitty work conditions and commission based pay. Hello Adam Skinner and Jonas Jonasen. So anyway i found myself spending the majority of time sitting in Everywhere Internet Cafes, Subway in tow and looking for a job. Looking for a job means sitting on Facebook, Football websites, hotmail, youtube, music pages, blogging and sometimes....just sometimes trawling through seek.com and gumtree. Literally every single there is doing the same thing so you know you've got much competition in just one place.
Gumtree did manage to provide some humour before that one got written off as a joke too. Obviously i applied for countless jobs on there (and looked for local football teams to play for) but the only replies i got were from business scams saying stuff like "this is a business opportunity, give us x amount of cash and you'll earn millions!". Sure sure sure....I also placed an ad on ther elooking for any retail or warehousing work, the only response i got was well worth it:

re: retail work

Hi there, my Name is David and i'm a 27 year old caucasion man in Newtown looking for intimate company.

If all goes well we can make it a regular cash thing. Thanks, get back x

hahaha hardly shop work or laboring ad god knows why the guy was cruising gumtree job ads of all places. You do get weirdos putting things up like "i need a fit girl to massage me" or "someone do my rubbish for quick cash". I wasn't that desperate yet but of course i had to ask for more details but none were forthcoming unfortunately. I'd have made a quality gigolo too.
After two months applying for every single labouring, merchandising, data entry, retail, packing and office job i finally hit the point where i was just about fucked. I'd been told i needed car wash experiance (really?), night office experience (day time not being suffice) and my favourite past time was spending ages filling out application forms only to be told on the last page my visa wasn't suitable. That should be the first question idiots! Skinner actually had to go through the whole interview process, wait a week only to be told the same thing. Sort it out Australia! They love a scam too, you need cards for everything at about 90 dollars each. There's RSA and RSG for bar work, safety for construction, traffic ones, basically any money earner they can think of. Not that they mean much, Penfold and Jew Piglet Captain Jack had all their cards, experience of bar work, silver service and got nowhere. An average looking female orders a drink and she's working that night. Having reached the point where i was going to have to move on by the Friday to go fruit picking i was in dire straights. Pleasantly i had a missed call on the Monday morning, I assumed it was the German girl in my dorm i'd given my number too but it turned out to be for a job. Only problem was i had zero memory of applying fo it since there's been that many, i managed to bullshit him though and bagged an interview. I went straight online and it appeared i'd applied a month prior with the job being going round various supermarkets doing refits for a company called Relayforce. Pretty ideal and i prefer a heavy job, 200 bucks a shift too.
The interview itself was a very strange affair. I made the usual error of getting there far too early so i was pretty wired when i went in, it w as a simple job but i really needed to get it so put a bit too much pressure on myself and probably took it a bit too seriously. The offices were very corporate so i thought being professional as possible was the way to go, the interviewer begged to differ. He told me to relax then started swearing his head off as if i was his mate down the pub, then he would switch into the usual questions and be professional. Probably tryin to catch me off i think, the questions were the usual patter. Example of a conflict and resoltion, what skills you have, blah blah blah. His manner did really catch me off guard but i should've known, it is the Aussie way. I left the interview having zero clue how it went but he told me he'd let me know on friday by text if unsuccessful or call if I got the job. So a few days later i was pretty gutted to find a text on my phone when i left it on charge.....thankfully on closer inspection it was a voicemail stating "Welcome aboard" Ah good times. I imagine that was a grand night too.
Only problem is, i've barely worked since. I've known nothing like it. I get 200 dollars a day but that's hardly worth it if you're never in, i'm in at 3 am tonight so hopefully this is the starrt of it picking up. My workmates are a bit odd but they always are on night shift, that's why they doo nights, they're not allowed out during the day cause they'd scare people. My first shift i was told to wait outside Hungry Jacks and look for an irish guy in red polo shirt, i noticed an indian wandering about in a red top looking for someone so i asked if he worked for them too. "Yes" the reply then he just kept looking about, know if someone i'd never met knew wher i'd work i'd be a bit more inquizitive. I also freaked everyone out by going round shaking peoples hand and introducing myself, they clearly never seen that one done either haha. An Irish backpacker there seems sound at least and another guy had been to England a few times. Hopefully i'll start racking the cash in then!

Tuesday 2 March 2010

Catching up with Events Part III - A Spot of Bad Luck or The Shit Hits the Fan or maybe i'm a Bad Drunk

As late December and January hit I managed to get involved with a bit of a run of unfortunate luck which  lead me to becoming a rather unpleasant drunkard for a short period; some may disagree and that I always am one but they just need to get a grip I say.  You see I thought it would be the best way to channel my frustration and anger through drinking many cases of goon, what can I say? I was clearly heavily influenced by the homeless; they seemed to have found the solution to all their problems.
So before I whinge I’ll provide a quick update and back story for the uninitiated. Back in Thailand, hundreds of pounds worth of foreign currency was stolen, in November somebody decided to swipe some old sweaty clothes and at New Year my prized Chuck Taylors went the journey too rather mysteriously.  All this contributed to my being completely livid when my iPod got stolen. Now anybody who knows me can appreciate how much I value my music and iPod especially, I literally can’t go anyway without it. Walking just ain’t the same and the radio stations are far too full of idle chatter and repetitive playlists for my taste. I like a nice selection of 60,000 songs. The circumstances surrounding its disappearance did nothing to prevent me from kicking off on people either.
One of the general rules of the Hostel is that only Jerome or I may control the soundtrack to the evenings, it’s not just a question of taste but some people just can’t be trusted with such a delicate matter. So on this evening there was a dozen or so of us having a few drinks on the first floor and as standard the numbers dwindled as the night went on. I ended up a few feet away in the pc room performing the most elementary of schoolboy errors in being drunk on Facebook and after I’d suitably performed enough regretful actions that I’d cringe at in the morning I went back outside......to find it completely empty, speakerless and iPodless. Ah well, I thought, they’ve just put it in the room for safe keeping with the rest of the stuff and I’ll just get it back in the morning. On another note, earlier in the evening I made a point of giving “Sheffield” his iPhone as he’d left it lying about but I felt mine was fine as it was still in the dock being played. So the next day I knocked on the door and he informed me it was the two Dutch guys who had brought the speakers in so I’ll have to have a word with them. And I did. They then gave me the great line
 “We didn’t know whose it was so just left it on the table by itself”.
“Come Again?”
“Yeah, we just put it on the table”
At this point I’d imagine the veins were throbbing in my forehead alas Bruce Springsteen singing his part of “We Are the World”. What type of fucking retard would apply logic like that? Obviously some deceitful little tramp had just walked past and thought, “Oh cheers, I’ll take that, thank you very much”. I fucking despise thieves but it’s even worse in this environment as we’re all in the same boat and no we have to muck together or who we’d feel if the same happened to us. I’d already taken a dislike to one of the said Dutch due to him being one of those people who decide that since they go to the gym then it’s only right that he takes his top off at every single opportunity and walk around flexing. These people are always cunts and rarely have any worth at all. Since all the people who were last seen with the iPod lived in 1C i thought it was only right i have a look about so Alexis  let me in, i couldn’t see anything though and it’s just not fair to start rummaging through peoples belongings who hadn’t do anything. Thats what was so annoying, i knew that somebody in the hostel had it but i couldn’t go around randomly accusing people without any proof. That didn’t stop me from kicking off on everybody when drunk mind, i made an announcement that the perpetrator had one night to leave it outside my door and if not, Jon and I were going to go through every single persons dorm and if we found it “I’d bite the persons nose off”. Of course i could never do such a thing and none of this happened when sober. I just became a very bitter drunk for awhile. I’d bloody love to know who took it though.


About  a week later things got a bit worse too. The summer here brings a long flow of festivals with the first one being the imaginatively titled “Sydney First Festival”. sydneyfestival.org.au/2010 The whole city was on lockdown with 250,000 people roaming through it between parks, various stages and street performers. The hostel wandered down at various intervals through Hyde Park ontoward the domain and Botanical gardens. We left on the evening so by the time we’d actually arrived the whole place was jammed making it near impossible to coordinate with people  a meeting point and having ridiculous waiting times to get food and drink. Al Green was headlining the main stage but he left me a little bit underwhelmed to be honest. The lack of organization and terrible compere did little to aid him but the scenes to me were reminiscent of any festival Electric Six appearance at a festival. Everyone just waits around for “Gay Bar” and as soon as it gets played there's a mass exodus of easily 50% of the audience (Let’s Stay Together being the Gay Bar of the day, still, what a song it is). We all decided to head back to the Hostel and “get on it” since it was just far too crowded to hear anybody speak round there, we did manage to see the always lovely sight at a crowded event of people acting the fool and getting floored by Police. Just another reminder of home there.  I was still in my repressed anger mode so with Lee Archards encouragement i decided to go round the hostel and “tell everyone what i though of them”. Needless to say i was greeted with unhappy faces on the night and the next day. It was worth it just to see the fear in Amy’s eyes it became her turn and she pleaded with me for her to be skipped. That was clearly against the rules, i must say i really was a bad drunk during this period and i must apologize to those who felt my wrath. The thieving and lack of job success was really starting to get to me and it was about to get worse.
As the next day i awoke to find my credit card missing. Now this is no uncommon thing as i've done this about 12 times now so it's no big deal, i always cancel it and then find it the next day. This time was just a little bit different, i canceled it then went straight to my account online to find it completed emptied over one night. Uh Oh. The transactions were all pending too so had yet to appear on my statements and would take at least a few days to come through, causing more problems. I phoned the Halifax again and as standard they were an absolute joke. I really can't wait to get back home so i can march in the branch, close all my accounts and go "John Veevers style" on them. It will be a complete pleasure. The genius on the phone informed me that i had to call back 9am UK time as that is when the super duper system goes online, apparently he was working off an Amiga or something. Of course when i did i just got fobbed off and told to call back tomorrow. Great. Getting nowhere with the bank i went to the Police station to report the incident if only to get a crime number as i've never had much faith in the Police. If the bank annoyed me then the Pigs made me want to go vigilante and blow the precinct up. The officer who greeted me told me he was going to get someone else as his shift finished soon so he couldn't really be bothered; I guess at least there was an officer there, unlike back in South Shields where when i reported an assault i was told there was no officers there. In a bloody police station. It only took four weeks to see someone too. Anyway my case officer was Super Alex Dewes and as police standard once again a complete prick. He accused me of being "shady" as i didn't know the exact amount to the dollar for each transaction that was processed, he just couldn't grasp the debit system altogether really or that phoning the bank was futile. It was like talking to a child so i said i'd return with more information.
The main problem with being card less was that the bank had to send it home to my billing address and then have my Mam forward it on to Sydney so that would leave me without access to cash for about two weeks. Since they took everything too i couldn't even do a transfer to my Aussie account.
Once i stopped storming about on the Sunday I also discovered that two other cards from my room went missing with Mels and Lassies being stolen too so obviously someone knew what they were doing. For the life of me I couldn't think who could've took at, Rich and I were actually sitting outside the door having a few beers when it happened so they'd had to have been quick as we could've walked in at any time.
Not all was bad as thankfully a lot of people in the hostel were a great help. Rich let me stay for as long as i needed without paying, Skinner lent me money whenever i needed it with Lee and Guy helping me a bit too (I basically spent it on goon and McDonalds in self pity). I'd have been lost without the help so it was much appreciated, some people who are always quick to grab a beer when it's going did disappear though. Standard.
It took days before the bank could tell me what happened which was incredibly frustrating again, i must have spent 60 dollars just on hold. However it seems that at my expense somebody had a great night, blowing 400 at Coles, topping up at a petrol station and having the gaul to stay at a five star hotel on Sydney Harbour. Ahhhh. Cheers guys. Oh I got a call from Super police Alex Dewes too, he asked me if the bank was doing anything and then to just leave it with them. "They know what they're doing". What a bunch of morons. Fortunately after a couple of weeks i did manage to get all my money back, not before the Halifax mucked up again by taking the pending transactions of me twice then trying to charge me for going overdrawn, ah how i love them. I've never heard from the police since either despite telling them about the multiple incidents. Apparently it's a well known thing here though as when reading the backpacker magazine it had a warning a gang committing card fraud had moved on to Melbourne. i'll probably see them there i bet. Thankfully things took a turn for the better when i got a phone call out of the blue for a Job interview. It was about bloody time....