Monday, November 25, 2002
Its hot out here. I've been continuing to work doing fundraising on the street - which is pretty hard going. Still it gets me out and about. The other day we were working near this lovely beach, and at lunch we sat down and looked at the surfers doing their thang. It was pretty windy and the waves were massive so they were doing all these tricks - I felt like I was in a Travel programme. Which I am in a way.
I have had many a weird experience doing this job. The other week I met a freak on every day that I worked.
Monday: Woman on methadone who started crying, saying "I want to go out there working for WSPA and break the chains!" Which is lucky, as WSPA is currently looking to recruit suicidal junkies. Not vets, that would be silly.
Tuesday: Drunk guy who said (right in my face so I could breathe in his filthy beer breath) "your problem is that you're overpaid, oversexed and over here". His problem was that he was drunk at 9am.
Wednesday: Big guy, Heroin addict wearing surgical glove on one hand, and sporting a manky looking crow on his shoulder. Feeds crow raw meat.
Thursday: Hippy, who says that all the dolphins are commiting suicide to enter a higher astral plane because the world ends in 2012. http://www.2012.com.au/Site.A.html
Friday: Drunk guy stares at our petition against bear bile farming in China for a few minutes. Then writes: "I HAVE SEEN THE PICKCHURES - WHERES THE MONEY - GUNS" . Poignant.
They've also got the Gay Games on in Sydney at the moment. The other day I was working for WSPA in the park, and had nothing but a continual stream of the internationally gay walk past. I've heard that Sydney is the Gayest city in the world - I thought it was San Francisco before, but there's certainly a lot of them about.
I've met up with Tom Scruby again (last seen in New Zealand) and he's kipped on our floor a few nights. Jo's friend Lucy is also over visiting so we did some of the touristy things. We went to Toronga Zoo www.zoo.nsw.gov.au and the Aquarium too. We got some photos up close with the Koalas (they're so cute!).
My parents are in Oz on holiday at the moment so I'm seeing a bit of them - they've treated us so some nice meals. We ate in the Hard Rock Cafe right next to John Lennon's lyrics to 'Jealous Guy' which was pretty cool. They're staying at this swish hotel and I went over to use their pool. The girl at the reception said 'Don't I know you from somewhere?' And of course, I'd stopped her on the street to get her to join this charity. She must have thought it was pretty odd that I was in this nice hotel!
We're now on a weeks holiday with my parents in Bogangar, which is a little South of Brisbane. We're pretty much chilling out - today we went to a fruit themed park - www.tropicalfruitworld.com (formerly Avocadoland). Then we're going to Fraiser Island for a few days before heading back to Sydney.
Postcript:
We had a lovely time on Fraser Island - it really is quite an amazing place. Its astonishing that its all on the sand. The weather wasn't too hot - the first rain on the island in months. But we got to see a dingo, so that was quite impressive. Jo's camera is making a bit of a disturbing grinding noise, so we recon its got sand in it -oh dear.
Thursday, November 07, 2002
Monday, October 28, 2002
Respect my authori-thai!
Hiya all, I've been playing about on the net today, because I'm in a place that has unlimited use of the internet for a fixed fee.
After a tough slog job hunting we've taken on jobs fundraising for the charity WSPA www.wspa.org.au . We're on the collecting people's details for monthly donations. Yep, I've become one of those annoying people that tries to stop you in the street to get you to sign up with a charity. My day mostly consists of saying "Hi miss, have you heard of Wispa?" and having peple ignore me.
Its tough work but it feels like we're doing something worthwhile and we get to go out and about. There is a LOT of loonies on the streets of sydney though (some still with their hospital braclets on). I met this one crazy guy who said he was being paid to smuggle children out of Europe to Australia "because its about to become a war zone". He continued "the problem is getting them to go even when they dont want to" Aaarh what a nutter!!!
Aside from that, I haven't been up to a huge amount. Mel (who was with us in California) is now in Sydney too so we've been meeting up with her a bit.
And now for the cool websites:
I found this cool New Zealand site that is basically a journal of a guy that went there. He went to a lot of the same places that I went to and has some cool photos. He even mentions the obnoxious hostel owner that we met in Queenstown. http://www.planetneptune.com/pn/travel/nz/nzindex.shtml
FHM's 100 greatest websites is a cool list to waste masses of time looking at webstes http://www.fhm.com/reporter/100bestsites/frames.asp
Cool game: See how far you can throw a virtual paper dart http://www.workmanweb.com/fliersclub/simulator2.html
Keep track of whose turn it is to to make coffee next in your office. Good idea, but requires lots of registration information, unfortunately. http://www.imadeitlast.com/login.asp
This optical illusion might freat yer chicken http://www.mayeticvillage.com/QuickPlace/project_green/Main.nsf/h_Index/6A2397B6F1B3DCB1C1256C4000357CE8/$FILE/image001.jpg?OpenElement&1033033489
miniature car wrecks to use as accessories in bonsai gardens. Weird but oddly cool http://www.crashbonsai.com/index.html
Diving monkeys game http://www.mohsye.com/games/games.asp?swf=diving&w=550&h=400
That's all fer now,
Mark
Thursday, September 26, 2002
G'day,
Now that I've been in Sydney for a little while I'm sure you're all chompin at the bit (working conditions these days, it's terrible) to hear what I've been up to. My news is interspersed with Sydney observations. Oh here's the first one now:
Sydney observation 1: There are masses of Thai restaurants. Each one of them Thais to out do the other with a thai-ribble pun in the name - "Thai-tanic" and "Thai-riffic" are my favourite ones so far. (this is why I¡¯ve got the odd subject for this message).
We started off our stay in the Sydney YHA which is very pleasant. We had a funny orientation evening where you could bid for discounted tours etc. You bought a discounted ticket for a Neighbours night where you can meet the cast. The YHA has a DVD lounge and I saw Lord of the Rings yet again. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't recognise many places that we'd been too (who could imagine that the battle field in the opening scene is the same nursery slopes of the skifield that we were on a few weeks ago) , but it certainly has the feel of New Zealand scenery.
Our main priority was finding somewhere to live and sorting out mobile phones, getting a tax number, bank account, getting some clothes for work etc. It all went pretty smoothly. We were pretty lucky with our flat. After looking at a couple of places we saw in the newspaper, we weren't overly impressed with, we stopped at a letting agent that we happened to be passing and found that they had a lovely fully furnished flat right in the centre - just what we were looking for. It's just a few minutes walk from the centre of town and has everything that we need. The only annoyance is that it's so BRIGHT in the mornings. It's light at about 4 or so in the morning. These ozzies really need to sort their time system out.
Sydney observation 2 : There's a very touristy monorail that goes around one part of the center of the city. It seems to serve little useful purpose (as its stops are within easy walking distance) other than to look cool. It's a bit like stepping into the future, as imagined by somone at the Worlds Fair many decades ago. Every time I pass it I try to restrain myself from singing the Simpsons monorail song. http://www.geocities.com/simpsons_guide/simpsons_monorail.html (lyrics) http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/9110/simsg302.wav (wav file)
We've been doing a wee bit of sight seeing too. One of our first stops was the Circular Quay area - down by the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. It was odd the first time I saw the view - it really felt l was in a film or some kind of Travel programme. Just nearby is the large & beautiful botanical gardens http://www.rbgsyd.gov.au which offer superb views of the harbour. The first time we went thru the gardens we were freaked out by these flying foxes (a type of bat) which were literally dripping from the trees. In one area, there are simply hundreds hanging upside down from the tall trees - if you dont look closely you could miss them though, or think that they were some sort of fruit.
Sydney observation 3: The people aren't quite as friendly here as in NZ. I was given a NZ 20 cents piece in a supermarket here, and when I pointed out it was the wrong currency the cashier said "It doesn't matter", and tried to fob me off saying that NZ currency is basically the same thing as Australian. I was NOT being given great customer service and told her to give me a coin in the right currency. Jo thought I was weird - its only worth about 8p - but its the principle of the thing.
We visited the historical Rocks area of the city on the weekend, when there is a lovely market. It¡¯s where the oldest part of the city is & where all those convict boats used to arrive. We passed tens of couples (and their white limos) posing by the harbourside for their wedding photos with the Opera house in the background. It was hilarious.
Sydney observation 4: There's a large population of Asian people here (and a big Chinatown area). One of my favourite sights is walking along the main street and passing the video arcade - there's bound to be a crazy teen dancing away on this arcade game where you have to dance on this mat in the correct sequence. They be loonies.
We met up with Andy Mundy who is over here on holiday on a break from his job at Reuters and took in the views from the Granite pylons on Sydney harbour coathanger shaped bridge http//:www.pylonlookout.com.au . Its such a world famous landmark that it's hard to believe its only 70 years old. We bumped into Andy again in Paddy's Market when he was getting his portrait drawn. I embarrassed him by taking a photo of the work in progress. Unusually for streetside portrait artists, the picture was actually pretty good.
Sydney observation 5: The music on the radio here ain't too hot - mostly bland rock. Any tapes or minidisks of Westwood (top to at ten, Fridays, Radio1) would be most welcome.
We visited Bondi beach - I wasn't too impressed with what is one of the most famous beaches in the world. But I guess it only comes alive in the summer? We had a walk down the coast to Coogee.
Sydney observation 6: Aaah! I can't escape that fat tongued idiot Jamie Oliver! He was advertising Pams ( a bit like Hienz) in NZ , and he was just on telly advertising wine here.
The main thing we've been up to at the moment is looking for work. It's only been a week, but it's pretty stressful. We've got a couple of interviews with agencies lined up, so I'm pretty optimistic.
Now that I've been in Sydney for a little while I'm sure you're all chompin at the bit (working conditions these days, it's terrible) to hear what I've been up to. My news is interspersed with Sydney observations. Oh here's the first one now:
Sydney observation 1: There are masses of Thai restaurants. Each one of them Thais to out do the other with a thai-ribble pun in the name - "Thai-tanic" and "Thai-riffic" are my favourite ones so far. (this is why I¡¯ve got the odd subject for this message).
We started off our stay in the Sydney YHA which is very pleasant. We had a funny orientation evening where you could bid for discounted tours etc. You bought a discounted ticket for a Neighbours night where you can meet the cast. The YHA has a DVD lounge and I saw Lord of the Rings yet again. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't recognise many places that we'd been too (who could imagine that the battle field in the opening scene is the same nursery slopes of the skifield that we were on a few weeks ago) , but it certainly has the feel of New Zealand scenery.
Our main priority was finding somewhere to live and sorting out mobile phones, getting a tax number, bank account, getting some clothes for work etc. It all went pretty smoothly. We were pretty lucky with our flat. After looking at a couple of places we saw in the newspaper, we weren't overly impressed with, we stopped at a letting agent that we happened to be passing and found that they had a lovely fully furnished flat right in the centre - just what we were looking for. It's just a few minutes walk from the centre of town and has everything that we need. The only annoyance is that it's so BRIGHT in the mornings. It's light at about 4 or so in the morning. These ozzies really need to sort their time system out.
Sydney observation 2 : There's a very touristy monorail that goes around one part of the center of the city. It seems to serve little useful purpose (as its stops are within easy walking distance) other than to look cool. It's a bit like stepping into the future, as imagined by somone at the Worlds Fair many decades ago. Every time I pass it I try to restrain myself from singing the Simpsons monorail song. http://www.geocities.com/simpsons_guide/simpsons_monorail.html (lyrics) http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/9110/simsg302.wav (wav file)
We've been doing a wee bit of sight seeing too. One of our first stops was the Circular Quay area - down by the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. It was odd the first time I saw the view - it really felt l was in a film or some kind of Travel programme. Just nearby is the large & beautiful botanical gardens http://www.rbgsyd.gov.au which offer superb views of the harbour. The first time we went thru the gardens we were freaked out by these flying foxes (a type of bat) which were literally dripping from the trees. In one area, there are simply hundreds hanging upside down from the tall trees - if you dont look closely you could miss them though, or think that they were some sort of fruit.
Sydney observation 3: The people aren't quite as friendly here as in NZ. I was given a NZ 20 cents piece in a supermarket here, and when I pointed out it was the wrong currency the cashier said "It doesn't matter", and tried to fob me off saying that NZ currency is basically the same thing as Australian. I was NOT being given great customer service and told her to give me a coin in the right currency. Jo thought I was weird - its only worth about 8p - but its the principle of the thing.
We visited the historical Rocks area of the city on the weekend, when there is a lovely market. It¡¯s where the oldest part of the city is & where all those convict boats used to arrive. We passed tens of couples (and their white limos) posing by the harbourside for their wedding photos with the Opera house in the background. It was hilarious.
Sydney observation 4: There's a large population of Asian people here (and a big Chinatown area). One of my favourite sights is walking along the main street and passing the video arcade - there's bound to be a crazy teen dancing away on this arcade game where you have to dance on this mat in the correct sequence. They be loonies.
We met up with Andy Mundy who is over here on holiday on a break from his job at Reuters and took in the views from the Granite pylons on Sydney harbour coathanger shaped bridge http//:www.pylonlookout.com.au . Its such a world famous landmark that it's hard to believe its only 70 years old. We bumped into Andy again in Paddy's Market when he was getting his portrait drawn. I embarrassed him by taking a photo of the work in progress. Unusually for streetside portrait artists, the picture was actually pretty good.
Sydney observation 5: The music on the radio here ain't too hot - mostly bland rock. Any tapes or minidisks of Westwood (top to at ten, Fridays, Radio1) would be most welcome.
We visited Bondi beach - I wasn't too impressed with what is one of the most famous beaches in the world. But I guess it only comes alive in the summer? We had a walk down the coast to Coogee.
Sydney observation 6: Aaah! I can't escape that fat tongued idiot Jamie Oliver! He was advertising Pams ( a bit like Hienz) in NZ , and he was just on telly advertising wine here.
The main thing we've been up to at the moment is looking for work. It's only been a week, but it's pretty stressful. We've got a couple of interviews with agencies lined up, so I'm pretty optimistic.
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
G'day,
"Crikey!" As a certain Crock loving Australian might say. Joanne and I have come to a firm & complete stop in Sydney. We've only been here a couple of days and have been pretty busy. Our biggest success has been in finding a lovely flat in the centre of Sydney. I was dead chuffed because I thought we'd get a grotty old flat or shared house out in the sticks - but we've got a fantasic flat right in the centre.
"So how did you end up in Sydney?" I hear you asking, "the last time you wrote you were leaving Aukland for the Northland of New Zealand!"
Thanks for being so observant. We travelled up along the Northland's Twin Coastal route. The West is famous for the fabulous Kauri trees - absolutely ancient trees which grow to an amazing size and we visited the Kauri museum www.kauri-museum.com and Ancient Kauri Kingdom www.ancientkauri.co.nz which has this amzing kauri tree inside the shop, and a giant internal staircase has been carved out of it. After visiting the ancient forests in Trounson KAuri Park & Waipoua forest we stopped at Opononi. The town is famous as the home of Opo the dolphin - a friendly dolphin who used to swim by the shore and play with the children (Unfortunately he died a few years ago).
We continued on to the far north of NZ to the lighthouse at Cape Reinga. We stopped at 90 mile beach - a long stretch of sand that can be driven along and used as a road. Jo drove on the sand a little bit - mostly threatening to run me over. That night we stayed at Manonui in Doubtless Bay where we met one of the freakiest people that I have ever encountered - think Will at his weirdest & multibly it by a number of your choice). "Nice guy" Johnny gave us a 3 hour monologue on his life story - his harsh upbringing in Prague, his clearly insane parents, his time in the Israeli army (when he pretended to be insane to leave it early - i don't think he needed to pretend too hard), his womanising, horrific bike accident, thoughts on God, and recent motor troubles. He was stuck in the middle of no-where because his car broke down - and going mad while the local mechanic kept on finding new problems.
We escaped Johnny and contined back down along the East coast of the Northland. We stopped breifly at Kawa Kawa, which is famous for it's ornate toilets designed by Frederick Hundertwasser. Not an especially nice town - it's odd that anyone (apart from George Michel maybe) could envisage a town where the toilets are the highlight. The Bay of Islands area was next, and we stayed in "Romantic" Russell (as it promotes itself), a pituresque little town. We played scrabble again, whith me turning the game around with "avenges" scoring 36 , very apt i thought.
We arrived back into Aukland & the sunny weather made the city seem much more appealing than on our previous visit a few days earlier. We visited Kelly Tarton's Antartic Encounter Underwater World www.kellytartons.co.nz which was very cool. They have a wonderful Antartic temperature Penguin area, as well as a aquarium that is viewed from underneath , along a moving walkway. We took in various other sights including Mount Eden, an extinct volcano which offers magnificent views, with a crater 50 metres deep that you can walk down to, and Victoria Market www.victoria-park-market.co.nz (NZ's version of Camden I guess).
We checked out the views from the Skytower www.skycity.co.nz and met up with Davey (Will's friend from Cornwall) & his girlfriend Frankie. We chilled out in Devonport area & saw Xena the Warrior Princess' ship in the harbour (they film most of it in NZ).
And that was New Zealand. An absolutely lovely place, but with little city life. My highlights were definitely Dolphin Swimming in Kaikoura, and the beautiful Milford Sound. We arrived in Sydney and busied about trying to do all the things we needed to do (and not saying yes to the first flat we looked at, thank goodness). The plan now is to stay here for about 6 months before seeing some more of Australia and Asia & coming back home for September '03.
Thursday, September 05, 2002
Greetings from wherever I am,
As much as I hate to have missed Darius's single being
released in the UK, I've been continuing to enjoying
myself out here in New Zealand.
Listening to the radio has been quite funny at times.
The profanity laws must be different here or
something, because they've been fing and blinding on
the like sailors. Sweary sailors. We were listening to
Ski FM in the central plataux region - and the station
is on EVERYWHERE, playing a wide variety of music,
terrible adverts - one features a hideous Forest Gump
Impression "mumma always said snow is like a box of
chocolates, it melts in the sun". The main reason
people listen is for the Ski report - to find out
what's open. The main reason we turn of the radio is
because of Pink - her latest singles "Making Me Ill"
aand "Don't let me get me" are played absolutely
everywhere. I don't dislike the songs, but the blanket
airwave coverage has made me sick, Jo even more so.
We haven't been watching too much TV, and so I've been
catching up on some reading. Band of Brothers, The
Full Montezuma by Peter Moore, Walk in the Woods by
Bill Bryson , The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &
Klay by Michael Chambon. Peter Moore was one of Jo's
picks and was a very fun read.
When last I wrote, I was in Taupo, visiting places
that smell different (to put it politely). It made me
sing this klittle song (to the tune of Abba's
Fernando"): "There was something in the air that
night, it smelt like shite, in Taupo".
We relaxed in the hot springs there, which was fairly
unexventful except for one kid thinking i looked like
Jack Osbourne
http://www.mtv.com/onair/osbournes/family/jackosbourne.jhtml.
Which I don't entireley agree with.
After a particularly competitive game of Scrabble in
which Jo refused to belive that "dank" was a word
(http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=dank so there),
our next stop was National Park. National Park is
right next to Whakapapa (pronounced fak-a-papa without
giggling if possible) where there is a pleasant ski
field on the top of mount Rupehu, an active volcanoe
(which last errupted in 1996) www.mtrupehu.com .
The main reason we visited there was to meet up with
Tom Scruby, an exeter uni friend, who is working at a
cafe on the ski field. He seems to be having a cool
time there, and we had a pleasant time one evening
when the local bar organised a shnapps belly button
race.
National Park public transport isn't great, so most
days we would hitchhike to the top of the mountain
(the first time since New Years 2001/2) - but that
turned out well and we met some nice people. We almost
hitched a lift in a stretched white limo with the
license plate "GWBUSH", but we didn't so that doesn't
make a very good anecdote, sorry. On the first day we
tried Snowboarding, but a combination of horrible
weather, a rubbish instructor, and painful boots was a
little off putting. On the second day we spent 10
minutes on the ski field before the entire mountain
was closed due to blizzard conditions. We had to wait
3 hours for our coach - the one that was supposed to
take us was blown off the road on the way up. The next
2 days the weather improves and we got a good days
skiing in. Joanne had never been before, and after a
few initial tumbles, she seemed to pick it up very
natrually. After this encouraging progress we tried
another slope higher up and Jo was left rather out of
her depth. My bad. I think my dad did something very
similar the first time my mum went skiing.
Our next stop was Rotorua www.rotorua.co.nz - the
geothermal tourism capital of NZ, in fact its tourist
slant has earned it the nickname "Rotovegas". It's
moto is "Feel the spirit", but could have been "wiff
the egg", as the air has quite a strong nasty smell of
sulphur. We paid another visit to a hot spa,
www.polynesianspa.co.nz , which has alceline and
acidic pools, strong in all kinds of revitalising
minerals.
That evening, we did the must do activity in Rotorua,
a Maori hangi (feast) www.maoriculture.co.nz . It was
pretty commercial, but had to be done really. The
highlight for me was Jo exposing our Bus driver as
being a bit of a charlatan. She wanted him to explain
the difference between the words Waka and whaka - and
he was forced to admit that he couldn't actually sweak
Maori... despite taking the piss out of us as he tried
to teach us a few basic words a little earlier.
On Saturday we visited the NZ maori Arts and crafts
insitute at Tev Whakarewarewa www.whakarewarewa.com ,
but it was pretty touristy and we weren't overly
impressed. We far mor enjoyed the Agrodome
www.agrodome.co.nz . This place is the home of Zorbing
- rolling down the hill in a large plasic ball. I was
tempted to do it but decided against it. Very cool was
their sheep show - with lots of breeds, dogs doing
tricks, and sheering. Jo got to feed a baby lamb &
loved it the wee softie. We took photos of the sheep
Orking (check out http://www.monkeon.co.uk/orking/ to
see what i mean - a very funny website)
Our final day in Rotorua was hired a car and went on a
big geothermal tour. We started off at Wai-O-Tapu
www.geyserland.co.nz , home of the famous Lady Knox
gyser. It goes off at 10.15 every day - with a little
help from some soap powder which is poured into the
gyser. Next up was the Waimangu volcanic valley
www.waimangu.com where we took a boat cruise around
lake rotomahana and saw the still active mount
Tarawera. It was very beautiful, but weirdly the
area's main attraction (its spectacular pink and white
terraces) were destroyed over a hundred years ago. The
area's life was completely destroyed, and everything
is starting from scratch - it is bbilled as a look at
how life first began. Last on the day's itinerary was
Hells Gate www.hellsgaterotorua.co.nz , boiling
mudpools (that you can bathe in too). I think we'd
burnt out on seeing all these geothermal sights (and
smells) though and were left fairly underwhelmed.
Joanne commented on some people over a sulperous
cavern "II don't know why they're hanging around all
this stinking sulphur - just for the hell of it".
Leaving a trail of sulphur behind us we drove to
Aukland, stopping at Waitomo, to have a look at the
glowworm caves www.blackwaterrafting.co.nz . We has an
enthusiastic guide called Zane ("'cos I'm in-zane"),
who only had 2 fingers on one hand. The cave & glow
worm were well worth it and it was quite magical
floating in the darkness, illuminated only by the glow
from these tiny creatures.
When we got to Aukland it was quite a weird sensation.
We've been away from large cities for what seems such
a long time that the experience was a little
unnerving.
Anyways, I'm here now, but will leave tommorrow wo go
have a look around the very north before returning
back & leaving for Sydney.
Hope all is well with whatever you're up to.
Take it easy, Mark
Postscript - Gabrielle replied as follows:
Sounds like a fantastic time! Just time now for pedantic picky comment
from Aunty Gabs: for a graduate AND a player of Scrabble, your
spelling's APPALLING! I cannot put these gems down to typing errors....
(yours first, then correct)
sheep sheering -> shearing
tommorrow -> tomorrow (okay could be a typo rather than ignorance)
alceline -> alkaline
By the way, you don't look like Jack Osborne, feel relieved (I should
think).
As much as I hate to have missed Darius's single being
released in the UK, I've been continuing to enjoying
myself out here in New Zealand.
Listening to the radio has been quite funny at times.
The profanity laws must be different here or
something, because they've been fing and blinding on
the like sailors. Sweary sailors. We were listening to
Ski FM in the central plataux region - and the station
is on EVERYWHERE, playing a wide variety of music,
terrible adverts - one features a hideous Forest Gump
Impression "mumma always said snow is like a box of
chocolates, it melts in the sun". The main reason
people listen is for the Ski report - to find out
what's open. The main reason we turn of the radio is
because of Pink - her latest singles "Making Me Ill"
aand "Don't let me get me" are played absolutely
everywhere. I don't dislike the songs, but the blanket
airwave coverage has made me sick, Jo even more so.
We haven't been watching too much TV, and so I've been
catching up on some reading. Band of Brothers, The
Full Montezuma by Peter Moore, Walk in the Woods by
Bill Bryson , The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &
Klay by Michael Chambon. Peter Moore was one of Jo's
picks and was a very fun read.
When last I wrote, I was in Taupo, visiting places
that smell different (to put it politely). It made me
sing this klittle song (to the tune of Abba's
Fernando"): "There was something in the air that
night, it smelt like shite, in Taupo".
We relaxed in the hot springs there, which was fairly
unexventful except for one kid thinking i looked like
Jack Osbourne
http://www.mtv.com/onair/osbournes/family/jackosbourne.jhtml.
Which I don't entireley agree with.
After a particularly competitive game of Scrabble in
which Jo refused to belive that "dank" was a word
(http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=dank so there),
our next stop was National Park. National Park is
right next to Whakapapa (pronounced fak-a-papa without
giggling if possible) where there is a pleasant ski
field on the top of mount Rupehu, an active volcanoe
(which last errupted in 1996) www.mtrupehu.com .
The main reason we visited there was to meet up with
Tom Scruby, an exeter uni friend, who is working at a
cafe on the ski field. He seems to be having a cool
time there, and we had a pleasant time one evening
when the local bar organised a shnapps belly button
race.
National Park public transport isn't great, so most
days we would hitchhike to the top of the mountain
(the first time since New Years 2001/2) - but that
turned out well and we met some nice people. We almost
hitched a lift in a stretched white limo with the
license plate "GWBUSH", but we didn't so that doesn't
make a very good anecdote, sorry. On the first day we
tried Snowboarding, but a combination of horrible
weather, a rubbish instructor, and painful boots was a
little off putting. On the second day we spent 10
minutes on the ski field before the entire mountain
was closed due to blizzard conditions. We had to wait
3 hours for our coach - the one that was supposed to
take us was blown off the road on the way up. The next
2 days the weather improves and we got a good days
skiing in. Joanne had never been before, and after a
few initial tumbles, she seemed to pick it up very
natrually. After this encouraging progress we tried
another slope higher up and Jo was left rather out of
her depth. My bad. I think my dad did something very
similar the first time my mum went skiing.
Our next stop was Rotorua www.rotorua.co.nz - the
geothermal tourism capital of NZ, in fact its tourist
slant has earned it the nickname "Rotovegas". It's
moto is "Feel the spirit", but could have been "wiff
the egg", as the air has quite a strong nasty smell of
sulphur. We paid another visit to a hot spa,
www.polynesianspa.co.nz , which has alceline and
acidic pools, strong in all kinds of revitalising
minerals.
That evening, we did the must do activity in Rotorua,
a Maori hangi (feast) www.maoriculture.co.nz . It was
pretty commercial, but had to be done really. The
highlight for me was Jo exposing our Bus driver as
being a bit of a charlatan. She wanted him to explain
the difference between the words Waka and whaka - and
he was forced to admit that he couldn't actually sweak
Maori... despite taking the piss out of us as he tried
to teach us a few basic words a little earlier.
On Saturday we visited the NZ maori Arts and crafts
insitute at Tev Whakarewarewa www.whakarewarewa.com ,
but it was pretty touristy and we weren't overly
impressed. We far mor enjoyed the Agrodome
www.agrodome.co.nz . This place is the home of Zorbing
- rolling down the hill in a large plasic ball. I was
tempted to do it but decided against it. Very cool was
their sheep show - with lots of breeds, dogs doing
tricks, and sheering. Jo got to feed a baby lamb &
loved it the wee softie. We took photos of the sheep
Orking (check out http://www.monkeon.co.uk/orking/ to
see what i mean - a very funny website)
Our final day in Rotorua was hired a car and went on a
big geothermal tour. We started off at Wai-O-Tapu
www.geyserland.co.nz , home of the famous Lady Knox
gyser. It goes off at 10.15 every day - with a little
help from some soap powder which is poured into the
gyser. Next up was the Waimangu volcanic valley
www.waimangu.com where we took a boat cruise around
lake rotomahana and saw the still active mount
Tarawera. It was very beautiful, but weirdly the
area's main attraction (its spectacular pink and white
terraces) were destroyed over a hundred years ago. The
area's life was completely destroyed, and everything
is starting from scratch - it is bbilled as a look at
how life first began. Last on the day's itinerary was
Hells Gate www.hellsgaterotorua.co.nz , boiling
mudpools (that you can bathe in too). I think we'd
burnt out on seeing all these geothermal sights (and
smells) though and were left fairly underwhelmed.
Joanne commented on some people over a sulperous
cavern "II don't know why they're hanging around all
this stinking sulphur - just for the hell of it".
Leaving a trail of sulphur behind us we drove to
Aukland, stopping at Waitomo, to have a look at the
glowworm caves www.blackwaterrafting.co.nz . We has an
enthusiastic guide called Zane ("'cos I'm in-zane"),
who only had 2 fingers on one hand. The cave & glow
worm were well worth it and it was quite magical
floating in the darkness, illuminated only by the glow
from these tiny creatures.
When we got to Aukland it was quite a weird sensation.
We've been away from large cities for what seems such
a long time that the experience was a little
unnerving.
Anyways, I'm here now, but will leave tommorrow wo go
have a look around the very north before returning
back & leaving for Sydney.
Hope all is well with whatever you're up to.
Take it easy, Mark
Postscript - Gabrielle replied as follows:
Sounds like a fantastic time! Just time now for pedantic picky comment
from Aunty Gabs: for a graduate AND a player of Scrabble, your
spelling's APPALLING! I cannot put these gems down to typing errors....
(yours first, then correct)
sheep sheering -> shearing
tommorrow -> tomorrow (okay could be a typo rather than ignorance)
alceline -> alkaline
By the way, you don't look like Jack Osborne, feel relieved (I should
think).
Friday, August 23, 2002
A V R I L L A V I G N E !
In the words of Iggy, "CHRIST! She's.... BEAUTIFUL!"
And she ROCKS!
Seddon, you know me so well. Thanks for your information on upcoming Australian chicks. Who could forget us correctly predicting the rise of SSSSHHHAAKEEEERRRAAA?! I am now also doing a bit of work experience for T4's "Popworld", so I will attempt to wow them with my 'insider' knowledge.
Tom
In the words of Iggy, "CHRIST! She's.... BEAUTIFUL!"
And she ROCKS!
Seddon, you know me so well. Thanks for your information on upcoming Australian chicks. Who could forget us correctly predicting the rise of SSSSHHHAAKEEEERRRAAA?! I am now also doing a bit of work experience for T4's "Popworld", so I will attempt to wow them with my 'insider' knowledge.
Tom
Yay! Dolphins!
Sounds like the weather back home has been more changable than Michael Jackson's face (
http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Jackson.html ). Don't blame it on the sunshine, don't blame it on the moonlight, blame it on the el nino weather phenomenon. *
The last time I wrote, it was from the comically named Wanaka. Jo and myself have coninued our journey Northwards, and we are currently in Tuapo on the North Island of New Zealand.We've been able to quickly upload a few photos in this internet place - some of California, and some of our Dolphin dive; check them out here http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/bc/seddonism/lst?.dir=/Travel .
After Wanaka, we drove by coach to Franz Josef. As with most of the journey, it was very scenic - we stopped at a salmon farm and stuffed our faces with gorgeous salmon during the brief coach lunch stop. A comic was highlight was the coach driver giving a long lecture about not touching the electric fence next to a scenic photo point. Immediately afterwards, some japanese tourists leaned against it, oblivious to what he had just said. Fortunately for them, it was turned off. FJ is famous for its glaciers, and we went on an exhasting afternoon glacier hike http://www.franzjosefglacier.com .
Our next destination was Christchurch http://www.christchurchnz.net , and we travelled there on the famous Tranzalpine train through the Southern Alps and Arthurs Pass. It is reputed to be one of the best train journeys in the world and it wasnae bad. One of Christchurch's attractions is "The Wizard", a guy who rants outside the Cathedral. I'm not sure if it was him or not (he didn't have a pointy hat on), but he was hilarious, particularly when an even bigger nutter started arguing religious points with him: " There were 12 tribes in Judea!" "No there weren't" ... and so on.
We checked out the Canterbury museum & botanical gardens www.cantmus.govt.nz , the many second had bookshops andthe aqaruim. We were able to get a look at a real life Kiwi. It was a bizzare little thing, bobbing about in the dark - there aren't many in the wild any more after introduced species all but wiped them out.
After capuring the last episode of Xena Warrior Princess on TV, we headed to Kaikoura www.kaikouranet.co.nz , famous for it's local marine life. We started off with a whalewatching tour www.whalewatch.co.nz . The sea was pretty choppy , and the earlier tours the day had been cancelled - however we continued to be lucky with our weather and we were able to go. The sea was still pretty rough - almost half the people on the boat were sick (including Jo). As we watched from the boat, we saw almost immediately a group of Orca Killer whales, and lots of Albatros. The aim of the trip was to try and find a Sperm whale. We were lucky enough to see 2 - though we could only see a part of its back & blow hole and then its tail as it finally dived down, it was a pretty magical experience.
The next day, we went on a dolphin encouter www.dolphin.co.nz to go swimming with dolphins. The centre kitted us out with a full wetsuit (with gloves, mask etc) - essential in the cold water. They even hadd precription lenses for my goggles. Well, you can see the results in my potos! We also bought a disposable underwater camera. Soon after going out in the boat, we came by a pod of about 450 dusky dolphins. We swam off from the back of the boat, swimming with the dolphins and trying to take some pictures. Masses of dolphins were swimming by, looking at us, sometimes as many as 8 dolphins were close by - it was absolutely incredible. When the dolphins had swam by, we got back on the boat to catch up with them & repeat the experience - in all we had 4 swims. Afterwards, we wamed up on the boat with a warm shower and hot chocolate then sat on the boat, watching the dolphins swim by.
Kaicoura also has a large Seal colony, and we visited that before moving on to the nation's capital Wellington www.wellingtonnz.com . It has the slogan "Absolutely Positively Wellington". When we first got there we absolutely positively snoozed all afternoon. The following day we took the historic cable car up for a panoramic view of the city, and walked back down through the pleasant botanic garden www.wbg.co.nz . There we found a pleasant suprise - THE SEDDON MEMORIAL ! Needless to say, I was dead chuffed. It is a large memorial in honour of Richard "King Dick" Seddon. He was Prime Minister of New Zealand at the end of the 19th century and was pretty populat, and apparently is some sort of great uncle of mine. He was Prime Minister when women were granted the vote, though apparently didn't think it was a very good idea.
Afterwards we visited the Te Papa museum www.tepapa.govt.nz , which was pleasant enough. Incidentally, I don't believe that there is a "Yo Mamma" museum.
Leaving Wellington, we flew to Taupo on a tiny little prop plane which freaked my chicken, but Jo thought was cool. In Taup we exerted ourselves on an energetic walk (out of character, I know) along the Waikoto river, visiting "The Craters of the Moon", almost natuarally formed holes in the ground, pouring forth hot suphourous steam. I called them stink holes. The smell gave me a headache. We should next be visiting the natural springs here, before moving on to National Park in the Wakapapa region, Rotorua & Aukland.
Tip for the top: heard on TV and radio here a lot, Avril Lavigne & her single "Complicated" - I don't know if she's being played in the UK, but her No Doubt style tune, combined with Sarah Michell Gellar looks make her a sure fire hit (and obsessed about by certain presenters of the No Show radio show) http://www.avril-lavigne.com/ .
Hope all is well with you, I try to reply to all of your mails, and enjoy getting them, so feel free to reply. If you want to be taken off theis dist list, or know of someone that wants to be added, let me know. As always, I'll update http://seddonism.blogspot.com/ with the latest.
All the best,
Mark
* thanks to Geoff and David for that repeatedly stolen joke.
http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Jackson.html ). Don't blame it on the sunshine, don't blame it on the moonlight, blame it on the el nino weather phenomenon. *
The last time I wrote, it was from the comically named Wanaka. Jo and myself have coninued our journey Northwards, and we are currently in Tuapo on the North Island of New Zealand.We've been able to quickly upload a few photos in this internet place - some of California, and some of our Dolphin dive; check them out here http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/bc/seddonism/lst?.dir=/Travel .
After Wanaka, we drove by coach to Franz Josef. As with most of the journey, it was very scenic - we stopped at a salmon farm and stuffed our faces with gorgeous salmon during the brief coach lunch stop. A comic was highlight was the coach driver giving a long lecture about not touching the electric fence next to a scenic photo point. Immediately afterwards, some japanese tourists leaned against it, oblivious to what he had just said. Fortunately for them, it was turned off. FJ is famous for its glaciers, and we went on an exhasting afternoon glacier hike http://www.franzjosefglacier.com .
Our next destination was Christchurch http://www.christchurchnz.net , and we travelled there on the famous Tranzalpine train through the Southern Alps and Arthurs Pass. It is reputed to be one of the best train journeys in the world and it wasnae bad. One of Christchurch's attractions is "The Wizard", a guy who rants outside the Cathedral. I'm not sure if it was him or not (he didn't have a pointy hat on), but he was hilarious, particularly when an even bigger nutter started arguing religious points with him: "
We checked out the Canterbury museum & botanical gardens www.cantmus.govt.nz , the many second had bookshops andthe aqaruim. We were able to get a look at a real life Kiwi. It was a bizzare little thing, bobbing about in the dark - there aren't many in the wild any more after introduced species all but wiped them out.
After capuring the last episode of Xena Warrior Princess on TV, we headed to Kaikoura www.kaikouranet.co.nz , famous for it's local marine life. We started off with a whalewatching tour www.whalewatch.co.nz . The sea was pretty choppy , and the earlier tours the day had been cancelled - however we continued to be lucky with our weather and we were able to go. The sea was still pretty rough - almost half the people on the boat were sick (including Jo). As we watched from the boat, we saw almost immediately a group of Orca Killer whales, and lots of Albatros. The aim of the trip was to try and find a Sperm whale. We were lucky enough to see 2 - though we could only see a part of its back & blow hole and then its tail as it finally dived down, it was a pretty magical experience.
The next day, we went on a dolphin encouter www.dolphin.co.nz to go swimming with dolphins. The centre kitted us out with a full wetsuit (with gloves, mask etc) - essential in the cold water. They even hadd precription lenses for my goggles. Well, you can see the results in my potos! We also bought a disposable underwater camera. Soon after going out in the boat, we came by a pod of about 450 dusky dolphins. We swam off from the back of the boat, swimming with the dolphins and trying to take some pictures. Masses of dolphins were swimming by, looking at us, sometimes as many as 8 dolphins were close by - it was absolutely incredible. When the dolphins had swam by, we got back on the boat to catch up with them & repeat the experience - in all we had 4 swims. Afterwards, we wamed up on the boat with a warm shower and hot chocolate then sat on the boat, watching the dolphins swim by.
Kaicoura also has a large Seal colony, and we visited that before moving on to the nation's capital Wellington www.wellingtonnz.com . It has the slogan "Absolutely Positively Wellington". When we first got there we absolutely positively snoozed all afternoon. The following day we took the historic cable car up for a panoramic view of the city, and walked back down through the pleasant botanic garden www.wbg.co.nz . There we found a pleasant suprise - THE SEDDON MEMORIAL ! Needless to say, I was dead chuffed. It is a large memorial in honour of Richard "King Dick" Seddon. He was Prime Minister of New Zealand at the end of the 19th century and was pretty populat, and apparently is some sort of great uncle of mine. He was Prime Minister when women were granted the vote, though apparently didn't think it was a very good idea.
Afterwards we visited the Te Papa museum www.tepapa.govt.nz , which was pleasant enough. Incidentally, I don't believe that there is a "Yo Mamma" museum.
Leaving Wellington, we flew to Taupo on a tiny little prop plane which freaked my chicken, but Jo thought was cool. In Taup we exerted ourselves on an energetic walk (out of character, I know) along the Waikoto river, visiting "The Craters of the Moon", almost natuarally formed holes in the ground, pouring forth hot suphourous steam. I called them stink holes. The smell gave me a headache. We should next be visiting the natural springs here, before moving on to National Park in the Wakapapa region, Rotorua & Aukland.
Tip for the top: heard on TV and radio here a lot, Avril Lavigne & her single "Complicated" - I don't know if she's being played in the UK, but her No Doubt style tune, combined with Sarah Michell Gellar looks make her a sure fire hit (and obsessed about by certain presenters of the No Show radio show) http://www.avril-lavigne.com/ .
Hope all is well with you, I try to reply to all of your mails, and enjoy getting them, so feel free to reply. If you want to be taken off theis dist list, or know of someone that wants to be added, let me know. As always, I'll update http://seddonism.blogspot.com/ with the latest.
All the best,
Mark
* thanks to Geoff and David for that repeatedly stolen joke.
Thursday, August 08, 2002
Wotcha,
Welcome to the latest travel mailout, *now with hyperlinks* - oooh.
I've been in New Zealand for a wee while now and it's really cool - cold in fact. Moving from the summer heat of Californian desert to the Winter cold of Southern New Zealand was a bit of a shock! The first thing me & Jo did was to buy some warm clothers - gloves, hat & warm jacket.
Our flight over was faily eventful. It was supposed to be 14 hours, but was delayed by 2 hours as they decided to remove a couple of shady looking charcters from the plane (and then remove their luggage) - although we didn't really get to find out the reason why. We had this tiny Indian brat sitting next to us on the plane who was crying & screaming & basing his mum for absolutely ages (this was before we even took off) and his mum didn't try to shut him up at all. Eventually the cabin crew gave him a sedative whih knocked him out. NZ is 20 hours ahead of LA, so we lost a whole day on the flight. I wore my Monday socks in comemoration of that lost monday. We missed the connecting flight from Aucland to Dunedin because of the delay, but by some lucky fluke we were able to get on a different flight almost imediately.
Dunedin http://www.dunedin.com in the southeast of the South island was a nice little place - and realy reminded me of the UK. Dunedin is actaully gaelic for Edinburgh and is ment to be pretty similar. It's fairly cheap, and we got a roast pub lunch here for $6 - about 2 pounds. The town: a big student town, with lots of pubs, the steepest street in the world, a brewery http://www.speights.co.nz (we went on the tour), a botanical gardens and a pleasant Victorian house (with a cerayzee lady who does the tour - "improprieties - thats a lovely word"). Our hostel does some *award winning* nature tours of the Otago Peninsula http://wwwelmwidlifetours.co.nz , and we were able to see Royal Albatros, Fur Seals, Hoocker's Sealion and Yellow Eyed Penguins. We were only a ew metres away from the SeaLions on the beach, so it was pretty amazing. Oh, there were lots of sheep too
Our next stop was at Queenstown, famous as a resort for extreme sports. We skipped out on most of them, but did luge down the mountain, and go on a jetboat up the river http://www.shotoverjet.com (the jetboat ride made the water rides in Disneyworld look like somesort of mickey mouse organisation). We also stayed at a hostel that had a pretty weird owner - so that was fairly extreme too. Ish. We rented a car and drove up to the maginficently beatiful Milford Sound, picking up some hilarious Japanese hitchhikers, and some mischeavious Kea birds tried to pick at some of our car. We had a cruise at Milford http://www.fiordlandtravel.co.nz , taking in the fantastic views - the place really gave Yosemite a run for its money. We've also been tying to spot scenery from the Lord of the Rings movie, as a lot of it was filmed here.
We're now in Wanaka http://www.wanaka.co.nz , mostly chilling out before we move on. Pop fact: Many football referees comefrom this area, leading to the _expression "The referee's from Wanaka" *. The coolest thing here seems to be the eccentric looking cinema, with the seating made up of old armchairs - there is even a car in the cinema that you can sit in. We're going to see an arty film there tonight - "A Time For Drunken Horses".
Next stop - Franz Josef for glacier hiking, then catching the Tranzalpine train to Christchurch.
Until next time, batfans
Mark
* this fact is clearly made up. The sport is rugby, not football
Welcome to the latest travel mailout, *now with hyperlinks* - oooh.
I've been in New Zealand for a wee while now and it's really cool - cold in fact. Moving from the summer heat of Californian desert to the Winter cold of Southern New Zealand was a bit of a shock! The first thing me & Jo did was to buy some warm clothers - gloves, hat & warm jacket.
Our flight over was faily eventful. It was supposed to be 14 hours, but was delayed by 2 hours as they decided to remove a couple of shady looking charcters from the plane (and then remove their luggage) - although we didn't really get to find out the reason why. We had this tiny Indian brat sitting next to us on the plane who was crying & screaming & basing his mum for absolutely ages (this was before we even took off) and his mum didn't try to shut him up at all. Eventually the cabin crew gave him a sedative whih knocked him out. NZ is 20 hours ahead of LA, so we lost a whole day on the flight. I wore my Monday socks in comemoration of that lost monday. We missed the connecting flight from Aucland to Dunedin because of the delay, but by some lucky fluke we were able to get on a different flight almost imediately.
Dunedin http://www.dunedin.com in the southeast of the South island was a nice little place - and realy reminded me of the UK. Dunedin is actaully gaelic for Edinburgh and is ment to be pretty similar. It's fairly cheap, and we got a roast pub lunch here for $6 - about 2 pounds. The town: a big student town, with lots of pubs, the steepest street in the world, a brewery http://www.speights.co.nz (we went on the tour), a botanical gardens and a pleasant Victorian house (with a cerayzee lady who does the tour - "improprieties - thats a lovely word"). Our hostel does some *award winning* nature tours of the Otago Peninsula http://wwwelmwidlifetours.co.nz , and we were able to see Royal Albatros, Fur Seals, Hoocker's Sealion and Yellow Eyed Penguins. We were only a ew metres away from the SeaLions on the beach, so it was pretty amazing. Oh, there were lots of sheep too
Our next stop was at Queenstown, famous as a resort for extreme sports. We skipped out on most of them, but did luge down the mountain, and go on a jetboat up the river http://www.shotoverjet.com (the jetboat ride made the water rides in Disneyworld look like somesort of mickey mouse organisation). We also stayed at a hostel that had a pretty weird owner - so that was fairly extreme too. Ish. We rented a car and drove up to the maginficently beatiful Milford Sound, picking up some hilarious Japanese hitchhikers, and some mischeavious Kea birds tried to pick at some of our car. We had a cruise at Milford http://www.fiordlandtravel.co.nz , taking in the fantastic views - the place really gave Yosemite a run for its money. We've also been tying to spot scenery from the Lord of the Rings movie, as a lot of it was filmed here.
We're now in Wanaka http://www.wanaka.co.nz , mostly chilling out before we move on. Pop fact: Many football referees comefrom this area, leading to the _expression "The referee's from Wanaka" *. The coolest thing here seems to be the eccentric looking cinema, with the seating made up of old armchairs - there is even a car in the cinema that you can sit in. We're going to see an arty film there tonight - "A Time For Drunken Horses".
Next stop - Franz Josef for glacier hiking, then catching the Tranzalpine train to Christchurch.
Until next time, batfans
Mark
* this fact is clearly made up. The sport is rugby, not football
Thursday, August 01, 2002
Hey there, Tom D here. I've been in Birmingham recently acting in a play. While I was there I was lucky (?) enough to meet up with an ex of mine. Here is an excerpt from an email that I wrote to describe the event to a friend, and now... TO THE WHOLE WORLD! Ahahahaha! Ha ha! Oh.
"I also met up with my other friend Fiona [names changed for anonymity's sake], who I kinda got together with in the first year of university, only for her to tell me that she really loved her boyfriend and had to go back to him. Bah. Anyway, I met her initially at Christian camp, so I was a bit surprised when she started talking to me about her brisk trade in cooking hash cakes. She then showed me pictures of her new boyfriend. (Yes, the one she threw me over for did something unspeakably bad and they broke up.) Her new boyfriend in the pictures looks supergay, he is wearing a leopard fur hat cocked to a jaunty angle, he has a pierced eyebrow, and he is NAKED! NAKED! NAKED from the waist up. BUT NAKED NONETHELESS! And there's another photo of him. AND HE IS NAKED! (from the waist up) NAKED! And then she says "here's one of whateverthefuckhisnameis wearing my clothes". And he is now only PARTIALLY NAKED but the bit that is covered is in WOMEN'S ATTIRE! AND HE'S NAKED UNDERNEATH IT! NAAAKKEEEDDD! Sorry. Then, on the walls, there are four figures in paint. These relate to Fiona [name still changed] and her three female housemates. There are four sets of lips, perhaps printed in lipstick. There are four sets of hands. And there are four sets of two mysterious brown shapes about halfway down the body. I am looking at these, trying to decide what they are. Fiona joyfully points, "That's me!", and somehow I knew. And then it clicked. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh sweet Jesus, no. I am in a hell. Not THE hell, obviously, but maybe a suburb of hell. I feel cursed, having to drink tea and maintain polite conversation whilst all the while being mocked by brown paint prints of her breasts on the walls and the knowing glance of a gay naked man in a leopard fur hat saying "HAHAHAHAHA! You are an idiot! Two years ago, she liked you and now, I am wearing her hat. And I am NAKED! Have you ever been naked with her? No! But I am gay and I am wearing her clothes and underneath her clothes I am NAKED". It was a traumatic event."
"I also met up with my other friend Fiona [names changed for anonymity's sake], who I kinda got together with in the first year of university, only for her to tell me that she really loved her boyfriend and had to go back to him. Bah. Anyway, I met her initially at Christian camp, so I was a bit surprised when she started talking to me about her brisk trade in cooking hash cakes. She then showed me pictures of her new boyfriend. (Yes, the one she threw me over for did something unspeakably bad and they broke up.) Her new boyfriend in the pictures looks supergay, he is wearing a leopard fur hat cocked to a jaunty angle, he has a pierced eyebrow, and he is NAKED! NAKED! NAKED from the waist up. BUT NAKED NONETHELESS! And there's another photo of him. AND HE IS NAKED! (from the waist up) NAKED! And then she says "here's one of whateverthefuckhisnameis wearing my clothes". And he is now only PARTIALLY NAKED but the bit that is covered is in WOMEN'S ATTIRE! AND HE'S NAKED UNDERNEATH IT! NAAAKKEEEDDD! Sorry. Then, on the walls, there are four figures in paint. These relate to Fiona [name still changed] and her three female housemates. There are four sets of lips, perhaps printed in lipstick. There are four sets of hands. And there are four sets of two mysterious brown shapes about halfway down the body. I am looking at these, trying to decide what they are. Fiona joyfully points, "That's me!", and somehow I knew. And then it clicked. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh sweet Jesus, no. I am in a hell. Not THE hell, obviously, but maybe a suburb of hell. I feel cursed, having to drink tea and maintain polite conversation whilst all the while being mocked by brown paint prints of her breasts on the walls and the knowing glance of a gay naked man in a leopard fur hat saying "HAHAHAHAHA! You are an idiot! Two years ago, she liked you and now, I am wearing her hat. And I am NAKED! Have you ever been naked with her? No! But I am gay and I am wearing her clothes and underneath her clothes I am NAKED". It was a traumatic event."
Saturday, July 27, 2002
California here we come. Right back where we started from.
It's coming to the end of my month long stint in California (and bits of Nevada) now, and a lot has happened, but I've yet to be transformed into one of those traveller types. I'm not going on about how much love there is in my food. If there was any, I probably just mistook it for salt anyway. Our dining experience has been mostly fastfood anyway - thats terrible I know but is the quick and easy option. If I ever have another Burger King meal it will be too soon. We had a nice Happy Days style dining experience in "Mels Diner" in San Francisco, where they recorded some scenes for the George Lucas film "American Grafiti"
After many tearful farewels (I have that effect on people ;) ) , including a trip to the Mediteranian Cafe, which must be the MOST mediteranian cafe in the whole of London I finally made it to LA and met up with Joanne. The LAX airport having reopened after the shooting the day before! The shooting happened the floor above where I got in.
The thing about LA is that everything is BIG. Big cars, big roads, big food, big people. Driving around felt like the computer game Grand Theft Auto 3 - its the peppy radio ads that do it. "I want my baby back baby back baby back ribs" is the ad that is on the most and has infected my mind. We drove around a lot and took in the various sights - Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Sunset Boulevard, UCLA .
I went to Universal studios on which was pretty funky, but very hot. I enjoyed seeing the backlot tour which showed a lot of the scenery from some old school films including the clock tower from "Back to the Future". They were filming "The Hulk" at the time of the tour, but the shoot was closed to the public. Also at Universal was the rock musical "Spiderman Rocks" which was a little bit gay - there was this whole flirtation thing between Mary Jane and the Green Goblin to the No Doubt tune "Hey Baby", for example.
Leaving LA, we met up with Mel had a 12 hour drive along the scenic highway 1 from LA to Sanfrancisco. There were some really stunning views along the coast, passing lots of interesting places. This included Gilroy , " the garlic capital of the world" apparently - it boasted the catchprase " mmm... garlic!". I think they were being serious.
San Francisco is a lovely hilly city. Its a lot less hot than LA and is frequently covered in fog. The centre of the city is made up of several very distinct districts. Its like they designed a block in isolation and then plonked them down all next to each other - the financial, slum, chinatown, warf, gay and druggy areas all sitting next to each other. We did a lot of walking about which was interesting but tired out my poor wee feet. At one point we wondered into the slum area of Tenderloin which was a tad unnerving, but wasn't too bad. The fog obscured the views of the city a little - the fantastic views that are meant to be seen of the Golden Gate Bridge" and from "Twin Peaks" couldn't be seen.
I went to visit Alcatraz - "Wish you were here" and all that (boom boom). It lies just north of Sanfrancisco and it must have been a pretty spooky site when it was still open. We had a tour with headphones telling tales of prison life as we wandered about. A few days after the trip, I was able to see "The Rock" and "Escape from Alcatraz" films which was a little freaky - seeing the sights that I had just seen a little while before in person.
Next stop was Yosemite Park, a beautiful National Park East of San Fran. We stayed 3 nights and slept in a canvas cabin - a kind of tent/cabin hybrid thing. The sights around the park were beuoootiful, but it was too hot for too much hiking. We took in the sights and cooled off at the pool. We managed to see coyote and deer, but no bears or mountain lions. The park is famous for its bears - and you have to store all food and smelly things (such as toothpaste & suncream) in special bear boxes. The first night we stayed there I woke up in the night and heard these rushling & breathing noises outside and saw this gian shadow on the side of the tent. I convinced myself that it was a bear outside and was a little freaked out (I'm still not sure if it was or not). Anyways, the next couple of nights I slept much better with earplugs in.
- was paranoid from the noises in the night - thinking bears were gonna come get me.
Next we drove though Death Valley (where it gets so hot that thermometers can actually burst). We stopped along the way ata little town called Beaty. The most entertaining thing about the drive was passing all the brothels (3 along an otherwise deserted freeway) on the way there. "Shady Lady" brothel for all those tired mother truckers missing home. I don't really have too much to say about Death Valley as essentially its just hot and a desert and not too much else. So hot that it was painful to get out of the nice airconditioned car.
There aren't too many petrol stations in the desert though. We rolled into Vegas on our vapours. On the radio station the DJ was freaking out that it was raining, because it was so unusual.
We've been staying at Circus Circus in Las Vegas, which is a casino based on a ... circus theme. Its got a big indoor amusement park and a big top area, where circus acts perform every half hour. We had a look around most of the casinos, but didn't really get up to any gambling. The headache inducing "ding ding ding" of the machines was pretty annoying, and the fatties with their bucket of change, continually feeding it into the machines really put me off. Most of the casinos are pretty spectacular and have free attractions to lure you in. Weve went to Rio (with a carnival syle show in the sky), Mirage (which has Seigreid & Roy's beautiful tigers and dolphins - definitely a highlight so far), Trasure Island (with its mediocre pirate battle), the Venitian (with its mock up venice, complete with gondalas), Flamingo (with its manky looking Flamingos and Penguins), and Cesars Palace (with camp looking roman soldiers). Vegas is also famous for its buffets, and we had one at the Saharah - lots of food piled on with as many repeat servings as you want. I could feel myself getting fatter before I even started.
Vegas is also famous for its big shows (particularly magic), so Jo and I went to see the magicains Penn & Teller's show at the Rio. I really enjoyed their TV shows sho was looking forward to it. The show was pretty cool, and they performed their famous catching the bullet trick. Afterwards they came outside to meet the audience, so we were able to meet them and get photos taken with them.
We had a day trip to Zion National park, which is just a little bit to the North East of Vegas in Utah, and had a bus tour, taking in the scenery. Jo got a little ill (probly from bad water) and we extended our time in Vegas so that she could recover a little. One diverting afternoon was spent trying to find STA travel on Marlind Parkway. Hours later, we found out the rouad we were looking for was MARYLAND. Curse the Americans and their slightly different accents.
We spent a couple of days in Palm Springs, taking it fairly easy and took a trip up the Arial Tramway (which has the largest revolving cable car in the world apparently). Joshua Trree National Park is very close so we had a drive around there. We saw a whole bunch of the Joshua trees (looking like something out of a Dr Seuss book) and Jo stood on a bit of a cholla cactus - owchie!
We're now staying at Mel's uncle's house in La Habra (Orange County near LA) before heading to New Zeland on Sunday.
Take it easy now,
Mark
After many tearful farewels (I have that effect on people ;) ) , including a trip to the Mediteranian Cafe, which must be the MOST mediteranian cafe in the whole of London I finally made it to LA and met up with Joanne. The LAX airport having reopened after the shooting the day before! The shooting happened the floor above where I got in.
The thing about LA is that everything is BIG. Big cars, big roads, big food, big people. Driving around felt like the computer game Grand Theft Auto 3 - its the peppy radio ads that do it. "I want my baby back baby back baby back ribs" is the ad that is on the most and has infected my mind. We drove around a lot and took in the various sights - Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Sunset Boulevard, UCLA .
I went to Universal studios on which was pretty funky, but very hot. I enjoyed seeing the backlot tour which showed a lot of the scenery from some old school films including the clock tower from "Back to the Future". They were filming "The Hulk" at the time of the tour, but the shoot was closed to the public. Also at Universal was the rock musical "Spiderman Rocks" which was a little bit gay - there was this whole flirtation thing between Mary Jane and the Green Goblin to the No Doubt tune "Hey Baby", for example.
Leaving LA, we met up with Mel had a 12 hour drive along the scenic highway 1 from LA to Sanfrancisco. There were some really stunning views along the coast, passing lots of interesting places. This included Gilroy , " the garlic capital of the world" apparently - it boasted the catchprase " mmm... garlic!". I think they were being serious.
San Francisco is a lovely hilly city. Its a lot less hot than LA and is frequently covered in fog. The centre of the city is made up of several very distinct districts. Its like they designed a block in isolation and then plonked them down all next to each other - the financial, slum, chinatown, warf, gay and druggy areas all sitting next to each other. We did a lot of walking about which was interesting but tired out my poor wee feet. At one point we wondered into the slum area of Tenderloin which was a tad unnerving, but wasn't too bad. The fog obscured the views of the city a little - the fantastic views that are meant to be seen of the Golden Gate Bridge" and from "Twin Peaks" couldn't be seen.
I went to visit Alcatraz - "Wish you were here" and all that (boom boom). It lies just north of Sanfrancisco and it must have been a pretty spooky site when it was still open. We had a tour with headphones telling tales of prison life as we wandered about. A few days after the trip, I was able to see "The Rock" and "Escape from Alcatraz" films which was a little freaky - seeing the sights that I had just seen a little while before in person.
Next stop was Yosemite Park, a beautiful National Park East of San Fran. We stayed 3 nights and slept in a canvas cabin - a kind of tent/cabin hybrid thing. The sights around the park were beuoootiful, but it was too hot for too much hiking. We took in the sights and cooled off at the pool. We managed to see coyote and deer, but no bears or mountain lions. The park is famous for its bears - and you have to store all food and smelly things (such as toothpaste & suncream) in special bear boxes. The first night we stayed there I woke up in the night and heard these rushling & breathing noises outside and saw this gian shadow on the side of the tent. I convinced myself that it was a bear outside and was a little freaked out (I'm still not sure if it was or not). Anyways, the next couple of nights I slept much better with earplugs in.
- was paranoid from the noises in the night - thinking bears were gonna come get me.
Next we drove though Death Valley (where it gets so hot that thermometers can actually burst). We stopped along the way ata little town called Beaty. The most entertaining thing about the drive was passing all the brothels (3 along an otherwise deserted freeway) on the way there. "Shady Lady" brothel for all those tired mother truckers missing home. I don't really have too much to say about Death Valley as essentially its just hot and a desert and not too much else. So hot that it was painful to get out of the nice airconditioned car.
There aren't too many petrol stations in the desert though. We rolled into Vegas on our vapours. On the radio station the DJ was freaking out that it was raining, because it was so unusual.
We've been staying at Circus Circus in Las Vegas, which is a casino based on a ... circus theme. Its got a big indoor amusement park and a big top area, where circus acts perform every half hour. We had a look around most of the casinos, but didn't really get up to any gambling. The headache inducing "ding ding ding" of the machines was pretty annoying, and the fatties with their bucket of change, continually feeding it into the machines really put me off. Most of the casinos are pretty spectacular and have free attractions to lure you in. Weve went to Rio (with a carnival syle show in the sky), Mirage (which has Seigreid & Roy's beautiful tigers and dolphins - definitely a highlight so far), Trasure Island (with its mediocre pirate battle), the Venitian (with its mock up venice, complete with gondalas), Flamingo (with its manky looking Flamingos and Penguins), and Cesars Palace (with camp looking roman soldiers). Vegas is also famous for its buffets, and we had one at the Saharah - lots of food piled on with as many repeat servings as you want. I could feel myself getting fatter before I even started.
Vegas is also famous for its big shows (particularly magic), so Jo and I went to see the magicains Penn & Teller's show at the Rio. I really enjoyed their TV shows sho was looking forward to it. The show was pretty cool, and they performed their famous catching the bullet trick. Afterwards they came outside to meet the audience, so we were able to meet them and get photos taken with them.
We had a day trip to Zion National park, which is just a little bit to the North East of Vegas in Utah, and had a bus tour, taking in the scenery. Jo got a little ill (probly from bad water) and we extended our time in Vegas so that she could recover a little. One diverting afternoon was spent trying to find STA travel on Marlind Parkway. Hours later, we found out the rouad we were looking for was MARYLAND. Curse the Americans and their slightly different accents.
We spent a couple of days in Palm Springs, taking it fairly easy and took a trip up the Arial Tramway (which has the largest revolving cable car in the world apparently). Joshua Trree National Park is very close so we had a drive around there. We saw a whole bunch of the Joshua trees (looking like something out of a Dr Seuss book) and Jo stood on a bit of a cholla cactus - owchie!
We're now staying at Mel's uncle's house in La Habra (Orange County near LA) before heading to New Zeland on Sunday.
Take it easy now,
Mark
Friday, June 28, 2002
Another random old thing, found searching old newspaper reports. A court crime report from the DERBY
EVENING TELEGRAPH, featuring the names Mark Seddon and James McNally . What are the chances?
- Mark SEDDON (21), fined £330, ordered to pay £200 costs and
£400 compensation for criminal damage on February 12,
1999.
- James McNally MORRIS (JAMES MORRIS ) (34), given two
combination orders, each consisting of 80 hours'
community service and 12 months' probation,
for receiving stolen property and attempting to use a
stolen cheque on April 20, 1998.
Source: DERBY EVENING TELEGRAPH 29/09/1999
Incidently, James had this to say at the time:
First time on the URE forum, so I'm a bit nervous, but
just thought I'd put Mark Seddon right on the old crime thing. I'm afraid
unlike him I left the mean streets of Derby and its petty crime long
ago...check out http://www.ckfraud.org/mcnally.html for some of my more recent and
some would say slightly more psychotic exploits...p.s this sight is genuine,
found for me by a friend when looking for me on the web.
EVENING TELEGRAPH, featuring the names Mark Seddon and James McNally . What are the chances?
- Mark SEDDON (21), fined £330, ordered to pay £200 costs and
£400 compensation for criminal damage on February 12,
1999.
- James McNally MORRIS (JAMES MORRIS ) (34), given two
combination orders, each consisting of 80 hours'
community service and 12 months' probation,
for receiving stolen property and attempting to use a
stolen cheque on April 20, 1998.
Source: DERBY EVENING TELEGRAPH 29/09/1999
Incidently, James had this to say at the time:
First time on the URE forum, so I'm a bit nervous, but
just thought I'd put Mark Seddon right on the old crime thing. I'm afraid
unlike him I left the mean streets of Derby and its petty crime long
ago...check out http://www.ckfraud.org/mcnally.html for some of my more recent and
some would say slightly more psychotic exploits...p.s this sight is genuine,
found for me by a friend when looking for me on the web.
Monday, June 24, 2002
As part of my application to work at BBC's new urban music station a while back, I had to
In no more than 600 words, tell us about a music event that you
were involved in organising that has appeal to your target audience.
We'd like to hear about what you did.
Here's what I came up with. Apologies in advance.
As a station that broadcasted only to University halls of residence on medium wave, the opportunity to reach a much larger audience was much anticipated by the members of University Radio Exeter (URE). This was achievable via a restricted service license (RSL), which allowed us to broadcast citywide on FM. During the Citywide broadcast, we reached a large listenership and worked if it were a professional station, with 24 hour weekday and weekend coverage over a two week period. All this, and lectures too!
In February 1998, I took part in my second RSL at URE. My first had been a year earlier, when I presented the latenight show. This time around, I was a lot more involved in the station and the organisational side of things, as I had been elected as head of music. In addition, I was to present the midmorning breakfast show. My main concerns were therefore the preparation and and presenting duties for my own show, ‘Seddonism’, as well as the responsiblilities for the station’s musical output. The preparation & planning for the event began long in advance.
From he show side of things I was testing and piloting ideas on my medium wave show to find out what worked and what didn’t, and trying to build the best team that I could. I wanted to create a real buzz around the show, where the listener knew that she show would be packed with entertainment and wouldn’t want to miss a minute. With this in mind I came up with a series of different features that I could have every day. The items were a mix of comedy sketches which required quite a lot of writing, and features with a basic framework to improvise around. I had arranged a deal with a local pizza takeaway so that I could give away a pizza on my show everydayto As my show had the backing of a good team behind it too (Chris and Kirsty), it meant that they could do their own thing too - this gave me a slight break, and gave a chance for them to be in the spotlight too! For me though, presenting the show itself was the most satisfying and creative aspect as at the end of it all I could see the fruits of my hard work. ( http://www.markseddon.com/SeddonismFM99.html )
On the Station level, the launch involved a lot of work. As a committee member I was part of the meetings that decided how to go about this, including raising the money to go aheasd, attracting advertisers, programming decisions, publicity, events, jingles amd everything in between.
My personal responsibility was over the music. Through the good links that I had built up with pluggers and local stores, I was able to get the very latest music, as well as plenty of freebies to give away in competitions. I also was able to arrange several inverviews for the Citywide broadcast. I greatly enjoyed creating the playlist for the citywide broadcast. It enabled me to craft a station sound of diverse & exiting music to truly give an alterative to the sound of our rival stations. It was good to feel as though I were breaking a few quality tracks that wouldn’t otherwise be heard.
The strongest feeling that I’ll probably take away from the experience was that of the shared experience, and working as a solid team, whether it was the show called “Challenge Anarchists” where a group of DJs, including myself, would be set a series of bizzare challenges by the listeners (such as to become the most famous buskers in Exeter) , or the carnival float that was turned from a disaster into a triumph at the last minute, or the club nights that we organised and DJ-ed at. Ultimately though, the badge of success was the praise that we received from our listeners on the success that we made the event. And I still got my essay in on time.
Saturday, June 22, 2002
Howdy y'all...
"A Review Of An Unmarked Mix Tape I Found In My Car" By Mark Groeschner
This amused me, especially his discussion of the Spin Doctors song "How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me)".
I never bought a Spin Doctors album, but the Good Lord knows I was tested. Thank Him Above for self-restraint. If only He had persuaded me never to buy the Crash Test Dummies Album as well, I would be a happy man.
"A Review Of An Unmarked Mix Tape I Found In My Car" By Mark Groeschner
This amused me, especially his discussion of the Spin Doctors song "How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me)".
I never bought a Spin Doctors album, but the Good Lord knows I was tested. Thank Him Above for self-restraint. If only He had persuaded me never to buy the Crash Test Dummies Album as well, I would be a happy man.
Thursday, June 13, 2002
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
Monday, May 13, 2002
The Internet Archive Wayback Machine puts the history of the World Wide Web at your fingertips. The Archive contains over 100 terabytes and 10 billion web pages archived from 1996 to the present.
Check it here.
Even my sites there!
Check it here.
Even my sites there!
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Friday, April 26, 2002
Make your own weird celebrity fan page with this tool http://www.glastonbridge.co.uk/ninja
you just change some bits & insert links to pictures n stuff
Here's some we made earlier:
http://www.glastonbridge.co.uk/ninja/Will%20Jelbert0/
http://www.glastonbridge.co.uk/ninja/melanie%20white4/
http://www.glastonbridge.co.uk/ninja/marmot1/
Cool stuff. Beat that fatboys!
Tuesday, April 23, 2002
Hello there.
I'm mark and I've been an alchoholic longer than Tom, and I'm better than he is at it... or something
Today I have mostly been listening to dictionaraoke : bored electronic voices over midi versions of old classics.
Old Tommy Cooper joke:
it's strange, isn't it. You stand in the middle of a
library and go 'Aaaaaaagghhhh!' and everyone just stares at
you. But you do the same thing on an aeroplane, and
everyone joins in.
I'm mark and I've been an alchoholic longer than Tom, and I'm better than he is at it... or something
Today I have mostly been listening to dictionaraoke : bored electronic voices over midi versions of old classics.
Old Tommy Cooper joke:
it's strange, isn't it. You stand in the middle of a
library and go 'Aaaaaaagghhhh!' and everyone just stares at
you. But you do the same thing on an aeroplane, and
everyone joins in.
Sunday, April 21, 2002
Hello there. My name is Tom and I have been an alcoholic for nine years.
Today, I will be regailing you with my friend Kinky Will's idea for a movie. It's good.
"I have come up with a concept for a film about a mass murderer called 'Severn' where the guy goes around killing people in the style of British rivers. So there's the Ouse where he hangs the guy on a spike and lets him bleed, the Lea where he kills the guy from Steps, the Trent where he releases terrible songs till everyone kills themselves, the Clyde where he kills an Orangutang, the...uh...Great Ouse where he hangs him on a really high spike and...er...so on and so forth."
© Kinky Will 2002
Marvellous.
Today, I will be regailing you with my friend Kinky Will's idea for a movie. It's good.
"I have come up with a concept for a film about a mass murderer called 'Severn' where the guy goes around killing people in the style of British rivers. So there's the Ouse where he hangs the guy on a spike and lets him bleed, the Lea where he kills the guy from Steps, the Trent where he releases terrible songs till everyone kills themselves, the Clyde where he kills an Orangutang, the...uh...Great Ouse where he hangs him on a really high spike and...er...so on and so forth."
© Kinky Will 2002
Marvellous.
Wednesday, April 17, 2002
Ashley Walters from So Solid Crew is to celebrate his 18-month stint in prison with a new single.
The title is "I Got 46,656,000 Seconds To Go". Maybe.
http://www.blogjam.com/asher_d/
The title is "I Got 46,656,000 Seconds To Go". Maybe.
http://www.blogjam.com/asher_d/
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
Its National Marmot Day*!! To celebrate, here are 2 marmot links.
Anti Porno Page - the Marmot
Marmot bounching fun
Enjoy,
Mark
*made up.
Anti Porno Page - the Marmot
Marmot bounching fun
Enjoy,
Mark
*made up.
Friday, March 22, 2002
Today I have mostly been enjoying Lascivious License Plates:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/blueplate/blueplate.html
Lovely
Thursday, March 21, 2002
Well Hello there,
Thought I'd try my had at this blogging thing. Lets see how it goes
Mark
PS
Stare at this magic eye picture until you see the cherubs
http://www.jim.hern.com/cherubs/
Thought I'd try my had at this blogging thing. Lets see how it goes
Mark
PS
Stare at this magic eye picture until you see the cherubs
http://www.jim.hern.com/cherubs/
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