Funtheque

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2007-10-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

So the trip home did not go well, first my lame attempts to preempt the body clock change by staying up late in London just meant that I was tired a lot, then the nice quite dinner in London to say good bye turned into an epic battle vs a host of generals that resulted in an extremely hungover Bill having to battle the tube to Heathrow resulting in a poor attitude towards domestic travel, let alone international travel.

Then the big plan to sleep on the plane resulted in exactly 0 minutes of sleep for the full 30 hours of travelling- left home at 8 am Thursday morning and got into the Shangri La right on midnight Friday- it was not the best thing that has ever happened. Once off the plane I had to go out with the lads, resulting in the much needed sleep being delayed even further. Saturday more disasters occured when yours truly bravely took on the favorites in the big race, only to see the one horse I didn't want to win ruin my trifecta chances. More problems occured Saturday night when uncle charlie tracked us down in Wello Point and once again the desperatly needed sleep was put off.

Against better advice we did get up for golf Sunday morning, once again only 3 hours of sleep was achieved, the tragedy here was that I got done not by better skilled oponents but by the wobbles hitting inexplicably as we made the turn going 9.9, to ruin a handy looking round. The final tragedy of the journey occurred this evening when our Aria's party turned into a massive bust when I had a jet lag crash and needed a sleep, now of course its the middle of the night and I can't sleep- unruckii...

Anyways, overall I'm currently at 10.5 hours of sleep in the last 3 or so days, things are not going overly well. On the up side the overall plan was to get home, go out boozing, put on some bets, catch up with my peeps, get laid, tee it up, and go to the beach- so far the only thing remaining to do is hit the beach and that should be achieved tomorrow morning.

And so we have reached the end, not really sure where the future for this blog lies, but for the whole travel blog concept I am no longer travelling so who knows? it was good.

The Trip At A Glance

2007-10-23T06:10:00.000-07:00

For those who haven't been keeping up with their Funtheque'ing here is a quick snapshot of the trip:

Funtheque, Covent Garden Walkie, She Bo/Church/She Bo, Monkey Leaves, New Years at Brick Lane, Bobby shutting me out, Red Back Oz Day, Waitangi Day at Big Ben, Walkie Pub Crawl, Spurs Fullham 4-0, Bobby Leaves, High Rolling at Monte Carlo, F+L at Rascasse, Lady Anna of Fire, Stonehenge/Badminton/Bath in one day, Engrishness party, Browns on the Wharf, the history of the bike, Steyns kick at the Shafterbury Avenue, missing the train to Dover, starving in Dunkirk-lost in Ghent, Bogged in Ghent, Free Camping Compignere, Jean the Sud African, Davrossi 90210, twice in one day, Col De Colombiere, parking on a 9% angle, hardbodies in Geneva, broken at UNESCO, F+L Geneva, Antibes, Pantsed at Monte Carlo, old town Montpellier, 50 HOURS ON THE MOUNTAIN, Dave the legend, camping Masnou, sign language in Pamplona, kloss breaks, Nudist camp site, More rose in Cahors, the Freedom, Champs Elyse, The Freedom, get rid of the lads, Vercingetorix statue, the beach Villenerve Loubert, Trapped by a troll, Maranello, Puc Fest, No F1 in Lucca, no Uffizi in Firenze, lame old Collosimo, finding religion at St Pietro, being a hater in Naples, watch out for the Volcano Pompeii, battle of Cannae, F+L in Bari, biggest motorhome on the ferry, F+L on the road to Delphi, lots of beach time in Greece, lose the bus in Larissa, finally like the place in Thessalonki, Free Wifi in Turkey, Gallipoli, Camping Istanbul, Will I ever see a champion win a race? Istanbul, Bulgaria, Serbia in a day, Eyes out of the head in Belgrade, not feet down in Croatia, Slovenia, back to Italia, too cool in Venice, Nubucco under the stars in Verona, tricking my way into the Last Supper, Testing in Monza, F+L at the border, Mountain climbing in the Messy Dayz, getting cut in Paris by the Griff, Duggan + Kloss and the Planet Hollywood, Fuc lost on the Champs, Lyon for the opener, the blow up screen, Wristy is born, Jay and Super T, Fuc 0 Charlie 1, Cat the hottie, the Mayor of Lyon, Fuc rides again on the ferry, parting of the ways in Londres, the Roadhouse, sick and lost Cardiff, Huggy Bears Boogey Bar, BT's not a closer, so close Canada, traffic on the M4, free camping in Calais, tears at the Somme, gaye Paris, Chris White ruins the night, the Time Warp, long haul to montpellier, another Ayers Rock, BT's not a closer, Antibes again, thrown out, 100 shots, Wristy and BT bug out, no campsites in Bordeaux, Tunnies German Adventure, too much Rose, back to the beach again, pantsed again in Monte Carlo, Crystal Jerks in Cannes, Fuc 0 Charlie 2, tragedy in Marseille, BT steals Kloss's passport, dumping the bus, escaping on the Eurostar, stuck in London, Abbey Road is lame, thank christ for Kimi, home at last.

Lamest Tourist Attractions Ever

2007-10-23T05:12:00.000-07:00

Wow, I've been around you know, and I can tell you that London is the worlds most boring city to get stuck in for a fortnight after you've spent your summer going around Europe.

After the extreme success that was the bug out from France I was very positive about my chances of an early flight home and a few weeks recovering on the beach in Brunswick. Unfortunately it was not to be, my travel agent could not come up with a seat any earlier then the one I had previously organised so I had to deal with the tragedy of an entire fortnight sitting around this dark and deary city.

Desperation set in after a day or two sitting on the couch, so I've been searching around for ways to fill my days - its been a stretch. First I tried computer games - Age of Empires and Tiger Woods golf for PC are excellent games, but unfortunately theres only so much time one could spend on a computer.

So I decided to be a little bit active, and decided to play golf. With a glint in my eye and clubs under my arms I set of across Hackney to the little par 3 course that doubles for a Golf Course over here. The play was horrible, as was the conditions- Fucking England, a delightful bright day, but it was still freezing cold, in the end it wasn't enjoyable at all.

Almost out of answers I decided to try some of the many tourist attractions that were still left for me to see in Londres. I had deliberately left Lords till last when I was here earlier in the year, so I set off to do that for the day. It turned out that right near Lords was Abbey Road and the Abbey Road Studios- famous for the Beatles album cover, BT and Wristy had put me onto it earlier in the trip. So I went along, and I can say without reservation (up to this point) that it was the lamest thing I have ever seen.

(Its a fucking Zebra Crossing for Christ Sakes)

Anyways, I spent maybe thirty seconds watching the lame wads running across the road whenever the traffic lightened to get their pictures taken then headed off to Lords in disgust. Thankfully Lords was an excellent way to pass some time, well worth the visit, the perfect way to get my head in the right place for the upcoming battle of the Gabba Stack A Thon.

(Brighton Peer- A new contender for lamest tourist attraction ever)

Anyways, that was last Thursday, so Friday I decided to do a day trip to Brighton, famous for its beaches and its Peer. I was picturing something along the lines of Cannes, maybe Nice, certainly not Monaco, but something pretty cool at least. Simply it was just another town, with a lame beach and a Peer- not really knowing what to expect I went to the Peer- and it wasn't very exciting- anyways, I don't want to run it down too much- see it for yourself. But I won't be going back.

I woke up on Saturday thankful that I had managed to live through the week, but then realised that I still had a full week to go in this snore town. Saturday I watched the rugby- was good, got very drunk, Sunday watched the F1- was good, got very drunk. And since then I have spent all my time sitting on the couch watching the clock tick down towards Thursday lunch time - 46 hours to go- very excited.

Running Away

2007-10-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

Our only idea in the world after the horror that was Marsaille was getting the hell off the continent. Of course that was never going to be as simple as you would have hoped it would be, we had to get rid of the bus, pack or bin all our worldly possessions and somehow post the Kloss Push Cycle back to Australie.

We hired the bus in Frankfurt, so in theory were supposed to drop it back there, but no one, and I mean not a single one of us, were interested in going any where near the Rhineland so we decided that they would just have to let us leave our bus in Paris (David Duchovny is an executive producer in Californication- now we know how he got to bed the Madeline Zima character...) so Sunday early we woke up for Fuc to do the big drive to Marseille airport for Ness, BT and his flight to Cairo. Nothing is ever simple with Fuc unfortunately so we all had to get out bed to aid in the navigation, and of course a bit of hide thier baggage high jinks. Anyways we eventually got them to the airport an hour after we planned and we assume they got off to Eygpt all right.

This left the Kapitan, Wristy and I with three days to get to Paris for the Kloss to fly out and the bus to be dropped off. We decided to head to Lyon, site of our most rock n roll weekend on the trip (free drinks in Premier Class on the Eurostar- rock n roll) anyways, Lyon city of dreams, we set off for one last night out in our favorite town. Unfortunatly the Ayers Rock was not open when we blew into town so our plans for the evening were dashed.

Thankfully the Fijians decided to play one of the more exciting matches of the world cup that afternoon so our day wasn't a total wash, eventually the Aussie Pub of dreams opened and we partied for a few hours, but our hearts weren't really in it, the cumulative effect of 100 days straight on the turps and the come down of our crazy Friday night were stopping us from really getting going.

The next day we left early for Paris intent on getting out of town as fast as possible, nothing wrong with that things were going well. We were chipper, we were going home, we were so high on life we decided to have an AFD - after 100 days it seemed like the thing to do (FUCK ME - they just brought around a kick arse lunch menu- for an extra 100 euro Class 1 is definatly worth the money- were talking, Caribbean Pork Curry or Sea Bream with a side dish of salmon + veges and a blueberry tart).

It was when we got to Paris that things began to go wrong, over the course of the trip everyone has taken turns using their passports to check us into campsites, everyone but the Kloss that is, so most of us had a good idea where our passports where, most of us but the Kloss that is. He had lost it. That's right LOST HIS PASSPORT, the man is rediculous enough to have lost the most valuable identification document he had. The Fear and Loathing descended, to add to the chaos we had to deal with cleaning the bus and binning about 15 bags worth of rubbish off the bus, and we realized that McRent didn't have a return office in Paris- we managed to stick to our AFD pledge, but it wasn't the relaxing eve we had imagined.

So the next morning we got up bright and early and went to the embassy in order for Kloss to get out fo the country - right? Wrong, we fucked about for hours and hours and then headed into town, I wasn't impressed. We eventually got into town and went to the Embassy, it turned out that getting a replacement passport was fucking simple so our F&L dissipated for the moment. Our next challange was getting rid of the push bike - the plan was to simply rock up to Fedex and get a box - the survey says Unruckiii.

Things were getting bleaker, Kloss was going to be able to fly out of the country in 24 hours, but it looked to me that I was going to be driving the bus to Frankfurt and somehow wheeling Kloss' bike onto the plane- I got a descent wack of the Loathing at this point. Thankfully once we got back to the bus we manged to find a big box at Carrefours and the Germans came through allowing us to drop the bus in Paris. Life was good again, so we decided to have an epic night on the booze to say good bye to our favorite moterhome- The Messy Dayz Express. Good times, good times.

So this morning we had a series of challenges, drop the bus to campsite on the other side of town, pick up the Kloss's new passport, go to Fed Ex, drop TGO to Gare De Nord, and get on flights home. Plenty of to do items, somehow we pulled it off; we cried when we said goodbye to Messy and everything else went perfectly. The lads dropped me at the Train station at around ten to twelve and by 19 past we were speeding off towards Londres, we've just entered a tunnel- Bills Continental European Adventure is OVER!!!

Getting the Fuck Out

2007-10-09T11:07:00.001-07:00

So after Bordeaux we headed down to the Cote. Tempers were short, attitudes were poor, tensions were simmering, the only thing we could do for the week was head to the greatest coast in the world and recharge our batteries.

For all those who don't know the Cote De Azur streches from St Tropez to Menton just off the Italian border and inclueds Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Eze and Monaco. We chose a camp site just outside of Cannes which was only 500 metres from the beach- a result. We had the perfect week on the coast holiday (right till the end) time on the beach, a few day trips, and a couple of Nice (sic) dinners.

Tuesday night we had dinner at The Festival (we were tourists...) in Cannes, the tax man will eventually see a claim for this one (thank christ Fuc and Cheese are clients) as we went a little bit silly.

Wednesday we went down to Marsaille to get the QF tickets and then did a quick tour of St Tropez, which was a little disapointing but did have a cool sailing regatta on (seriously 1000 yachts on the harbour) (look for TGO sporting a Voile St Tropez shirt (Dav get your French transaltor out)) (how am I going with the paranthesis in this post?). Thursday we did the day trip to Monaco - Fuc and Ness were suitably wowed by Cafe de Paris, The Fairmont, and the Casino Monte Carlo. I however was a little miffed when I went to the Ranier III complex for a quick dip and big yellow ducked behind the clouds, also bringing a downer to the day was when Fuc cleaned house on the black jack tables and Ness cleaned house on the messy Dayz express poker tournament... seriously she had three buy in's and then managed to fluke a victory at the end of the night - she may have won 50 bucks, but it only cost me 5 - that's how many times she and Rhys brought back in.

Anyways, Friday was the end of our perfect week in the coast so we hit the beach for some serious getting our Tans on. Late in the afternoon we realized that it was our last night in the South of France, so was our last chance to have a night out with Cheese (for like years I am talking about- he is never coming home), So where were we? right the Friday night, last chance for the Kloss, Cheese and TGO show to reconnect for years. We decided for Cannes as the scene of our freakout, and a freak out it was. I decided to wear my EMO outfit just too set the tone for the evening, when we walked into Mac Dee's Cannes and their were a bunch of teenage punks waiting in line they couldn't believe the figure I was cutting.

We started with a quaint Irish bar, but quickly grew tired of that when Super T and Charlie showed up so we headed for Tantra, a far too cool club just off the main tourist strip that aided us in our campaing to go insane. Crystal and shots flowed in a way that isn't appropriate for out of work bums who are driving a camper around Europe. It was seriously the most rock n roll we have ever achieved. There was champagne drunk from the magnum, champaigne poored over girls clevages, shots poured down randoms throats, grindings from whores with stripper bodies, and much dancing on tables/seats. For the full effect I will throw to my notes:

"Kloss just used the Ari Gold hurricane hand gesture 4 doubling up on a magnum of Krystal; Uncle Charlie is circling the block in his hired Puegot 306 waiting, just waiting, for another victim; Fuc and Super T are dancing on their seats, Fuc dances like a dream; Cheese is lost to us, girls throughout the club are wondering what does 'Do you want to see my Galley?' mean (ed: he's a chef on a super yacht- work it out); ITs 5 oclock somehere, but its 1 am here, there could be a QF in 13 hours from now, but right now Ness is in too ticht D+G brand new jeans which are crying out for some inappropriatness. More to follow. PS- EMO Bill is on debut."

+ 3 Minutes: " Kloss just skulled from our fresh magnum, fed to him by our police hat wearing waiter, ACDC was briefly pumped over the top of the house crap in respect. I'm asking for a rolex in 45 minutes."

Much Later: "A fucking Sepo promised me pilles in the pisser line, he just stole the birthday girl and her friends out of my arms, Fucking J Lo's people (ed: I didn't get the pills). The lads have broken part of the roof with their hands from too much dancing."

"We've moved on now, Tristan all 6 foot of his fucking frame is talking to Lili (ed: her name was actually Lori), Kloss has usurped me for 'I don't know her name" but Lili works with the Rock, so is cooler (ed: the chicks were production type people in Hollywood). I have been shuffled to third in the pack. Note: When dealing with hollywood types do mention your height and wealth, do not mention Stone Cold Steve Austin or your shorter statuer. Ness says high."

By Kloss: "Dear Lori, I love you so much I cant stand it. I will wear glitter every day to make you happy. I will paint my toenails balck to fulfuil all your sexual fantasys. That is all you have asked of me and that is 'unclear word'. I love you. Always, Kloss."

Hey man look at me rocking out I'm on the radio. So obviously the more astute of you would have realised we moved onto a second club, it was called Le Blitz. they had copius amounts of Glitter on the tables so we spread it all over ourselves, seriously it is a week later and I still have glitter on me. They also had a girl selling shots and lap dances for 10 euros' a steal. Chesse talked our way into a VIP section by telling them we were wallabies- it worked well.

Anyways, eventually the night came to an end- as they all do, it was dawn. We left the club around 5 and decided to go for a swim when we got back to the campsite. The sun wasn't up so we decided to get naked. Fuc set a record for the longest nudie run ever, I don't know how the 1.2 km round trip from the campsite to the beach and back took us 90 minutes, we only swam for 5 of those minutes, but if anyone can claim to a longer nudey run, in public, I doff my cap to them. Eventually we went to bed 7:30.

90 minutes later we were up and driving to Marsaille, 150 km's doesn't seem too long the night before but when your bus ways 4.5 tonnes and you are still drunk from the biggest night of your life, its a hellish trip.

Anyways, not much happened after that, I think some rugby was played, who really knows, I know the AB's LOST, that's right LOST, they CHOKED, the Wallabies were beaten by the reigning champs, the AB's lost to the monkey's who struggled to beat the Irish, that's right the Irish, earlier in the year. That's a respectible result.

Right now we are doing all we can do to dump the bus (the messy dayz stickers have been removed) and get the fuck out of continental Europe. Soon pet, Soon.

Cabin Fever

2007-10-05T02:32:00.000-07:00

Cabin Fever is a killer, its well documented, when you get stuck in your cabin for too long a crazy fever decends and you go on a killing spree of your fellow campers.

We first encounted this horrible afliction in Sydney 05, the ICC Super Test, the three tour de fearists and RWC blow in Fuc spent four nights in an 8 by 10 cell doubling as a Hostel Room. Well after three long days at the cricket the final night of that trip has lived in infamy as four people lay on seperate beds not sleeping, but not acknowleding each others presence, all caught in a personal hell that should never be shared with any other. Three days of hard drinking sent our bodies into a strange kind of non sleeping/non talking/ violently smelling funk that made for one of the worst nights sleep I have ever had. The piece de resistance that night came around 4 am as the mighty Kloss made the mad dash for the bathroom for a second taste of the previous nights dinner.

We thought we had learnt alot from that experience, we thought we would never run across the evils of cabin fever again (we certainly have never gotten so small a hostel room again...). At le tour we managed to stave off cabin fever, even when we sat on the side of the Plateau de Belle for 50 hours, the memory of our Sydney nightmare ensuring that all respected each others space.

It turns out that at RWC we have picked up a few greenhorns, a few less hearty soles who don't have internal defences against the forces of evil. It started last week after we got thrown out of our campsite in Villinerve Lobout. The weather turned on us that day and we got stuck in the bus, and really stuck, all the towels got soaked, as well as the tents, we were stuck in an 8 m by 3 m motorhome for about 48 hours (well some were, the more adventerous of us spent copious time in the sauna and in Antibes) and it turned out to be more then some could handle. So BT and Duggan tapped out on Friday and caught a plane to Scotland, the thought of spending even one more second in the bus was too much for them. The fever had struck them down, the pace apparently was a little too much for those southern girly mean.

The rest of us had to hit the old frog and toad for the western city of Bordeaux and the Aussie Canadia final pool match. We were slow getting on the road and slow intransit, so slow in fact that by the time we got to the destination there were no campsites with in 100 kilometres. So after our two days of hell on the Cote we were all of a sudden faced with the prospect of two nights free camping on the back streets of Bordeaux, the remaining green horn- Ness, was on the ragged edge (we were also out of water in the bus- I told her to shower that morning, its not my fault she choose to go without...).

Saturday was game day, so we woke early and moved the bus from the Truck stop we slept in, into the middle of town, finding a deamon car park on a side street just near the main train station. We had to jam the bus up on the sidewalk to ensure traffic could still flow, but we felt if was a fair spot.

The game was a bit of a wash, the combination of the Wallabies third stringers, the rain, and referee Chris White (is this mother fucker seriously haunting us at the moment or what?) ensured that the game was a complete snore fest, that was of course until late in the second half when Tiquiri earnt himself the nickname of 'Le Butcher' after merclesly butchering one of the most cut and dried try scoring oppurtunities I have ever scene. The man is without redeeming qualities, I can not CAN NOT believe he was not immediatly dragged from the field in disgrace- it was so horrifying it was actually quite funny. As he approached the line we all began taunting him with the Butcher call- although it looked like we were the ones who would have egg on our face as Drew Mitchel loomed on his shoulder, completely unmarked with only 5 metres to go to the line, but some how, the monkey that is the Butcher of Bordeaux decided to go himself and distroyed the simplest five pointer in the history of Rugby Football- How the man continues to justify the air that he breathes is beyond me.

We had been told in Montpellier that the place to party in Bordeaux would be the Frog and Rosebif, so after some warm up pints watching the mighty Fiji deal with the Welsh we headed down to the Frog in search of glory. What we found were married women, it was crazy, we spoke met four females almost without trying and I was getting excited about our prospects in Bordeus but each one (we met them individually) ended up introducing us to their husbands, whores.

After a few hours of swinging and missing, and the stupid Itai's losing to the equally stupid Scotts we decided to head off in search of adventure, Fuc swore he had found a "way cool" Absolute bar earlier in the day, so he lead the charge in search of new fun. Hours (seemed to) pass as we walked the cobbled stoned streets of the old quarter looking for this fucking Vodka bar - on the upside it was a spectacular way to get some quality touristing done, but on the downside we began to sober up. Young Michel Tunny (its Michel not Michael in french) took the initiative and got a nice looking older lady (apparently the tunny age group these days) to show us to a happening bar. We ended up at a club called Bodega Bodega, which was cool, but eventually we had to leave as the irony of the decor (cured meats and hams hanging above the bar) and the presence of the newly crowned Bucther of Bordeaux standing at the bar became too much to bear - on a side note we left the club at 11:55 and he was still there- either he can run faster back to a hotel to beat curfew then he can on the field, or J Oniel has the wool pulled over his eyes.

We headed back to the bus, a little early maybe, but it had been a long day. As we got back to the bus a group of German students were walking by on their way to the random Dance club that just happened to be on the same side street as the M D Express... a result. As everyone knows we hired the Messy Dayz in Frankfurt so we have been putting up with having a D on our number plate for the entire trip, this time is was a bonus however, 'You come from Germany' the cute brunette asked in a think Rhineland accent, "no australia" Kloss and Fuc mangaed to stutter, "Ma moname est Michel" (no idea how to spell the German) old Tunny pronounced in a clear thick voice as he crossed the street to welcome our new friends- they were suitabley impressed by his grade 8 German that they invited us to the Boogey Woogey bar down the road.

After a few drinks back in the bus I got up to go to the clubs, hopeful that at least one of my wing men would be up for the challange I looked at each in turn. Michel was too spent from his German speaking endevours to be able to back it up at the clubs, Fuc was too scared that his dark features would get him ostrazised with a group of Germans, and Kloss was just too old to be out after midnight- so I went in alone. A quick shout out to Maria, Cat and Stephanie- thanks for the good night. Eventually we left the club and I headed back to the Messy Days, unfortunatly we had parked the bus in such a way that the only way in was threw the Drivers Door, which you can't get into if someone is in the Hammock Bed, Fuc in all his wisdom was in the hammock. I was dealing with the problem of getting into the bus when my German friends, who I thought I had struck out with came up and suggested we move the party inside the bus... Now I'm no Don Juan but even I can see the signs, we were finally in the position were girls we actually wanted to sleep with (sorry the lesbians in Cardiff) wanted to bored the Messy Days Express, I ummed and I ahhed, I tried to lift the Hammock bed up with Fuc still inside, I suggested we go back to their place, but the moment was gone. Fuc had quite litteraly cock blocked me. The girls left and eventually I managed to wake Fuc up to let me in the bus, but it was a long cold night tossing and turning with only him to cuddle with.

One thing about free camping is you often get stuck in the bus more then you do when at a campsite, you can't really set up the Messy Dayz card table and chairs when your on the side of the road. So by Sunday the lingering Cabin Fever that had struck Ness, BT, and Wristy in Antibes was beggining to have its effect on the rest of us. We tried to avoid it by getting inappropriatly drunk at the big screen in the middle of town (Rose- the silent killer) but it didn't work. The Messy Dayz was transformed into a time machine and all of a sudden we were back in the Hostel Room in Sydney, Four people on the tail end of a week long bender, bodies refusing the much needed sleep that was on offer, body heat and sweat making conditions comparable to the Mekong Delta. I hid in the Fort setting my defenses against any possible fever driven attacks from fellow bus members and listened in fear to the tossing and turning that ensured. Once again it was Kloss who broke, he didn't drive the porcelean (well its more plastic in the MD Express) bus but he eventually swore "Fuck it I need to get out of here" and started the bus and drove us out of Bordeaux, none of us were complaining, it was the sensible option. We drove the entire day with all windows open, no one speaking, no one even making eye contact, just in a frenzied rush to reach the life restoring qualities of the Med and the Cote De Azzur.

Overall we had a good time in Bordeaux, but thank the lord we got out alive, I think its also safe to say thank fuck we are all almost going home. This party is near to over.

finally

2007-09-27T04:14:00.000-07:00

Messy Dayz

2007-09-26T12:12:00.001-07:00

Bored in the city of love, 8 hours from hell, another Ayres Rock, back to life in the Cote D'Azur, imortalised as rock gods, centurions.

Dateline: 11 am Tuesday morning, the sun sits bright and powerful in the riverian skye beating down relentlessly on the roof of the Messy Dayz Express creating an oven effect that would be unplesant in any situation. One of my kidneys sent a message down the tubes to the other asking for a final decision; shutdown or attempt to go on?

Apparently the left kidney is braver then the right and the judgment came back that we should try to keep going, so with shooting pains in my lower back I awoke. Another lost morning in the enigma that is this van trip. It all started on Thursday last, we had a big day touristing in Gaye Paris hitting some fairly impressive boxes - Notre Damme, Musee D'Orsey, and whatever that garden between the Lourve and Concorde is. When we were finally done with the touristing we retired to our favorite Parisian English pub the Freedom to watch the evenings rugby matches and 20twenty bashathon. After a heavy days touristing it seemed sensible to have a nice quiet evening in front of the box. 6 hours later found us argueing on the side of FDR boulevard waiting in an hour long lineup for a taxi to get us out to Saint Geniveve De Bois. We finally managed to get in a cab, but for some reason (that we never solved) the taxi man wouldn't take us all the way out. Despite our many cogent arguements (and some less so - my personal favorite was "you won't take us out there cause your a Zidane style terroist" - fun with people who don't speak our language...) we didn't manage to get the cab all the way, but got lucky on the final train of the evening.

Luckily we didn't have anything special on the next day, just the simple matter of Ireland vs France at the Stade De France. The city was awash with the Irish hours before the match, all very optimistic about the coming bash, the pubs were jumping and the atmosphere fantastic, being simple non biased onlookers meant we were in a strange position of being part of the party not having a huge buy in, the lads quickly went to a trashy tourist type store and got Ireland jersey's and the Kloss got le tri colour on his cheek and we were suddenly a much bigger part of it. I of course was wearing the Ireland tee I brought in Dublin in Janurary - that is how long I have been looking forward to last Fridays match.

Unfortunately the Irish, French, and Referee Chris White didn't realise that most of the people attending the match had travelled a long way and spent a lot of money to go to the match, it was horrible. Without doubt the most boring match I have ever watched (yes I know, Reds Sharks in 05 and Reds Brumbies in 07 were bad- but the Reddies were in those matches). Anyways, the match was a complete wash, the Leinster team I saw at DonneyBrook earlier in the year would have put 50 points on either side playing. Thankfully the sheer boredom that resulted from the match, and the fact that 80 000 people can not just get onto a train at the same time meant we were all in the mood to stand around boozing after the match.

We wearnt there for long but we all suddenly got in the mood for singing, so we had a lot of fun on the Train ride home- two crazy Frenchies leading the carriage in traditional French songs, then a lot of traditional Australian songs allowed the train ride to pass very quickly, the Irish were curiously silent; the Time Warp we danced on the approach to Genievive Le Boit drew cheers from all on our carriage.

Five hours later the alarms in the Dayz began to wail, it was time to start the massive drive from Paris to Montpellier for Sundays Australia vs Fiji match. The big problem with the Paris match on the Friday was always going to be that we had to drive the length of the country to get to the next game. With the monkeys who have been putting a huge drain on the Messy Dayz ticket we were concerned that a seven hundred kilometre drive would prove too much in one day. It was very, very cold and dark, yours truly did the heavy lifting of the hungover, morning first shift, which set us up perfectly to finish the drive inside of one day. With strict rules about lengths of our stops and minimum average speeds required for each stint we managed to break the back of the drive easily. The best example of our comitment to speed was the BT Kloss driver swap, 100 kilometres an hour on the A58 all of a sudden there was no one sitting in the
drivers seat of the MD Express, we lived and managed to get into Montpellier around 4 in the afternoon, a stellar performance by the tourists.

Our Montpellier experience started poorly, when we were there in July we struggled with navigation but had an all round nice time. This time around we got stuck in an 18 stop tram ride nightmare out to the Stadium, it was hot, damm hot, but that was good (at first) as it had been cold in Paris, by the end of the tram ride some nerves were frayed and some people were a little sweaty, but we were there and the crowd was in a jovial mood so we quickly got back into the spirit.

After the match we hurried into the line for the Tram as we wanted to get to see the Scotland Noveau

Sealand match, an hour later we managed to get on an actual tram and got to the main square of town in

time to see the second half of the match of the day. Standing in squares drinking is becoming a fairly

standard practice for our tourists. Old Wristy Duggan had struck gold again earlier in the day by meeting a

couple of Melbourne broads who were willing to party with Tour de Fearists so we left the main square

after the match and headed to the Ayers Rock. Australian pubs are clearly the best parties in the world,

so we were assured a great night out. Montpellier was apparently a destination of choice for a lot of

Australians as we ran into a rediculous number of friends from back home. It became a huge problem

when our Bon Soir's started being met by blank stares- so we switched to G'Days and the ladies came

running- a result. Anyways, a great night out ensured- Thooheys News 10 for 40 bucks in a bucket- good

times. Once more all went home alone, but it was so close, I'm sure were about to run into a rich vein of

form.

The change in temperature that had resulted from our trip south had a massive effect on the moods of all

involved, so we decided to buy while the time was right and head to coast, specifically Antibes to spend a

week recharging our batteries on our favorite strech Mediteranean coastline. We got into town and

immediatly jumped into Big Blue- it had been close to a month for yours truly so it was seriously refreshing to get back into the swim of things...

Afterwards we went for a walk around the port and checked into the campsite, by this time I was close to dropping, this was the fifth day of a rediculously foolish freak out that had achieved almost nothing, but then J called and said it was time to go out for a big night on the towns -my head dropped in disapointment, disapointment with myself- I knew there was no way possible I shouldbe going out, but there was also no way I would be saying no to a night out - I went out.

We started with a casual dinner, but two bottles of wine made us think a visit to the Absinthe Bar would

be a seriously good idea. The Antibes Absinthe bar has to be seen to be believed, it is a small cave pub below a bigger resturant upstairs. The walls and shelves are covered in antique Absinthe bottles, marketing posters and other assorted paraphanlia. We found out that this is because the bar is actually a museum, of course Absinthe is illigal in France so the only way they can get away with serving it is to call themselves a museum, and have 'tasting' instead of just out right serving drinks. They also have a bunch of crazy hats that you get too wear as you try the different drinks, Jase wore a boater, Kloss a bowler, Ness a thirties style fidora, Fuc a fetching top hat, and TGO went saftey first with an equstrian helmet.

Things descended quickly, we ran across our old friend Charlie on a street corner in the old part of town, we don't see Charlie often, so whenever he comes to town we feel obliged to shake the . When we got kicked out of the Extreme Bar at closing time we were desperate enough to continue the party that we walked all the way across town to the Golden Gate- the local gay bar, unfortunatly it was shut, we finally found an open bar and managed to continue the party for another couple of hours.

Dateline: Its 20 hours after I started writing, we have now been kicked out of the original campsite and are in one a kilometre down the road. We are currently stuck in the bus, its raining, we walked to macca's and the beer shop and got stuck in a rain storm, such was our low opinions of ourselves at the time we decided to walk home in the rain. So we are very, very wet, drinking warm beer, Timmy BT is sitting naked, why I don't know, but last night hurt a few of us, hurt us alot.

Last night we made a miscalculation and ended up partying till the wee hours once again, La Siesta was shut for some reason so we had to head into town to get dinner. How this resulted in us drinking till closing time and having a micro party back at the bus I do not know, but it seemed like a very, very good idea at the time.

Jump back to the story I was telling about monday night, after the last pub in town closed we got a cab back to the bus and made a little bit of noise as we woke the lads up to tell them of our adventures at the various pubs and clubs of town. At the time we thought nothing of it but a tip to the reader take note it will become important down the line.

The next day was extremely slow, we managed to get as far as the beach and that was about it, it was one of those amazing Cote days where the med sits perfectly still and the sun stays hot well into the evening. We made best use of the conditions we could spending a good five hour wack on the smoothly pebbled shores. The only incidents of note was the arrival of Paul Allen's Octopus out on the water, Ness getting stupidly sunburnt on her back (Neanderthal New South Welshmen...), and the complete and utter hard body that got her clothes off on the beach towel next to us, zoot allors.

Anyways, as Wristy and BT hadn't come out the night before they were keen to tie one on on tuesday night, so we naturally decided to head into town to offer them some support. For some reason they were drinking in an Australian bar, but I guess after three weeks on the road they are getting home sick. The most incredible game of pool in the history of the planet was played, but thats about all that happened for a long time last night. Kloss and I teamed up against the evil forces of the Duval College Pool Team and managed to shark them in such away that eventually they put up some cash, now anyone who knows anything knows that the Kapitan and I have been fleecing fools at pool tables for years. The Kloss started the blood bath with a good break, sinking two on his first go. We then carried our opponents for a few rounds, wanting them to at least think they were in the game, until the Kapitan gave me the signal and I promptly sunk four in a row, culminating in one of the top five pool shots of all time to sneak the black ball into the corner pocket and win the game. Seriously even the black ball itself was shocked that it ended up in the hole, I convinced it that it was going to the zoo but then at the last second shifted gears and it was all over. The shot to win the game created scenes of pure extacy in the Outback (the name of the pub) that have not been seen since the last rains came through. For that one perfect moment people began to believe again, I've often struggled with my status as a bringer of the truth and light but when I can deliver in such a manner I am happy to oblige.

Eventually they threw us out of the Outback, fairly handing out plastic cups so we could take our drinks with us so we headed back to the same after hours club as the night before and tied it on again. Good times. When we finally got back to the bus at around five Fuc decided it would be a good fun time if we had a round or two of Pastis (he is now a true believer) despite all our best intentions, lots of sushing, we apparently woke our neighbours up for the second night in a row (those who are paying attention will remember that this happened the night before - I did tell you to pay attention). Anyways, she wasn't very accepting of our offer of a drink when she came over to tell us to be quite so we all decided that the best result would be if she fucked off, which she did.

Thinking the incident was behind us we went to bed to recharge once more for another mediteranian day. This dream was shattered however at around nine this morning by the knocking on the door of the Messy Dayz Express by the camp manager. She's a slight little thing the manager, but she's also a very angry little thing (I never really understood why she was so angry, I mean really we didn't wake her up did we?) Anyways, she seemed to think it would the best for every one involved if we got the hell out of her camp site. I disagreed, after a heated debate (at one point the Gendames were summoned (you've never seen two bigger pussey's then Wristy and I when that happened) it was decided that we should leave the site and never return. Probably the best for all. The joke however was on them as BT managed to get a refund on his laundry tokens - I think both sides really came out ahead.

Thourghly impressed with our new status as legends of camping we drove around to a few near by sites and eventually manged to get the Dayz back into camping mode after about an hour. We decided that the best way to immortalize the day we got tossed from La Vielle Ferme was to have a party so we went to Macca's for breakfast beers and got a few cases. For some reason we thought Yatzee would be more fun if we were trying to do 100 shots in 100 minutes at the same time so the party soon got quite Messy, there was much nudity. By four in the afternoon we had drunk ourselves out of beer and life force, resulting in the massive crash that had been threatening for days. Its now nine pm and the bus is quite, we've all had naps, and dinner is long past - but no one is making any noises about the pub this evening, the only noises anyone is really making are snores. Hopefully we have learnt our lesson.

Tank Crossing

2007-09-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

I'm a little concerned how many people are commenting on various photos that are circulating of me with my beard saying I look better then before, your all just forgetting how good I looked before- it was good, trust me.

We left London on Thursday feeling extra sick and sorry for ourselves, the crazy freakout that was our night out at the Walkie and Roadhouse left us needing alot of r and r. Unfortunatley travelling days are not great for this sort of behaviour, especially when driving a left hand drive truck on the opposite side of the road whilst dealing with the poor quality of Englands roads and drivers. It wasn't fun, but eventually we got to Cardiff, the site of this week's big Australia vs Wales dance.

Friday we finally had our rest day, BT and Wristy were still in London so the rest of us managed to spend some quality time relaxing in the bus, of course the fact we were in the UK so had to put up with terrible weather meant that the descision to sit in the bus was an easy one to make. Eventually we went into town ostensoubly to check out the sites, but within about 50 metres of walking down the dour main street we decided that we wearnt overly interested in Cardiff itself, so we went into the nearest pub we could find, happily enough it was a Walkabout so we didn't even have to mix with any Welsh people. Once you have gone into your first pub of the afternoon it is difficult to then get back out of the pub and do some touristing, so we didn't. Many hours later the England South Africa game had finished and our positive intentions of a quite relaxing weekend in Cardiff had been nixed.

Cardiff, on game day, the Welsh just lose their minds whenever their mighty Dragons are going to go around at Cardiff Arms Park, every pub within 2 kilometres of the ground, and their are heaps, were packed full to bursting. Seriously it was actually a little annoying how hard it was to get a beer, but as kick off ticked closer the atmosphere began to boil over onto the street, there were only 70 000 peeps going to the game, but their must have been at least 200 000 on the streets, it was crazy times, Kloss and I had to wait (as ever) for the Tunny's so managed to stand in the most inconvient place on St Mary's St to get in about 50 000 peoples way as they tried to get into the match.

Eventually everything worked out and we went into the stadium, we were surprised to find that the roof was closed, but this turned out to be a positive, as the atmosphere when the 50 000 odd Welsh monkeys who came along to the game began to sing was absolutly mind blowing. The game was a bit of an epic with all of us going crazy, when old Stu Dickinson decided that Sharpie should have an early shower the crazy Welsh collectively lost their minds. Thankfully the mighty Wallabies managed to hold on for that desperate final 10 minutes and we enjoyed a good win, but overall Rugby was the winner on the day...

The atmosphere on the street before the game was electrifying, afterwards it was (wait for it) surreal. We quickly managed to find some beers to have on the street and proceeded to have a middle of the street party for the next 3 or so hours, we didn't look conspicous however as we were just one small group in a sea of street partyers. Wristy and BT had managed to organise some broads to come up from London to party with us so we didn't have to make specticles of oursleves trying to meet locals. We did however manage to meet up with a rediculous number of people we new from home, seriously it was crazy, people we had no idea were even in Europe just walked right by us and joined in the party, good times (shout out to Hargy and Gordo Lewis). Eventually we had to move off the street so we headed into Huggy's Bears Groove Palace - a good night had by all.

The next day we had tickets to the big Canada Fiji bash so woke up early and headed into town, the idea of a second game for the weekend was that we could have a quite afternoon in the sun recharging our batteries before heading back to France. This was fine until during the game when old Kapitan Kloss ruined our best laid plans by buying beer. Three Thirty am found us huddled up in the bus playing black jack with two random birds we met at the camp site pub whilst watching the France game (how good was Chabal?).

Keeping the lads up to 3 in the morning turned out to be a mistake the next day, as we didn't get on the road to France till mid day. We then struck traffic (lousy Welsh monkeys closing the M4) so had to sit in a jam for 2 long hours, finally we got onto the open road and rushed off to Stonehenge, the lads were not impressed, but my ulterior motive of securing a Tank Crossing picture was successful. We finally manged to get on a boat at Dover around 10:30 and into a car park around 00:30 am. Hopefully this time we learnt our lesson, next time we have a travel day we will be in bed at a resonable hour... best laid plans.

week 1

2007-09-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

So this is supposed to be a trip around France to watch rugby, but it has quickly devolved into a series of messy nights out on the town spreading international relations. While in Lyon we shook ourselves to the core, and now this disease has chased us across the chanel to London, were last night we got very heavily involved in a party that has left some very sick and sorry travellers today.

Lyon is one of the greatest party towns we have yet visited throughout the world. It is one of the biggest university towns in Europe, so had a massive supply of very young hard bodies for us to make friends with. On the first night in town we went to a big square and watched the France vs Argentina match, then went to the great Australian pub, the Ayers Rock, for one of the wildest nights ever. The next day we went to the game and then had a very large night in at the camp site. At one point we were within seconds of jumping in the car and driving to Monza for the grand prix, seriously it was three am, we could have gone straight across the alps and been there by 8 am... we were on hte point of jumping in Jason's hire car but cooler heads eventually prevailed so we stayed in Lyon.

The Sunday we decided to go for a quite day in town, we had a desperate need for internet, and somewhere to see the racing cars. Jason managed to talk a nice lady at a pub into putting the game on for us, but unfortunatly this meant we were at a pub, so we drank. Things progressed as you would expect, after the F1 (how was Hamilton's bonzai move on Kimi?) there was rugby, lots of rugby, we went back to the Ayers Rock. A group of 4 Aussies, in an Aussie bar in France can pretty much do whatever they please, I mean really do you think the surrender monkey's or the scot's, or the brits are really going to be able to do anything about it?

Fast forward about 7 hours and its now 2 am, we have became life long friends with at least four different groups of chicks (evidence Kloss' facebook) have danced on tables, mediated fights, run line out drills, and had copius amounts of shots purchased for us by our new British friends, boy did we think we were cool. The end of the night is a little hazy, there was some nudity, I suspect a little vomit, and there was some extreme sickness the next day (it took Wristy two full days to recover).

Anyways, we then trouped across the chanel to the UK to go to Cardiff for Saturdays epic between Wales and Aussie, and decided to stop in London for the night just to refresh our batteries a little. Unfortunatly, it turned out it was Cherie's birthday so there was no way we could have a refreshing stay in the big town, it calld for a party, and when you are partying in London there is no finer place then the Covent Garden Walkabout. The night once more started nice and quitely but suddenly there was an English Football international on and the place went a little crazy, as did we. When the pubs began to shut we realised that there was no way we could call off the party that early so we took a deep breath and went into the RoadHouse, a club on Covent Garden that could be the worst place on earth, that was until last night when we fell in love with the place.

So we've been on the go for over a week or so now, and as far as I can tell, there have been no muesums visited, no serious tourist attractions boxes ticked, but a lot of drinking, this weekend in Cardiff promises to be another right off, seriously every Aussie I know in London is on their way up for the weekend, if this continues for the entire trip then not all of us will make it home alive, and considering the way I feeling right this moment, that doesn't acctually seem like that bad a result.

Lazy Photo Blog

2007-09-11T07:26:00.000-07:00

Life is currently a bit hectic, no time for writing, so here are some photos from the first week or so to give you an idea of what is happening over here at the RWC.

He's not called 'Wristy Duggan' for his handstand ability, but still this is a pretty good handstand.

Making friends at the bus stop on the way to Lyon. Kiwi's and Poms are stupid.

I don't really think this needs a caption, but how about "saucy"Just three good friends.

BA Tron or Chabal?

In the square at Lyon watching the opening game.

Teaching the lads how to drink on the street.

We made the paper, we are champions.

The lads, Pont De Lafyette, Rhone River, Lyon.
The group, Place de la Treveaux (or something like that) in Lyon, Ness and Wristy are looking the wrong way. Right to Left: BT, Wristy, FUC, Ness, Tunny, Jordie (on his shoulders), Cherie, BA, and Kloss.

Cat, the random Scottish hottie we met at the Ayers Rock in Lyon, all went home alone.

Lyon

2007-09-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

So a quick update. Quick, not one of these long posts I have been writing lately, we shall try to keep this to one page... allready I have started verbosely.

Anyways, Lyon, somewhere in the middle right of France on the map, we left Paris on Thursday and Rhyso had his first experience driving the rig, naturlly we other RWC tourists huddled in the back of the bus in fear. We got into town ahead of the flood of Aussies who are here to support the wallaby tilt which meant we got a decent camp site.

Lyon is a very nice town, a lot like Geneva, with two rivers coursing threw the centre of town it makes for a picturesque setting. It also is blessed with a particullarly fantastic Australian pub called the Ayers Rock- il est tres bon. Anyways, Friday we did some touristing and then went to the big square in the centre of town where they were showing the big France game vs the mighty Puma's. Long story shorter I was vindicated in my complete writing off of the Frenchies. The atmosphere on the square was fairly special, Aussies and Frogs mixing as one, that is until the end when they realised most of us where cheering for los puma. The roar of the crowd every time Chabal got on the screen was incredible- that kid will be a superstar by the end of this cup. Afterwards we spent muchus time in the Ayers Rock, dawn found BA, BT and Duggan extending international relations with a couple of young local lady's.

A few hours later we were back in town for the big game, which is when we were approached by a local journalist we had met the day before. Take that Poundster.com, we made the Le Reporter, the Rhone Alps daily, and we got a photo- Messy Dayz Rulz. The game was a lot of fun, first the wallabies killed it, and second the atmosphere was spectacular- good times. Whenever the Lotus Blossom's did anything at all the crowd went mad.

There are a lot of ugly Australian's on this trip (6 of them living in the Messy Dayz Express) but overall this is coming together just as we planned it.

PS- the wallabies to win the world's cup.

Best Tourist Awards

2007-09-09T03:27:00.000-07:00

So after a brief sujourn back to Paris, hitting the Lourve (pronounced looouuuurrrrvvvvveeeerrrreeeee) - there are no lines its all a myth) I have now been joined on the Messy Dayz Express by my travel companions for the next 6 weeks. In all things there are competitions, so naturally we are keeping a running score on who is the best traveller in the team. I thought it would be a nice time to give you a quick run down on the competitors, and a rap up of the first few days of competition.

BA Tron - A natural traveller having spent the past 5 weeks in a commune in Turkey he has returned to the world of travel refreshed and ready squeeze as much life as possible out of the journey. So far he has surprised many with his reverse psychology techniques of not wanting to see any tourist attractions and being more interested in the running tally of the 3, 10, 2 contest and who is sleeping in which bed. Thankfully the saving grace is the bushy beard he has managed to grow in a relatively short time. Naturally everyone shaved last Saturday, so the official world cup beard growing contest could begin, and he all ready has a handy lead, it could be that he is a particullarly manly man, or it could be that the rest of the lads just aren't that way (or it could be that he secretly didn't shave his tour de france beard...).

Kloss- Kloss arrived on the Champs Elysee (pronounced Chumps E Lee See Aaaahh) looking and feeling great. Of course when you have travelled half way around the world in Emeriates First Class you had better be looking good. He lost immediate points in the traveller competition. He lost further points when he pulled out his Emeriates Pyjama's at the first sign of any cold conditions. He has however spent the last six weeks brooding alone in his mansion, clutching at a snifter of brandy, and working on his French. So he claimed the lead in the trousiting competition when he managed to pull out the old "Un tas de vin blanc" (I can't capture how his pronunciation sounded in words (think chainsaws)) when we couldn't get the guy at the Planet Hollywood to understand that Ness wanted a glass of the house white. Of course the fact that he was the one who wanted to go to Planet Hollywood immediatly takes some shine off his (very) small victory.

Duggan- Danny Duggan was the first to join the Messy Dayz on Tuesday morning. He had strong creditentials as a gonzo traveller when the extent of our planning for a meeting place was him sending an email from Tullermarine saying "Mate I will be there around 6:30 in two days, won't have a phone so I will try and call you" the problem was he didn't have my phone number, and I didn't know what it was to tell him. Anyways, long story short I bit the bullet and just showed up to Charles De Gaulle (pronounced CDG- we're such cool hip travellers) illegally parked the bus and went inside. It was at this point that I remembered that I didn't actually know what he looked like, and my appearance has changed significantly in the last 8 months... I do however have a sixth sense for victorians so when I saw a vanilla white corpse wandering lost threw the terminal I immediatly knew it was him. Dan has been to places all over Australia so many expected him to go well on the continet but he has been loosing points for his annecdotes about the fear on his plane trip, and his wide eyedidness (is that a word) as we walked the streets of gaye Paris.

Timmy B.T.- Why his parents decided to call him B.T. I don't know but the star winger of the Armidale United first 15 has been an instant hit in old Francois. First he managed to live through the hell that was a five take off/landings hell from Sydney to Auckland to Haiwaii to Denver to Toronto to CDG, but off course he losses points for using the Rhys Liddle Travel Agency to book his flights. He gains points for his never ending stream of strange French terms he has managed to pick up. He briefly lead the entire competition when he told Jordy Tunny that he didn't speak English (in French) the poor kid immediatly ran back to his mummy. He fell from the top rank of travellers though when he failed to bring home the bacon as my touch football partner last night.

Rhys Mentieth Liddle - Many expected him to be the drain on the entire journey. And so far he has not disapointed at all. Rhys can be summed up by a quick story about his arrival in France. First he had managed to book the Sydney/Auckland/Haiwaii/Denver/Toronto/CDG flight from hell for his companions, then he had brought a completely impractical Samuri Sword in Haiwaii (why we don't know) and then he managed to get his travel companions very lost as we went to meet them in the centre of Paris. Yes he managed to come to a strange land with no phone capabilities, yes he didn't do any research as to how to get around central Paris with heaps of luggage, but he did managed to remember that the Champs Elysse was a famous landmark so he called us and told us to meet him there. So we went to the Chumps. Now most will remember that the famous avenue is about 3 kilometres long, 12 lanes wide,with foot paths about 4 lanes wide- it was not a well thought out meeting place. He called again after an hour or so of waiting (we hadn't got there yet we were running on Rhys time ourselves) and narrowed it down to the Arc De Triumphe end of the chumps, near the Rugby store- my nerves weren't calmed but Kloss seemed confident. So we get to the top end of the chumps (having easily met up with the Tunnies on the way) and there was no Rhys, we looked into the middle of the round about, at the massive Arc, and all assured ourselves that there was no way he could possibly be over there. We stood around for a little while longer, no Rhys, Fuck It we better check' Kloss decided so we went into the middle of Arc De Triumphe, no Rhys.

The Fear and Loathing was desending fast, all of it directed at a little Harry Potter looking mother fucker who has a long history of messing up these sorts of meet ups, oh I remember the time I played hookey from school and stood on the side of the road like an escaped criminal for two hours waiting, and waiting for my escape car... it never arrived, something about getting new tires or somethign was the excuse. Anyways, we finally forked over the money to go to the very top of the Arc, convincing ourselves all the way up that there is no way he could be that stupid (it would be a hell of a climb with luggage) and we got up there, no Rhys. Finally as we stood looking out over Paris at the incredible views on hand did we spot three begraggled looking Aussies, perched on a park bench on the far side of the round about. With some arm waving and shouting we managed to get them to meet us back around at the Chumps. When we finally met B.T. and Ness were showing all the signs of a hard week spent taking off and landing, but true to form old FUC was well rested, unconcerned about the last 3 hours and ready to defend his total lack of ability to follow through on a plan.He won't be winning any awards voted on by his touring companions, but the nice thing about Rhyso is I don't believe he cares.

Ness- Ness has been left till last because she is currently the out and out leader of the best traveler competition. Many thought the chances of the lone girl in the Messy Dayz were slim, but Miss Hollis the battler from the bush has wowed us all with the casualiness of her take over of the Messy Dayz. She arrived in Paris with two suit cases, a smaller case and a hand bag. She arrived at the bus carrying her bag, so quickly had she managed to get the lads under her thrall that they were carrying her bags for her. She then proceded to quickly rearrange the carefully thought out storage solutions that yours truely had engineered during August. And finally she hit the top of the best traveller competition when she confidently commendeared the Fort Bed for herself (after some cajoling Rhys managed to get in their with her...) She has shown herself to be a deft touch at cards (except when houses are being bet) and I suspect that Danny Duggan may be a little scared of her. The coupe de grace however came last night when long into a bottle of champaigne she announced that due to her extreme western service (she is so close to the NSW border she is not sure if she is payed by the NSW or South Aus governments) that she gets some sort of mega rebate back on her holidays. So to sum up, she has taken control of the back two thirds of the bus, has two votes at her disposal whenever we have to vote on something, has at least one of the tour members scared of her, and will in all likelihood get a fair chunk of her trip payed for by her employer... There are few flies on Ness.

ALPS

2007-09-01T01:31:00.001-07:00

I slept in this morning which was good, The reason for the Turin-lyon Border crossing as opposed to the Genova-Antibes or even Mt Blanc border crossings was that I wanted to go to visit the Alpe Du Huez, so I decided that a good sleep in would be in order to get me threw my day.

After I finally got on the road it appeared to me as if Tom Tom was having a lend, it took me off the main road and decided to send me over a couple of mountains in order to get to Bourg De Ossains (the town at the bottom of the Alpe). The going was extremely tough, the Col de Galan, or something like that, which was an incredible time, starting at around 400 metres it ended at 1924 metres in the middle of the clouds, there is nothing quite as fun as driving a 4500 kilo whale along a one lane road up and over the top of a mountain.

The Alps are part of the reason why I love France as much as I do. The scenery (when the clouds burn off) is absolutly increible, we all know I am more a beach man then a mountains man, but the scenery as I came off the top of that mountain and down into Bourg De Ossains was as close too best in show as I have ever seen.

Finally though I got out of the scenic tours business, and down to the serious part of the day. Le Bourg de Ossains is as close to Mecca as can be imagined for a cycling fan. Within around 60 kilometres of the town are probably 5 or 6 outer category climbs, including the Iseran, Roseland, and Galibrier (from this years tour), but the most important climb is the closest, the short and sharp road out of town to the town of Huez, the climb known as Le Alpe De Huez. This is one of the most famous streches of road in cycling, involving no fewer then 20 hairpin turns, basically on top of each other twist their way for 13 kilometres out of the valley up to the peak at Huez, at around 1600 metres. To give you some sort of perspective the Columbeire and Plateau de Belle (which we saw on the Tour De Fear) would struggle to have 12 hairpins between them.

Anyways, I spent an hour or so walking around the small town, checking out the many good cycling stores and lamenting the lack of internet cafes. Then I drove up the mountain, the climb is incredible, 13 kilometres of pure hell. The run upto the first hairpin alone is worse then Mt Hawthorne, which we all know is a terrible climb in its self. The entire time was an incredible trip, every inch of the road offers up a cry of wonder at the pure brutality of the climb. Each hairpin is named for one of the great winners at the top of Alpe, so every other minute your reminded of another great time in the mountains history.

I climbed up and up, the bus shreaking in agony at the strain of hauling itself up the hill, more perspective it took the Messy Dayz Express 17 minutes to get to the top of the hill, in the time trial in 04 one L Armstrong climbed the thing on a bike in around 25. Anyways, I am a bigger cycling fan know then I was before, and if there was every a place that I got the 'I will return' feeling it was here. (Of course its not true Kay you fucking retard- of course he killed his rat brother in law, he caused Sonny's death- only a women would accept that lie on face... serioulsy though, is Brando the greatest actor that ever lived? now for On the Water Front- what a night).

To close, today I saw some of the greatest sections of cycling road in the world. The Iseran and Galibrier in particular, we missed these two mountains on the Tour de Fear, I don't want to point fingers, but we all know it was Dav Rossi's fault. Just as his fingers pointed the way to Geneva, so must the finger of blame be pointed at him. Anyways, Kloss Dogg, when we come back we will have to lock this area in for a more serious visit, and no jew bastards can be allowed to ruin it.

TEST

2007-09-01T01:06:00.000-07:00

So the last two days were supposed to be nice relaxing, easy days, after the terror that was the run across Europe I felt I deserved it. Unfortunatly they were two of the most full on days we've seen since the Tour De Fear.

The closest major town to the Italian border was Venice, so that's were I headed too first. I camped just out side of town and then caught a bus into the town and get this people the streets were made of water!

At first I shook my head at the poor town planning and went looking for the flood markers to see if it compared to Bris Vegas 79, but no, this turned out to be how they wanted it. People looked stunned at me as I stiched half a hundred inflatible boats to the undercarraige of the Messy Dayz (Yes with a Z these days) but I had the last laugh when I was cruising for hookers on the Grand Canal!

Anyways, Venice was good, they did well with the whole, no cars thing. Although the entire town could do with a coat of paint. I took a ride on a ferry, which was slow and poorly run, I mean really, if the Venice town council can't organise a Ferry what hope is there for the world? I got off my Ferry at the Rialto bridge, which was clearly ripped off from that College in Oxford and then walked to St Marco Place, which was quite a good square, although the whole encouraging people to feed the pigions I felt was a bit much, thousands of the things, I decided to nix the actual church, the line was very long, and hey I've been to St Peter's, why would I go to St Marks? After this I just walked around town a little and visited the Academia, which is where I was expecting to see Da Vinci's Versuvian (No Idea) Man - you know the scetch of a bloke, anatomically perfect... Well it wasn't there, not sure if it was in one of the rooms they had closed off for renovation, or if Wikipedia was just lying, but I didn't see the thing either way, so that was a big bust.

After I was finsihed in Venice I got in the bus intending to drive half way to Verona, the next days target, but it was only 100 clicks down the road so I was in Verona before I knew it. The reason for Verona was to attend the Verona Opera Festival so I was there in heaps of time to see the nights show, Nubucco. The show was excellent, as was the scene:

The theatre was increbile, a roman ruin/non ruin. 50 rows of seats up, the top 20 or so are the cheap seats- the orignal stone action. Guys walking around selling brews, you can picture them doing it 2000 years ago. (Need to read my libretto before dark). Right before the performance they handed out small candles. Reading the blurb it turns out that 85 years ago when they started using the amputheatre for Opera there was no electricity available, so the punters would bring along candles along in order to read their programmes. So nowdays they do it to keep the tradition going, and to help their marketing, the image as they turned the house lights off to be replaced by 2000 candles was very (sic) unique!.

No poxy warning alarms at this theatre, a girl comes on stage with a gong and gives it a solid bash. We all clap, I'm not sure why but she does generate a fair tone.

The Maestro is one of these eccentric types, wild arm and head movements, jumping up and down to set a rhythm.

Simple sets but lots of really good lighting- which I like. Large chorus so some quite powerful sections. A real no fooling horse. Interval- the folks next to me are having a lend of their daughter "There was no horse on stage!", "Did you see a horse? Where?"- Priceless.

Looks like 3 intervals/4 acts- a long night.

The fashions aren't as well to do as in Puccini fest, this is more your every mans opera fest.. God, that girl in the white dress at Tosca, Torre Del Lago... I will sleep well tonight.

Act III- Chorus was epic- crowd went nuts, demanded a do over - and got it! Power to the people baby.

Anyways, overall it was an excellent day. I slept in Verona and then headed off towards Milan the next morning.

Milan was a single target town, Da Vinci's Last Supper, considering the trouble I have had with other pieces of ancient art (didn't see the real David or Virtivean man, also missed a couple of things at the Vatican), I wasn't overly optimistic about my chances of seeing it. Anyways, I caught a train into the centre of town, and then proceded to get horribly lost, no map, and lots of rain.

Eventually the rain ended and I walked around and around, eventually seeing an interesting looking church, on a whim I wandered over to check it out- which was lucky as this turned out to be where the Last Supper was, I went into the ticket office and was concerned to see a sign saying that the only way to get in was to pre book, the loathing began to descend, thankfully the girl on the ticket desk was susceptible to a full blown dose of the A smile and she releneted and gave me a cancellation ticket if I came back in an hour.

So I did, and I got to see the Painting, which was very impressive. Now, I don't want piss of the more religous minded of our readers, but the person next to Jeebers really looks like a girl, and their is a disembodied hand...

After the big ticket item for the day way done I kept going with the whole walking around town thing, and saw a nice park, an areana, an Arc de Triumph, and a cool old Castle. It was good, I then jumped aboard the bus to head for France, and finally be done with Italy. As I headed towards the autostrada a thought occured to me that place names like Cologno and Bolognia sounded a lot like the kind of area that Monza is in...

Which is when I then saw a sign for Monza- I then started to get really excited, I took the bait and and took the turn, the racing car track was not well signed, so I started to get a little lost, but it all worked out as I finally found the track. And the afternoon got really exciting when I all of a sudden heard the sweet note of a racing car engine producing 19 000 rpm of energy.

The Monza GP is in a weeks time, and traditionally the F1 teams Test their cars in the week before the race at the track, which is what they were doing yesterday- it was very exciting, two instances of F! racing cars inside of a week- A result. It was golden, Ferrari, Mclaren, BMW, Toyota, Red Bull, Torro Rosso and Spyker where all on hand, as was a surprisingly big crowd. good times.

After the surprising bonus of seeing the F1 test I finally got on the road towards France, I decided to stop for the night when I got to France, which turned out to harder then I thought, as just west of the Border a toll booth stoll my Amex card...

You can imagine the scene, I drove into the toll booth and went to put my card in the reader, the person in front of me was acting funny, and all of sudden my card would not come back to me. I thought I was going to get the Sonny Corleone treatment for a minute, but thankfully all I lost was my card.

Still thougth, as my bookkeeper will attest my financial situation is a little on the dire side (lousy no where in Greece accepting AMEX) so the loss of the AMEX credit hurt hard, I battled against the urge to begin throwing Molatov cocktails all over the place, dealt with the AMEX people and then fucked the hell out of Italy so I could finally relax again in the more civilised France.

The last part of the story involves a very, very long tunnel, 12.8 KM's in fact (and 35 Euro's worth of paege) Anyways, I finally re-entered my third favorite country and this trip got back on track.

wEST

2007-08-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

So I left Istanbul, with a final destintation of Paris in my sites. I have to be there by the third to pick up the

lads for the worlds cup, in between Istanbul and Paris were a bunch of boxes that still required ticking so I

needed to rush as fast as possible across the more bleak parts of Eastern Europe.

Here are my notes from the trip:

7:11 AM - Not moving, got boxed in by trucker SOB's over night.

I didn't get as far last night as I hoped, the moonshine headache I had when I woke after the GP was a

killer, 200 KM short of the goal.

7:25 AM- Underway

8:05 - 40 Mins, 70 km's, Bored.

9:00 AM- 1st sign for Sofiya, 320 KM's just shy of border.

9:05 AM- at the border, didn't get fuel before I did... Longish line, I'm bored- Praise the lord for Podcasts

9:23 AM- Slow moving line!!

9:45 AM- i'm about half way along I think

9:50 AM- Just got a rails run through the passport control, Thanks Turkish version of Skia.

10:05 AM- Have done the Turkey side of things, now the Bulgarian side.

10:06 AM- The EU? (no)

10:23 AM- For Fuck's Sake!

10:35 AM- I think the tour de France promo Sausage may be Contraband!!! (they were)

10:45 AM- Disinfection Charge?

10:47 AM- BULGARIA!

10:52 AM- On the way to Sofiya, 191.4 KM's, 66 KM/hr, 2 Hours 51 Mins

11:45 AM- Tough going, Single lane highway- Oriely hates the Muslims

12:10 PM- Can't even overtake- Slow

12:45 PM- Down to Hannity now, need to ration out the podcasts...

2:05 PM- I'm shattered, 20 KM short of Sofiya, need a break.

3:20 PM- Onwards to Belgrade (I skipped Sofiya due to poor signage).

3:30 PM- How do you get to Serbia?

3:43 PM- Belgrade, turn right- 380 KM - Hooray (CCR- CoComotion)

4:03 PM- Fucking cops everywhere here, Police State?

4:25 PM- Serbian Border less then 6 hours across the country... now have to get across the border, sigh

4:27 PM- Another rails run? Line of truckes was 1.5 KM long! Customs agents love to laugh about the fact I have no friends.

4:31 PM- Problem with Serbia is Kosovo and Land Mine... Lousy DFAT. Another problem is long line at Customs.

5:00 PM- SERBIA!
Almost too easy.

5:25 PM- No land mines yet.

5:55 PM- Prett Mountains and george.

6:30 PM- On a toll road, no currency...

7:00 PM- 150 KM to Belgrad, starting to struggle. 740 Km's, 75 KM/HR, 10 hours.

8:35 PM- After 3 stops at servo's I finally got some currency. Got to the toll both and htey accept Euro's///

10:30 PM- Back from a walk around Belgrade. Nice Town. Did Macca's test then went looking for Red Light

district. No Nudie Bars but lots, and lots of hardbodies, St Lucia campus flash backs.

10:55 PM- Zagreb sign!
307KM- Serejvo, 326 KM- Zagreb

11:07 PM- Servo- Stopped for the day.

Day 2.
7:25 AM- Full of fuel, away 4 the day. Target= Italy! Out of Podcasts so at some point will need interneet.

7:30 AM- J Cash- I'm so lonely I could cry. A new contender for Rhyso's Better Be Home Soon tear jerker.

8:15 AM- Croatian border- 2nd last??? (no three more)

8:21 AM- CROATIA
- Very quick border, there are two ticks in the note book.

8:33 AM- His Feet they used to Sparkle, and he always kept them on the ground. La La La La La.

8:50 AM- Stay on the road this long and you see some fucked up accidents. One in Turkey was was worse

but no way people walked away from that one. Less note taking and more running at 110 per hour I think!

10:00 AM- Now listening to some Anthony Robbins. I do feel totally Self Confident! 80 KM's till Zagreb.

10:52 AM- Missed the turn for Zagreb - now Slovenia?

11:05 AM- the Serbian Border!

11:11 AM- Nothing to declare. I need a ruling - I never actually put my feet down on croatian soil?

11:17 AM- SLOVENIA!!
Border guy couuldn't believe the poster of the Goddess of the Bus!

11:45 AM- Highway to Lubjlana just became a goat track, might not be in Italy for lunch...

12:30 PM- Full of fuel, just realised I havn't been in big blue for near a week - bring on the coast!

12:43 PM- First Italy sign. The end is in site... 1st a stop in Lubjlana.

12:48 PM- No way into Lubiljana- now heading away from Italy- this isn't good. 15 Hrs 1417 Km 82 KM/HR.

1:05 PM- Fuck It! Italy or bust.

2:00 PM- Lunch has been had- Lets finish this.

2:22 PM- 33 Km to go. Hooray

2:25 PM- Tom Tom is back to life. No roads yet, but close.

2:30 PM- Poor signsage near the border, am lost.

2:32 PM- Italian border.

2:35 PM- he made me turn on my lites???

2:37 PM- ITALY

No more Eastern Europe - This party is over. 1500 KM 18 driving hours average 82 KM/hr

One last thought- what the fuck was the little stuggling baby type thing in the Kings Cross scene at the end of HP??? I don't think it was explained.

Istanbul GP

2007-08-28T11:19:00.001-07:00

So the entire itenerary of the post Italy trip was based on attended the Istanbul Grand Prix this last weekend. I have put up with a fornight of struggling against the rigours of touristing just so I could get along to the big race. So on Saturday I was quite excited to point the bus in the direction of Istanbul Park and the big dance.

Istanbul Park is located about 50 kilometres East of the city and due to its relative brandnewness it has excellent access roads, strangly though the course designers decided to make the access road as twisty, and turny as they possibly could, its excellent. Three lanes with perfect freshly laid tar, and as I was arriving nice and early no traffic. Considering the mind state of anyone heading to a racing car race it was an interesting descision by the designers.

Naturally I chucked the Messy back a gear and raced my way towards the track, lots of fun, nothing like 4500 kilo's of racing truck drifting into corners, late breaking- oh it was good fun. Anyways I eventually arrived at the racing car track- free parking, very good, set up the bus for camping and then went down into the track.

The Race Track is brand new so all the facilities are fantastic. The main area is around the big Grand Stand, with lots of food/beer stalls etc, and lots of merchandising, so had some fun thinking of things to buy, almost brought some Spyker kit but eventually thought better. The biggest problem with the set up of the track is that it is divided into small viewing sections, not all connected like a normal race track. That is, each Grand Stand/General Admin section is invidual, you can't walk from one to the other without having to go all the way out to the ring road that goes around the track, the good thing is that there is a bus that takes you from section to section.

So I watched the practice section at Turn 1, which was golden for watching the cars coming out of the pits. Then for the Qualifying Session I headed out to the draw card Turn 8, with its 4 apex's and crazy flat out bravery, it was a very impressive corner. Anyways, I was having a great time, there was a nice breeze blowing, lots of sun light, three fifths of fuck all people, and lots of motor sports. I ran into another problem when I was told by my little Muslim friends that I couldn't take any Alcohol into the General Admin section, but that wasn't that big of a problem. Anyways, QF was good, although Webber couldn't get through section 2. Sitting at Turn 8 was good, as you could really see the differential between those on flying laps (i.e. taking absolute on the edge approach through the corner) and those just cruising, who would be clearly easing off. As the final section came to a close it looked like Kimi was going to grab the pole- he was clearly fastest in sector 2, but then the loud speaker told us that Massa at managed to grab the pole (and Lewis was 2nd) Kimi had fucked it.

My day at the track was finished so I went up to the bus, which was at the top of a hill, allowing me to watch the GP2 race from the comfort of my house. I went for a drive to look for some Wi Fi, but couldn't find any, so went back to the track for some sleeping.

I woke up early the next morning and was very excited to be the first person at the track for the day, little things excite me. Anyways, I faffed my morning away, watching a movie, having a scotch, and watching as the track slowly began to fill up. Around 10 I headed down the hill to the track to get set up for the day. I packed all the essentials, a chair, my beach mat, sun screen, my Australian Flag, and the most important item, a bottle of moonshine (remembering that I couldn't get any alchol in the day before). My moonshine was a scientifically mixed concoction of Ouzo, Scotch, and the secret ingredient Pastsis (this may have been a mistake).

Anyways, I got down to Turn 1, which is where I decided to watch the race for the day. I brought 4 bottles of coke early as I didn't want to have to be walking back and forth to the food place all day. Anyways, I made some friends with some Brits who were sitting near me, and also made friends with my bottle of Moonshine- the day began to go very well...

Saturday had been quite cool, a nice breeze blew all day; Sunday, was the opposite, 35 degrees with no breeze at all, it was hot, very hot. I settled in throughout the day, the GP2 race was fun (timo glock won) and the Porsches were a little boring, finally it was time for the big race.

Anyways, by this time I was getting quite drunk so I have to look at my notes to see what happened in the race. The Ferrari's lead off the start, and Alonso sucked. Webber had a poor start and this was compounded when he was forced out in the 10th lap. The rest of the race was pretty much stock standard with little to no action, that was off course until the end when something bizarre happened, I will switch to my notes for this:

35- Kimi on the charge, 36- He will win it. 40- Kimi pits behind Alonso, 41- Now Hamilton on the charge, 42- Massa and KR 4th and 5th, Bill yells Hamilton will win it. 43- No Hamilton. Oh My God. No Hamilton they swapped him with Alonso- wtf?, 44- Hamilton = Fucked !!, 45- Ron Dennis = Deserves to Die, 46- Ferrari 1/2, Hamilton= Average, My Brit friends are dying. 47- Boo, 48- Boo, 49- Boo Boo, 50 - Mclaren are scum, 51- Hamilton +30 seconds, 53- The Fix is In!

I'm still not 100% sure what happened but something very poor happened to old Hamilton, if it turns out Mclaren cheated I hope they put them in jail. I was very drunken by the end of the race so I stumbled up to the Messy Days and sat around stewing in my anger at what had happened at the end of the race, no Kimi and no Lewis win- was their any point driving 3000 miles? Webber couldn't even get to a pit stop...

Anyways, I had a quick sleep to get over my hangover, and then began the treak West.

(Editors note: I have since learnt that Lewis had a puncture which is why it appeared as if Mclaren had screwed him over... still, I would put the bunch of them in jail)

Donna Martin Graduates

2007-08-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

Donna Martin Graduates- and she deserved to too.

What ever happened that sort of grass roots politcal action? It certainly hasn't worked in the movement to get Turkey instituted into the European Union. I don't fully understand the politcal landscape myself, but if Greece is in, and Turkey is out, well then something just isn't right.

I left Greece yesterday, after spending a solid afternoon in Thessalonki (two days ago) I headed for the border. Thessalonki was a solid town, unfortunatly it came on the end of 6 other days in Greece so it didn't rub me the right way. Despite my feelings I can recomend it, a lot, and I mean a lot less slummy then Athens, nice boulevards, a good shopping district and an impressive Alexandar Statue. Anyways, despite my positive reaction it was noticably time to leave Greece.

So I headed East, for some reason North Eastern Greece is blessed with actually decent highways so I made good time, so good infact that I ended up pulling up for the night a good couple of hundred km's further east then I planned, I ended up camping on the side of the road just West of the first sign I had seen for a little place called... Turkey!

The plan for the next day was to go to the small town of Alenxadropoulis (ever a Grail quest despite what some commentators might say). Unfortunatly Alexandroupoulis was lousy for parking so it soon got cut, and I set my nose East in pursuit of Turkish Delights. A half hour short of the border I saw a sign for a natural spring, so thought it might be fun to check it out. It was the last sign I would see for this mysterious Natural Spring, I drove, and drove, for about half an hour down small back roads getting more and more worried about the fact that I was now completly lost. Panic slowly began to approach.

It arrived, in a full blown attack when the fuel light came on. I had driven for forty mintues, criss crossing the National Highway three times (without an entry/exit point) and had still not scene a servo, things were getting dire.

I continued along what seemed like a decent road until it started going up hill, which is when the road detirioted. Then I past a sign advertising I was in a restricted zone- no photos, no filming, no stopping- advertised in 5 different languages. I was in a tight spot. I continued on for a few minutes until the F&L decsended, panic is not a happy place, especially lost, 50 kilometres and about a dozen blind turns from where you had started;

I turned around...

I know, I know, I have spent years telling certain people that your first instincts are the best and that you should never question a decision once its been made, but in this case I felt it was prudent to use caution instead of the rock n roll approach that has dominated this tour so far.

Anyways, long story much shorter within 20 minutes I had hit gold and was on my for Turkey- saved at last.

Not long after I saw signs advertising the Turkish border, expecting an easy, EU style blast across the border I eagerly sped up, that was of course until I saw the M16 brandishing Greek Guard standing at one side of a bridge, things slowed down. Three checkpoints later I had acquired a visa, and also approached a check point without the neccesary documents- an Uzi brandishing, very angry man told me I had to go back. "Where?" I asked, he just seemed to think it was in my best interests to go back, so I did. After some wrangling, and a bunch of the old hands apart shrugging motions the little girls had given me the requisite stamps and I was on my way.

TURKEY!!!! Hooray.

After the hell that was Greece, Turkey was a godsend! Wide, well maintained highways, and, wait for this, massive, well apointed Service Stations- I was back in a real country. Shortly after the border I turned south to head towards Galibolu, and the Gallipoli peninsula.

I soon arrived in the south west of Turkey, the Cannakkle area and as I pulled into a servo for fuel I saw a few yellow signs that looked mysteriously like a wireless internet symbol and a fuel bowser, with a flame of hope rising in my chest I fired up the old Inspirion, and was met with the three greatest words in the English language "Unsecured Wireless Network Available" - okay so that's four words but fuck my spirits soared.

Ever since the Grinch, posing as my book keeper down South at Mirtna Headquarters decided I would be better off not using the Vodaphone modem I have been in a horrible internet black out, but it had all changed now. I was downloading podcasts, torrents, uploading pictures, and surfing the net to my hearts content. Vive Le Turkey! forever and ever.

An hour or so later I had downloaded the latest four epidsodes of Entourages (Drama nails a bird in a chipmunk suit- you have to see it to believe it) and headed down to the town of Gelibolu, what I thought was the sight of the Gallipoli landings. It was a nice little town, a good market, nice port, and some nice illusions to our shared past, but no signs for ANZAC, I began to worry.

After checking out the town I jumped back in Messy and headed north, Google Earth made it look as if that was the way to go, it wasn't.

A small country lane, a heard of cattle, and a deamon three point turn later I tried the southern side of town, also a massive strike. Without options I decided to try heading even further South, all I knew was that there was a national park somewhere, were 1000's of people better then I had fought a battle for a reason that few can still remember, somewhere around the area... but I couldnt find it.

I headed South, and SOUTH for what seemed like an age, it turns out that the town of Gallipoli is no where near the Gallipoli peninsula, ANZAC Cove isn't even on the fucking Dardenelles. Finally I saw a sign, written in Turkish but I could guess the intent and with my heart in my mouth I took a right turn- it worked! and I soon found myself parked at North Beach, Anazac Cove- sight of a certain landing on April 25 1915 that meant a lot to my people.

With sunset arriving I decided it would be a good time to go see the memorial, leaving the rest of the battle fields for the next day...

I could go on, this post is already getting lengthy though, and I'm not the kloss, I won't ask Joe Knorks to write something for me, but I don't know if I am ready to write about the Gallipoli Experience yet. Suffice to say it was an incredible experience that I wouldn't trade for anything else we have done on this trip yet.

After spending the next day walking the battlefields of Gallipoli I headed back North for a days touristing in Instanbul. Which was good, but by this time, 60 odd days into the journey some random ancient town was a little overwhelming. Anyways, I had a good time, I played a fun game of Eurpoe/Asia/Europe walking across a bridge on the harbour, then went to the Blue Mosque- I only counted 5 spikes, but who am I, then went to the Grand Bazzar- which was grand, and it was bizarre- OH MY GOD that is gold...

Anyways, once I was done I went back to the campsite, to rest up for this weekend, and the Istanbul Grands Prix- which is where I am now- its great.

Drunken Posting

2007-08-19T00:05:00.000-07:00

So free camping on the side of the highway is the way to go over here, except for the fact that trucks are noisey things- so in order to get any sleep I have had to turn to the bottle, fairly heavily the last couple of days.

One of my favorite things to do when drinking is write stream of conciousness blog posts, so what follow's is what I came up with last night (completly unedited).

Enjoy:

We/I don't have tickets to the Ireland France game yet- we're are they?

love to share my thoughts when I get a little boozey, that 4 dollar Ouzo gets straight to the heart of the problem. I have so much to say, and thanks to the glory of Sergey Brin (and the other guy) I can rant all I want and be immortalised for ever.

I read once about a study where they showed that people rated beautiful peoples faces better, they're all about symetry. Denzel fucking Washington's Eye's Nose, Ears and chin all line up in a supposed romance to traditional beuaty, cepting of course for the fact that he is a negro... One of my eyes opens wider then the other, my smile is also lopsided and now that I am sporting my best Mulga Bill beard and hair it appears as if my beard is also lopsided, but on the opposite side of all the rest. Fuck Denzel Washington, I am georgous.

Life out here on the road is not for the faint of heart. My map has these crazy pictures that look like little coloumns, representing ancient archealogical area's of Greece. this is how I am deciding the agenda for this freak out. For instance today I went to the ancient city of Eritrea- a surprisingly good scene. Eritrea is a small town on the island of Evoia, which connects to mainland Greece on a bridge near Chalkida. 3000 years ago Eritrea was a happening hub, a natural port that allowed the locals to extend their reach far beyong the natural borders of their small Island. About 2,200 years ago a bunch of pesky Romans sacked and burned the fuck out of the locals so that their ancient city was lost for millenia.

Today the small town is similliar to trawling villages the world over. My first reaction was a strange nostaglia for the good old days of family trips to Yamba, the difference of course is that their is 3000 years of history poking its head into the day to day running of the town. I parked the Messy Days by the ancient Baths, then walked all the way through town to the Museum and the ruins of the old 'Western District' of town. Overall it was an extremely good piece of touristing, an amazing window into life a couple of thousand years ago bundeled into a resort town on the side of a picturesque fishing village- an out of the box box that didn't need ticking, but still got ticked none the less.

This is an example of things going right on the road. My aim for after Eritrea was to jet a little up the coast, find a beach, then settle for the night in a small town south of Lamia. Unfortunatly, when I arrived in said small town their was nothing open, mid afternoon on a weekend, and nothing (no market, no snack food places) was open- I was fucked, the plan for the day was shot.

So I headed North, when there are no solid plans the only thing to do is to borrow from the next days plans in order to come up with something to do. Northward I headed till I reached Thermopalyae- the scene of the ancient battle which was the target of tomorrow's touristing. Surprisingly Thermopalyae turned out to be an absolute bust, just a monument on the side of the national highway, with a statue to the Spartan king and an information point that told the story of 30, 000 odd Greeks who kicked the arse out of a million odd Persians for a couple of days sometime around the year 400 BC. Pretty mipressive when you think about it like that.

Anways,

fuck. Another god dam shepard is out the window, the other day one shut down the entire highway to get her sheeps across the god dam road- I wasn't happy. This monkey is out there till 9:15 on a Saturday watching over his flock, probably wondering how theose 2 (out of a 100) got to be black. Fucking Mendlestone (mendlestone? or some other Dav Rossi Jew name- the guy with the different coloured flowers... anyways) That's as complicated as life gets for the shepared. Look out for Foxes Mo Fo. Here I am trying to segue my "Expertise" on generational change in the workforce into a retention gig with Main Roads QLD and this monkey gets to spend his days watching a heard of fucking future lamb cutlets live their lives. Remind me again why I can't wind out my time on this earth sitting in a 6 wheeled trailer on thehighways of Eastern Europe?

Fuck Commerce!

That Billy Walsh knew what he was talking about - Are you kidding? I am Queens Boulevard!

Right- tough life on the road, without Mythos beer and a sense of adventure I don't think your average day tripper could survive. Some whores just stole Sander's Vet by hitting on him- what a character, if I could replace Kloss Diggity and old Dav Rossi with Sander's and Drama as bestest good touristing friends this trip would be off tap, baby. The problem with Greece (well one of the problems) is that they can't comprehend the concept of a 7-11, I have wailed previously on this blog as to the inadequicies of Greecean service stations, but I don't know if I really got my point across- let me try and clear it up- tonight was the second time in my life when I have had to have Chocolate Chip Cookies for dinner, the previous time was a few nights ago.

I know it sounds like a wild trip, being so far gone on the road, so deep into it, that all I can find time to eat for dinner is cookies- but seriously, the only reason I am in this funk is that its near impossible to find a grocery store in this backwards country- give me a nice reliable Champion any day of the weak. Anways, we're nearing the end of this rant. We're about 7 lots of 24 hours plus a couple away from the Istanbul Grand Prix and (the at least mental) turn towards home, or Paris as home may be next month. Fuck that, home is where the heart is as they say.

My four regular readers will know what I am talking about... Four- the three who know who they are will go wild trying to work out who the fourth is... where are we? Right- the run home. With only a week left i need to fit in as much gonzo touristing as can be handled, I also need to find sometime to finish reading a couple of books that require my upmost attention- I won't have the time come the worlds cup- it will be too wild.

P.S- I found out today that all the world cup matches are day games- which is a result as it means there will be a lot of time sitting around the bus reconstructing games on the Pastisis.

P.P.S- I have re started an old blog for the important worlds cup analysis- I don't want this descending into a useless sports blog- I will get the link here soon.

Athenia

2007-08-18T00:40:00.000-07:00

So I brought a hair band, how do the dames put up with long hair? I mean really, its always getting in my eyes, or itching my ears... Very annoying. I caved in and brought myself a Berbatov style band, not a gay as all fuck Bracken band- but still, I'm not really certain if this is cool or not- on top of my cocco butter sun screen I am worried about where this is going.

So the whole trip is supposed to be about 'finding myself' and despite the opening of this piece I can garruntee I'm not the homosexuals. I have spent far too much time sitting on rocky beaches on the Med looking at very young hard bodies in extremly scanty bikini's, so we've solved that problem. Another thing I am not is a traveller, this punting about from place to place is really not all its cracked up to be. I mean, how many boxes can anyone person tick in a 30 day period??? I'm not as interested in Greek culture as I look...I'm thinking a beach up in Turkey for a couple of days later this week.

Anyways, I stayed in a small port town called Rafina while in Athens, it was a nice 30 km's out of town, but their was no train, so I had to spend an hour on the bus just to get into town- but that wasn't that big of a problem, I was SOOOOOO excited about my big day in Athens.

I finally arrived in the latest edition on the olympic city roster and my first impression was that it was hot, real hot, back home type hot- I was very impressed. The bus into town does not drop you in a particullarly nice section of the city however, so I spent my first 45 odd minutes just wondering around trying to work out where I was, the normal play is too find a tube stop near where you need to be to get your bus/overland train home and use that as a base- it worked in Rome, Naples, Paris, Monaco and others, but in Athens it was turning out to be quite a hassle.

Anyways, I finally took the right turn and ended up on one of the major streets of down town Athens- its a little bit 70's slum, but overall its just a town. I had heard good things about the Athens Metro system, but finding a train station turned out to be the hardest part- when that job was finally done things got a lot easier. I caught the tube a stop down to the main touristing section and then did the touristing- not really many better ways to describe it then that.

The Acropolis/Pathenon/Agora is a very impressive part of town, really they appear to have just left a large section in the very middle of town empty for the ancient ruins. Of course

(Is it sad that I live a life with two different digital camera's? My view out my window is currently of some lights over on the main land across an Ageian Bay (I'm on the Island of Evoia, just out side of Eritrea) anyways, its quite a view, not every day you get to camp seriously 4 metres from the edge of the water, I tried to take a photo with the Kloss Kamera but it wouldn't come out, then I tried the Happy Snapper but it didn't work either. Oh well, you'll just have to believe me. Back to the 90210 - seriously, best move of the entire journey was coming with my multiple BH 90210 and Entourage DVD's- keeping me very occupied at night, that and the Mythos Hellenic Larger Beer and the $4 bottle of Ouzo- very occupied).

Where are we? right, touristing in Athens. I walked around, and around- and I mean around, its a fairly massive hill, and finding the way up can be quite challanging. Until eventually I got all the way to the top, and the Acropolis- very outstanding. 3000 years old. I liked it. BUT it was very quickly over with- its just an old shell of a building really, I had driven thousands of kilometres and was done with the big ticket items of the town within about 100 minutes. This touristing just isn't what its cracked up to be.

Anyways, my two day Athens experience was nearing completion after only one long morning, so I needed to come up with something exciting to make Athena catch fire in the old imagination. Thankfully the Athens Happy Train was there to save the day (I'll add a photo later). Dav Rossi and Kloss Dogg had poo poohed the last tourist train we saw (in Monaco) but this time I demanded satisfaction. It was a lot of fun, really it just went over the same route I had done in the morning, but I was riding in a cool minature train this time so was definatly the toast of all the people who waved as we drove past. It also took in a couple of cool new areas of town- such as the shopping district and the parliament area- where we saw some people in extremly foolish costumes- but they looked fairly serious with their bayonets, so I didn't throw too much sass.

Once the train ride was done I did the Macca's test, then caught the train back to the bus stop and bailed on the whole Athens trip, back to Rafina and my favorite bottle of Pastisis- it made everything seem good.

Overall I would give Athens a B-, parts of it stella, boxes that have to be ticked no matter what your stance on ticking boxes is, whilst other parts where a bit yawney, and others we're extremly divey- I wouldn't award it the Olympics over Bris Vegas, but I would still recomend it as part of the itenerary- not a destination, but a good point on the route no matter what.

Worst day of the trip

2007-08-15T03:25:00.000-07:00

(Off the Ferry, Amstels are a killer, they don't even use the same alphabet, no money, Lost, Camping Ioannion, no highways, Fear and Loathing Greece, Delphi, the side of the road)

So I got off the Ferry and was officially in Greece, I had no money, no map, and very little fuel. I went into the small ferry town Igoumensta, which saying the name of is about the most interesting part. I had a quick look around town, its basically a port, and went looking for a map, it turns out the good people at the Tom Tom corporation havn't realised that Greece exsists. There were no maps for sale in this small town, so I went to a pub and had a couple of the local brews, which I couldn't find so had some Amstels instead, they were good, and much needed after the horrors of the cruise (seriously the funniest thing you will ever see is the poor schumcks sleeping on the deck of the car ferry, when you've got your own 5 star super bus to sleep in comfort in... although I failed to empty the facilities before I got on the boat so had to share a bathroom with 300 or so camping on the deck people, wasn't great).

So after a few beers I got back in the bus and went looking for a map - but old Greece isn't very helpful when it comes to that, apparently they haven't heard of decent servo's in greece, they don't sell anything but oil etc, no snacks, no drinks, nothing useful, especially no maps, many also don't take credit- a big problem... anyways, I drove along and along looking for a place to get the map. Eventually I had gone about 100 km's to the next major town, so was happy to bail out at a campsite I found. I went for a quick tour around the town, got some dinner, and finally a map (written in Greek- but it would do) and was happy to collapse in the fort bed for a decent nights sleep.

With my new map I very quickly planned out a couple of days worth of touristing and set off in the direction of Athens, with the intention of stopping off at Delphi on the way. Unfortunatly it turns out the stupid fucking Greeks still think that what was acceptable as a highway 2000 years ago is fine in todays high paced world.

Seriously, I had to go about 350 KM's today and it took me 6.5 hours to do it- it was terrible. Single lane roads up and over 4 different mountain ranges, the first 80 km's took me 2.5 hours to cover, I was in no way happy about this fact, I don't like driving at the best of times, so when you add slow going and stressful downhills I really don't get happy.

Anyways, the long, long day went on and on, with my opinion of Greece going down and down as I went, I drove probably 200 KM before I found my first 4 lane road, the loathing was taking hold. I turned of the Athens road towards Delphi at around 3 and was extremely incensed when I realised that their was another mountain to go over before Delphi, I pulled over to the side of the road for a quick break before tackling the final climb and when I got back on the road I noticed that a new indicator light had come on, the one that looks like a little orange engine.

Immediatly the cold grip of the fear tightned around my heart, the mixture of the loathing I was feeling and the fear that had just descended meant an extreme blow up. I can't describe the mood I was in as I drove over that final mountain, but imagine driving six hours and then having a full blown attack of the Fear and Loathing in a strange country with an even stranger language - it was not great.

The rest of the drive to Delphi was horrible, but I managed to relax after I got online and found out that the indicator light was only for the Fuel Injection System and I could keep going on with it on - I relaxed a little and went and enjoyed the ancient ruins of the Oracle, it was quite enjoyable.

Anyways, hopefully tomorrow the fuel injector cleaning fluid I put in the fuel will have its effect and I get to Athens in one piece, at the moment I am on the side of the road, thinking that things can only get better then today.

There's still a fortnight of this left?...

2007-08-15T03:24:00.000-07:00

So I quickly fled Italy yesterday, but I am starting to wonder if that was the smartest move I could have made. Months, and Months ago I became aware that I had to try and kill a month between the end of the Tour De France and the Start of the big dance.

At the time it sounded easy, even a little exciting, a whole month in the captain's chair of the (then unnamed) HMAS Messy Days Express with all of Europe at my feet. I quickly made my plans, I wanted to see: Puccini Fest, Rome, Cannae, Athens, and the Istanbul Grand Prix. Unfortunatly at the time I didn't give any thought to the fact that this accounted for perhaps 8 days of touristing, when I had to fill over 30.

Now, I am at the coal face, spending each day trying to get more and more touristing done, and I have realised that I have a certain limit to the amount of rediculously unimportant boxes that I can tick at any moment. For instance, three days ago, pure box ticking in Naples- possibly one of the boringest afternoons of my life. Another example, my current situation, I fled Italy as I was bored and over it and am now in Greece... But the problem is I don't really have anything I really, really, want to see in Greece. Sure there is the obvious boxes of the Acropolis, Thermopoalae, Delphi, Knossos, and Marathon, but apart from that I can't really think of what I am going to do.

Seriously, I have come up with about 3.5 days of touristing to cover the next fortnight- add on Gallipoli, Troy, and maybe the sights of Istanbul on Grand Prix day and we're at about a week- this still leaves me a week short.

What to do for a week in Greece/Turkey? Seriously, I am looking for idea's here people. I have gotten all the idea's I possibly could of our friends at Poundster.com, and am still short- so any idea's are welcome in the comments section.

Also, I have to get from Instanbul to Paris between the 26th and 3rd of September. I have Venice and the Last Supper in Milan on the list for this period, but that is maybe an afternoon, so need some other things to do that weekend.

Folks, I am down to re reading Tucker Max and my Thomas Clancey that I read on the way over to the UK, I am desperate for things to do to fill my days. Suggestions Please.

2007-08-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

So I was done with Roma and headed South, I wanted to fill a few days before heading off to Greece with some more pointless box ticking, so I went for Naples and Pompeii. This was planned as two seperate days of touristing, but I soon discovered that Pompeii was a suburb of Naples so I decided to camp at Pompeii and travel to Napoli by train, it turned out I should have saved the train fare.

Naples was an incredible disapointment, well not really a disapointment, but it failed to excite at all. It was dirty, poorly laid out, full of terrible traffic, and badly in need of a coat of paint. My view of the town could have been soured by the fact that I was coming off three hard days touristing and was therefore very tired, but I just couldn't get enthusiastic about anything in town. There were a few things I kind of wanted to see, the Duomo, The Archealogical Museumm the Castle, and the Catacombs, but the lousy lousiness of the town in general killed my buzz in such
away that I couldn't be bothered. I walked and walked (its a poorly laid out town) until I finally found the Doumo, a great big church, I went into the museum, which sucked, and then couldn't get into the actual church - my enthusiasm meter offically dipped into the negatives, and I decided to cut the rest of the town. I would find out the next day that this was a huge mistake as most of the good stuff they found at Pompeii is now ono display at the Archealogical Museaum, but whatever- if I had gone to the meuseum I wouldn't have been in the mood anyways.

I got a solid afternoon/evening's relaxing in thanks to my piking on Napoli so woke up bright and early the next morning to go see the ruins of Pompeii, the ancient Roman town which was famously distroyed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in about 74 BC. I spent a bit of extra time preparing my outfit for the day, I wanted to be in my best Archealogist Outfit, unfortunatly I lost my cool hat in a drunken haze in Arny Le Duc, but I think the bull whip set off the outfit well- people had to know what I was all about.

Pompeii is very much well worth the visit. Back when I was an actual history type person I was never really interested in the whole, this is how they lived their every day lives, type stuff. But Pompeii is really quite interesting. My favorites where the Basillica, House of Mysteries, the small Theatre, and the small version of Collosimo. There was a slight downer however, in the fact that it involves a lot of walking, I don't know what I was expecting, but it is a complete town, and too see the whole thing you need to walk alot - my doggs still weren't 100% so by the end off the whole town I was a little tired.

The next day was time to sign out of Camping Sparticus (we're I was staying) so I set off early once again, this time to go up to the top of Mt Vesevius to get its prospective on the whole destruction of the town thing. The climb up to the car park was enough fun, the Messy Days only just handled the trip, it seriously took about 40 minutes driving straight up- easily out of category - 12-13 km's climbing up 1000 metres - quite serious.

So this climb gets you to the car park which still leaves you a couple of hundred metres below the top of the Mountain. I eagerly set about the climb however, as I was very keen to see some Lava, and get some use out of the Aniken skywalker costume I was wearing, but in the end it turned out their was no lava to be seen, no smoke neither - all in all, probably the most disapointing of all the Volcano's I have ever climbed. Nonetheless, great veiws, and something tells me that Vesuvius will get the last laugh, there are now 3,000,000 people living in the area's around the mountain, if it decides to blow its top again it will do some serious damage- I would care, but I was watching that World Cup round of 16 mach, maybe they could try their take a dive antics then... lets see how that works against the lava you greasy itai fucks!

Anyways, son I was finished Vesuvio and it was only 11 in the day. I needed to come up with something to do for the rest of the day, Amalfi was only a hundred odd KM's away so I headed off in that direction. However as I got closer and closer I started to wonder why I was doing this- I had no interest in going to Amalfi, which was good news when I got to the 20 KM to go mark and some charlie was blocking the road and told me I had to turn around- I didn't know what he was saying, but it made Amalfi offically to difficult for my tastes, so I turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

I had to admit to myself that I was now offically over Italy, there is only so much of one place you can take, and apparently 10 odd days is my limit. So I headed across the country towards the Adriatic in order to tick the biggest italian box I had on my list and then catch the ferry to Greece.

There were four absolutes when I got on the plane to come over here: Monaco for GP, Tour De France, Cannae, and the RWC. I had compelted the first two and today gave me a great opportunity to kick a goal and see the ancient battlefield of Cannae, on the adriatic coast in the Puglia section of Italy. Cannae, as all the 2nd Punic War freaks out their will tell you is the great battle where old Hannibal wiped the floor
with a much larger Roman army, bringing the Roman's to their knees for the first time. The battle (around 216 BC) was so long ago that all that remains are some rough idea's as to where it actually occured, but the museum at the ancient Citadel of Canne serves its purpose well. You can climb a big hill and look down on the whole valley, there upon imagining the slaughter that occured below. In the space of a day, Hannibals army inflicted near 50, 000 deaths on the Romans, whilst only incurring 6000 deaths on their side. They used what was to become the classic, draw your oppenent to far out onto the battlefield then come around his flanks and butcher him to pieces manoveur - it was to become this move as this is the first time in history that anyone used it- that Hannibal, if only he had some political will he may have been able to turn towards Roma itself after the great battle- unfortunatly the powers that be back in Carthage demurred, and so changed histroy forever (theres a lesson in there for old General Patreaus if you know what I mean)

Anyways, I'm sure you can infer that I was very excited by my visit to Cannae, a top twenty item on the hundred list I was very happy to get the box ticked. I was also very happy that I managed to get it done by about 4 pm, I still had time to blast down to Bari and see if I could get aboard a Ferry to Greece - which is where I am know, I told you I was over Italy. The boat was supposed to sail at 10, and looking out my window (its now 10:38) I think we are still in port, but it seems about ready to leave- so when I wake up I should be in Greece, and the real ancient leg of this trip can begin.

Collosomo

2007-08-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

The only words I can read on my bottle of skin cream are Vitamen E and Cocco Butter - is my sun burn fixing lotion secretly turning me the colour of Cocco Butter. I got sun burnt in Roma, this and more were just some of the adventures I enjoyed in the Eternal City.

So after the adventures of Florence I headed further South, down to Rome, the capital, and ultimate tourist direction in Italia. I got an excellent campsite, Camping Tiber, which was about 25 minutes out of the city on the train. After
setting up the Messy Days I took the train into town to see the sites, I stood staring at the list of stations on the metro map for a few minutes before eventually deciding that the station I needed to go to was the one called,

COLLOSOMO - I mean with a name like that it had to be good?

I came out of the station and was surprised to see that this station was in fact the home of the Flavian Amputheatre (hows that spelling?) At first I thought that the Itai's had sold out and called their metro station the western name for the Colleseum, but I later found out that the Colleseum is what they actually call it - Nero had a Klossus erected their, which is what the area became known as... the things you discover on the road.

Anyways, I spent a long time standing in a line- probably about 90 minutes, when I got in I have to say I was a little bit disappointed, its really a bit of a boring, just the ruined insides of an ancient ampitheatre really - but hey- boxes ticked if you know what I mean. After the Collosomo I headed up the hill to the Roman Forum- it turns out Sexy Kendell was right, they were just a bunch of rocks- seriously though, is when she knocked over that lolly jar in the off liscence the funniest thing that happened this year??? probably a close second too when the Texan told Dav that people get less for murder when Dav told him he had been with Bubbles for half a decade.

Right, The Forum, it was excellent - very much just a ruin but really a good way to get an idea for the way they rolled back in those days. I did some serious photo journalism, but the happy snapper isn't really set up for this kind of photographing. Anyways, the Forum flows neatly into the Pallitine Hill, which is where the nobles used to have thier palaces etc. It was a snore factory- once again just a bunch of ruins, you couldn't really work out what was supposed to be what and it was very hot - seriously it felt like I was going up and down hills all day -seriously probably around 7 - but I wasn't counting (c'mon - that's comedy gold people...)

Where were we? oh yes, the lame arse Pallitine - eventually I ended up at the old imperial palace overlooking the Circus Maximus, after spending a few minutes pretending to cheer for Judah Ben Hur I was over it. The problem with the Pallitine is that to get down to the actual Circus you have to walk all the way back through the Pallitine, across the Forum and around a couple of blocks- by the time I had done the whole Circus Maximi, my doggs were barking something fierce - I told them they should take better care of themselves, they said I should lay off the hamburgers, so I reminded them I was the boss and they were just the doggs - they should follow orders- they got me back by crippling me with some horrible blisters for the next couple of days.

So I was ready to go home now, but then I found this neat mueso which had been designed by guess who - Michealangelo- I am a sucker for the guy apparently. Anyways, it was a good little muesuem- the highlight was the original statue of the wolf mother feeding the young Romulus and Remus- very famous statue. There was also a cool painting with Hannibal riding an Elephant- I liked it. Finally I was done for my first day in Roma, I headed back to Camping Tiber and had a nice night at the little bar they had there.

The next day I got up nice and early by Messy Days standards, 7 AM in order to get down to San Peitro in order to get into the Sistine Chapel without waiting in the big line, how I was mistaken, I got to the museum around 9, a full hour before it opened and was shocked, appalled even to find the longest line in the history of mankind. There are two metro stops for the Vatican, San Peitro and the one for the museums, the line went all the way from the museum back to the San Peitro tube stop - we're talking about over a kilometre people- people we're lining up for 1 KM worth of lining up - I was shocked and appalled at their craziness, the Sistine Chapel was very quickly cut from the too do list of boxes that needed ticking.

So I headed off into the basilica - I have long ago decided that my favorite type of monuments in the touristing game are the living buildings, the churches, parliaments, theaters etc, the buildings that are just there for the purpose of just being there don't really do it for me - case in point Collosomo from the day before. Anyways, the basilica was incredible, easily the biggest and the best church I have ever seen - easily beating St Vitu's and St Paul's the previous front runners. I saw all the sites, including: The Coupla, Michalengelo's Pietra (the second one???), a Donatello masterpiece, the treasury museum, and the tombs of the Pope's - all very impressive, when the bird in front of me broke down in front of JP 2's tomb I thought it was a bit much- but you can't question peoples religions...

Finally I came out of the church, in a very good mood, by far one of the best touristing things I had done to date. I decided to give the Sixteenth chapel another go, just to see how long the line was now - it was still long, but not as long as it was in the morning, probably only 3 hours now instead of 6 from earlier. I have however, run with the Kapitan long enough to know that sometimes its just worthwhile to spend the extra cash and get the first class treatment, I signed on for a tour and within 25 minutes we were entering the Vatican Museum- a 30 euro investment to save 2.5 hours - a result. Also the tour guide was a complete hard body - second result.. she was also very knowledgeable which helped, cause I didn't know that much about old M'angelo's 16th Chapel - it turns out it is really quite impressive.

People have whinged in my ears about how its not really worth it, you wait in line for hours then just get processed straight through and don't really get to look at the paintings that well. Well, I guess I'm lucky I'm bigger then most people (and still had my hard body tour guide with me) cause we got to spend a good 30 plus minutes in the chapel- which was very impressive.

Anyways, after having done Chapel I was on a high, St Peter's had been great, and I had managed to see both a Donatello and a Michaelangelo in one day - now all I needed was a Leonardo and a Raphael to complete the set - you may not know this but the Vatican is dripping with Raphael's so I went back into the muesuem to tick that box - can't remember what the name of the painting but did he really need to do the crazy eye's on the kids??? it might have had something to do with resurrection so the kids we're scared of the Ghost that had come back to life after three days, but still- crazy eyes. Still, it was a box ticked- all I needed was a Leonardo, which was ticked very soon after as I went into the next room and there was a Da Vinci special! Job done, all four Ninja Turtles in one day - my Art site seeing career was complete. So, after an exceptional days touristing it was time to head home, 8 hours on my doggs was long enough - Unfortunately, Roma has the worst lay out in the history of town planning so I spent the next few hours walking around trying to find my metro station. Finally I got back to camping Tiber and collapsed.

The next day was check out time, I was officially over Roma, but still had some sites left to get all the boxes ticked, my doggs had gone on holiday so I was in a tough spot for any serious touristing - so I jumped aboard a City Tour Bus to see some of the sites that were still outstanding. It was good, I saw the church that is the setting for the first act of Tosca, and also got a better look at Castle St Angelo, the site of the third act of Tosca. After the very good bus tour I went to the Spanish Steps (a yawn but a box none the less) and I was finally done with Roma.

Transition Stages

2007-08-10T11:24:00.000-07:00

One thing we learnt with our new Tour de France experience was the importance of making everyday, not just the big ticket items, jam packed with action. So I decided that the small days on the Tour De Bill would have to be as full of excitment and adventure as I possibly can make them. The big tickets items have been fairly easy to identify, they are the things I knew I was going to do before the whole thing started, i.e. Antibes, Puccini Fest, Rome, and then we're not to sure what happens after that..., but anyways there are little days between each major centre which need to be filled with action and adventure.

I left Puccini Fest, and Torre Del Lago behind on Sunday morning with a bit of glee that I was finally getting away from the money hungry small town, but sadend that I would miss out on the chance to see La Boheme. The nearest town to Torre Del Lago just happens to be a small town called Pisa, I thought I was in luck with a chance to visit the home of Pizza, unfortunatly this is not what the town was famous for. When I arrived in town I was very worried that it appeared as if their local Tower was going to collapse within the hour, I come from a post 9-11 world so am trained to immediatly report anything that looks out of order. The problem was the local authorities didn't seem all that concerned when I reported that their tower looked like it was going to fall over, seriously it was on a huge incline.

Anyways, I soon got over those sorts of jokes and decided to stand around and judge the rest of the tourists who were all more interested in getting a photo of themselves either pushing over or holding up the Leaning Tower, few at all seemed interested in the actual history of the church. Seriously, it was 9 am on a Sunday morning, there were probably 1000 people in the square/area around the church, and 350 of them were standing around pretending, with another 350 taking their photos, the other 300 were in the WC line (which I soon found out). This all lead me to decide that it was time to introduce a new item in the litany of Mirtna Group Prizes - the Mirtna Group Prize for Ultimate Tourist Photo - this $100 prize is being offered to anyone who can get a photo of them selves either a) holding up, or b) pushing over a historic tourist attraction. That is- get a photo of yourself actually pushing against the Leaning Tower of Pizza and win a prize- think about it, it would be the ultimate picture.

Unfortunatly, when all a town has to offer is a Tower on a rakish angle you can pretty qucikly cover your days touristing goals. So it was about 10:30 in the morning and I was done for the day. I had to add a few items to the itinery. The best thing about TomTom is it offers an option to avoid toll roads - if you choose to do this it means you will be spending a lot longer getting between places, in this case this was a bonus. I took a long country drive around Tuscany, before ending up in Lucca, a Tuscan town famous for being the brith place of Puccini - keeping the theme of the weekend going... Anyways I got to Lucca with just enough time to find a pub to watch the Hungarian F1 - Lucca it turns out it lame ville and had no pubs with the F1 on, seriously, Maranello is about 2 hours away- they couldn't find a TV to show the race - long story short I got to Lucca and needed to find a TV quickly, I hired a bike and headed off on my search, I rode and rode, along the cobble stoned streets, around the outer wall of the Roman ruins, and up and down all over town - but there was no TV to be found, defeated I went back to the bus and had to make do with the 3 by 4 inches of Messy Days Vision. Hamilton won, it was boring.

Next day I was off to the Medival town of Florence, home of the Meddici, the Uffizi Gallery, Michalengelo's David, and birthplace of Machiavelli. So I drove towards town, and after much fucking about finally found a place to park the whale for the day. Optimistically I paid for parking until 8 pm - knowing that I was going to be spending a long day touristing. I headed into town on foot and quickly came to the Medici Palace, the original location of the David, there was a fake, which was quite impressive - old Michalangelo knew what he was doing if you know what I am saying, anyways I went through the castle and marveled at the tresures inside, in particular Michealangelo's Victory. I was firing myself up for a big visit to the Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest gallaries in the world, I left the castle and went to the Statue of Truth and Light, otherwise known as the statue of Nicoli Macchiaveli- the prophet. That's why I'm so much better then you at 500 and 10, 2,3 Dav Rossi, I am euridite and you didn't know history went back more then 150 years...

Where were we? oh yes, the Machiavelli statue was good, and I was primed to go into the gallerey, After nearly 9 months of travelling I was finally going to an ultimate Medieval gallerey, that is until I realised that the Uffizi was shut on Mondays- I wasn't happy. The good news is that I still had an ace in the hole, Florence was also the home of the David, so I headed off to the Acadmia to see that, until I then found out the Acadmia was also shut on Mondays, I was now furious. Florence, as far as I could be concerned could go and Fuck its self.

Fortunately there were many other things I could do in Florence on a Monday... Of course, with the towns two biggest attractions closed for the day it meant that the other attractions had thousands of people at them. The very impressive church had lines longer then anything I have ever seen, so I cut it. The doors on the baptistery where very impressive- when I have the chance to google I will remember the name of the artist- but very famous doors... I also managed to go to the museum of the Church, which housed Michaelangelo's Prega - or something like that, which was also very impressive. The meuso also had the original panels from the famous doors (above) I looked on, barely able to stifle a yawn till I noticed two chaps carrying some sort of chest over their shoulders, with a squint I realised that it was supposed to represent a certain box known as the Holy Grail - stangley in the form of a box holding the Ten Commandments, not in the form of a decendant of the line of the Jeebers'- Why would Dan Brown lie I asked myself? (more to come on this later) but I soon got over it and moved on.

Anyways, I was know about done in Florence, I weant for a bit of a hike, including going up the big hill that looks down on the town, and then went back to the Messy Days, my long, long day of touristing was done, by about 4:30, my parking booking had been far too optimistic.

Anyways, two good days, but in the wash up at the end of the day Florence is off the list- why would you have your two biggest attractions shut on a Monday? Stupid Roman Wannabees.

Puccini Festival

2007-08-06T03:21:00.000-07:00

NOTE: I am currently a little out of sorts, so if this post seems a little angry you should know this in advance, I am doing a flying one day visit to Florence in order to tick a few boxes, I have just found out that both the Uffizi Gallery and Academia are shut on Mondays. Florence can go fuck itself - they are just lucky their is at least a fake David in one of the squares...

Festival Opera appears to be a little bit of a bloodsport. The battle being fought between a mixed group of people thrown together for a short while each year, all with different loyalties and drivers.

There are the towns people, intent on squeezing every dollar out of the festival, setting exorbitant parking prices, 7 euro's to get into some house the Maestro used to live in, lots of bars and restaurants that conveniently share names with famous opera's, VS the customers, mainly tour groups who come in, in cost saving maxi coaches with coolers and thermi (or is it thermoses?) sandwiches and cakes, one libretto between three or four (don't think the towns folk will supply subtitles) all to ensure that the towns folk don't prosper too much.

Then you have organizers and principles, desperate to forge or improve their reputations, genuinely swept away in the brilliance of the Maestro's work, conveniently looking past the fact that their theater has no roof (what if it rains) and the fact that the shows can't start till 9:15 because of the light, VS, the ushers and musicians, drawn to the festival by the promise of a few weeks worth of eating money; desperate to finish each nights work as soon as possible in order to get out of town, back to the normality of their Monday to Friday, 48 other weeks of the years lives, don't use exit 1 immediately after the final curtain, you will be swept away in a sea of black clad muzak types swinging their instrument cases like weapons in order to ensure they get thru the crowd first and out fo the traffic.

Despite all this, for all Puccini Freaks out their (and I know my readers are all Puccini crazy) I can give a five star big thumbs up rating to Puccini fest. I got into town on Friday night in order to see Madam Butterfly, which was very impressive - so much better then the ROH version, however my opinion may have been influenced by the lack of obstructed view in Torre Del Lago Puccini - Joe Knorks - Did you realize there was a kid in show???? Anyways, very good- the customers/set designers in the Puccini Fest team are extraordinary, as was Butterfly. Pinkerton, or Stinkerton, as I think he should be called was also very strong. The theater is incredible, right in the banks of the lake, you have to walk across this bridge across the Marina in order to get in.

Anyways, I slept the night in the car park then the next day headed off to explore the township, one thing I can say about these Tuscon's is that they love their push bikes, every inch of road was taken over by the things, driving the whale through the town was quite difficult. Once I parked the thing and began walking along the streets I was constantly dodging cycles, bells ringing everywhere, if you closed your eyes it was like being back in Saigon in 72, it reminded me of that time I had to save my friend Christopher Walken from a game of Russian Roulette in a back room off the harbor... or wait- was that Deer Hunter???

Anyways, after I shoke off the Nam flashbacks I went down to the beach where I spent the course of the afternoon. The best and worst bit was the sand, I love sand at the beach, much better then the stupid rocks of many other beaches. I don't love sand when I return to my motor home and have to try and get it all off... Coarse Black sand that they have over here, gets everywhere. Anyways, overall the beach was good- lots of hard bodies, and windy enough that you could almost pretend like you were catching a wave as you came back into shore after a swim. Before the show I went to the Puccini fest, just near the Theatre, which was very interesting, and was where he lived for a long period around the turn of the century.

That nights show was Tosca, one I hadn't seen before, but I quickly read the Libretto before the kick off so I had a fair idea of what was happening - another outstanding performance. Although with the extra intermission it did go very late into the night- we're talking quarter to one before it ended- so I don't think old Kloss dogg would really be able to handle Puccini fest... The other problem with night two was I could only get a more expensive ticket, so it met the budget was blown for the Sunday night performance of La Boheme, but I felt I had covered Puccini Fest anyways, so decided to head off on the tourist trial the next day.

Alone

2007-08-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

So I lost the dead weight that was the Kloss and Dav Rossi show on Monday, I was finally truely off on my European adventure. The Tour De France was amazing, but we didn't really do much touristing at all, so my goal for the next month, while I tour around Europe between the Tour and RWC, is to do as much solid touristing as possible.

I dropped the lads at Charles De Gaulle around 9 AM on Monday, and immediatly turned south, with an intial goal of Antibes, but the real destination was Italia. Keeping in mind my goal of achieving as much touristing as possible I decided to use my new absolut power and visit the Vercingetorix Memorial in Alesia (which the lads had vetoed last time we were on the Autun plain). As all history nuts, or alternativly most of you Asterix nuts will know Vercingetorix was the Gaulish King who led the tribes of the Gauls in their battle to end all battle's against old J Ceaser. The Siege of Alesia, the final battle, has always been a favorite of mine, even though our only primary source on the matter is old J Ceaser himself.

However, know that I have been there I can confirm that it is a battle worthy of its place in history. the Vercingetorix Statue stands 8 metres tall above Mount Alesia, looking out over the Autun Plain. The pure, unbelievable gall (sorry about the pun) of the Romans turning up on the Autun Plain, staring up a mountain at an army, nay a race of people, hell bent on defending their homeland, and still attacking has to be respected. As a bit of a millitary history buff I was expecting to be impressed by Alesia, but the sheer magnitude of the battle ground, and the numbers of people involved were inspiring. On the hole Alesia was a perfect way to start my touristing career. A huge box ticked as well as a bit of a sense of my own insignificance, good times.

Energised as I was I jumped aboard the Messy Days and beat my way further south, early the next morning I had finished the drive and was in Antibes, there to visit Cheese and do some more touristing. As I drove into town I saw a large Blue Boat, roughly the size and shape of Seafirma, my heart dropped as I realised that J was leaving town. I spent the morning adventuring around the old town of Antibes, lots of small cobble stoned streets, and very impressive walls and ramparts. Eventually I left the old town and went looking for an ATM, unfortunatly Antibes is lousy for ATM's, so this took longer then expected. Pretty soon I was getting extremely frustrated with the entire town when a large, balding chef jumped out from behind a tree - it turned out it wasn't Seafirma leaving at all. Jason had radomly spotted me walking along the street.

Tuesday night we got together for a big night out in Antibes. First we had some Rose, Pate, and Fromage on the grass outside the boat - secretly Jas just likes to talk to the tourists who ask questions about the boat, then we had a couple of six packs up on the top sun deck, before finally we headed into town - it was all very well to do.

Jas, as it turned out had an ace up his sleave, an Absinth Bar, very quickly the evening turned messy. I can't fill you in on the full details, but briefly we went to another couple of bars, I made a friend, and the next thing I knew I was walking home towards Villnerve Loboit (where the camp site is) at 4 AM. As I passed along the rock wall on the beach I briefly sat down on what looked like a comfortable rock, next thing it was 5 AM and I still wasn't home, infact I was still on the same rock, 30 minutes later I had finally reached the Messy Days.

After a brief sleep I got up and tried to spend my day keeping busy to stave off the horrible hang over I knew I deserved, I spent time on the beach, checked out the big Fort that looks over the Antibes Harbour, even copped a work out. It was to no avail, around 5 oclock my body started to crack up as the mixture of delayed hangover and lack of sleep caught up with me. I was supposed to go meet Jason so tried to have a few heart starters to get me going. Unfortunatly, as can sometimes happen the heart starters had the reseverse effect and ended up stopping all potential momentum, a beaten man I went to sleep.

Thursday Jas was due to leave town for a month in Spain (on the boat) so I scheduled my own depature. My touristing for the day consited of a visit too the medieval town of Eze, built high atop a moutain overlooking Monaco. We are talking seriously right up on the very top of a mountain, their are no streets, just small walk ways interescting with multiple stair cases which work their way up to the Garden's on the top of the hill. It was well worth the visit, not just for the views but for the history captured in the small town.

After some lunch I kicked on and headed for Italia, I went the long way, via Menton, so I could have one last dip in the French version of the Med, parking was difficult but I finally found a spot about 150 metres short of the border I stopped and had a quick dip. Dav Rossi's multiple jokes about the likeliness of my driving around Europe in my birthday suit were still ringing in my ears, so as I took off my wet boardies and toweled off I decided to call the bluff and cross the boarder in a fairly unique outfit, I was Nude.

Shortly afterwards I pulled my shorts back on and drove off into Italia. The highway from France to Genova is horrible, its seriously 130 km of bridges and tunnels, there is no road shoulder, there is no extra lanes, its an hour and a bit of trying to squeeze past large trucks in tight tunnels and bridges, I did not enjoy it. Eventually I found a truck stop and slept for the night.

Friday dawned stormy - not a good sign for my relationship with Italia, however it eventually cleared up just as I reached my first stop in the new country, and Fridays touristing spot, Maranello. The home of the Ferrari Factory, but more importantly the Ferrari F1 team and Piste Firorano - a huge box that had been in the 100 list for a long, long time. I wandered around the small town for a while, checking out the many small stores which were all packed to the gunnels with Ferrari merchandise, all the while working my way closer and closer to a high pitched whine I could hear somewhere in the distance, I knew I was getting near to the factory, and more importanly Firoarno.

I spent some time walking around the factory, looking at the huge new wind tunnel, finally ending up at Galleria Ferrari - as the name suggests it is a Ferrari Gallery- lots of old school Ferrari's, both racing cars and production- quite enjoyable. Finally I tried to find a place where I could actually see onto the track, but to no avail - I could see one little part of one of the corners, but the cars had come off the track while I was in the Gallery, so it was no biggy.

With my days touristing done I headed off for the weekends agenda, Torre Del Lago Puccini, the Puccini Festival, where I briefly went to the beach and then headed off to see Madam Butterfly, which I have just done, there will be more to come on this in the next post.

Le Tour De France

2007-08-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

The tour is over, it was one of the funnest trips of my life. There were too many huge memories to get down on one blog post, driving the car into the ditch, 50 hours on the mountain, 2,3,10 tournaments, people on the road, car trouble in Geneva, and our language abilities to name a few. But there's one memory that I think encapsulates the entire trip in one day.

The last stage on the road was from Cahors to Angoloume, a tranisition stage with little to no importance on the overall race, but the beauty of the tour is that even the nothing stages still pull a huge crowd and all the fan fare associated with the grand stand stages of the Alps, Pyranees, Time Trials and Chumps Elysee. We arrived in Cahors the night before the race and stocked up the bus with the essentials, cheese and Rose. We then drove around the town for a little while looking for the tell tale Yellow Arrows that would show us where the race was going the next day, when we finally found them we were set, the Yellow Arrows mark the entire route, all 3500 kilometres, every fork in the road the arrow tells you where to go. Yes, in the arrows you can trust.

We drove down the route for around 16 kilometres, to a spot just on the far side of the first minor climb of the next day's stage. The difficulty of the entire trip was that the Messy Days Express is such a huge whale we often had trouble finding a spot that was firstly big enough, and secondly strong enough to have the Messy Days rest on it for 24 hours. After the troubles of bogging the bus in Belguim (aliteratoin baby) we always had to be extra careful to test the sturdiness of any grass we stopped on to be sure that the bus didn't immediatly sink to the axles. Anyways, after 16 kilometres we finally found a nice rocky spot on the side of the road that we could safely park the bus so we pulled over and set up camp.

We quickly set up the card table, tied Roger the Kangaroo too the bus, and got out our jug of Rose, the party soon got going. Kloss dogg was nose deep in Harry Potter, so Marty and I were left to 3,2,10 it out between ourselves. We had arrived in Cahors early, having bagged seeing the finish town of the days stage in order to get a prime position on the next stage, so we were kept entertained as we sat in camp watching as other camper vans kept coming past, giving us friendly waves as they stared in amazement at the primo number one position we had managed to snaffle. With all their friendly waves it was a little sad that they didn't realise we were yelling abuse at them for running so late and not getting as good camping spots as us.

The night wore on and the Rose started to have its welcome effects. The 10,2,3 tournament was hotting up and we decided it would be good fun to do some painting on the road. That is what we do on the Tour, we write messages to the cyclists to tell them good luck. Most crazy Frenchie's have more experience then us in this, so come prepared with paint tins and rollers, but we're Aussie's from the street so could make do with spray cans (with all my experience on the various train bridges around Bris Vegas I was a natural writing on the roads). We had a ball writing various messages on the road, mostly along the lines of Go Cadel and those sorts of positive thoughts. The night descended into a little bit of maddness after this as Kloss finished the book (three days for the first 400 pages, three hours for hte last 200 - beards were stroked in wonder) so the party got going.

The next morning we woke up and had a fry up of eggs and bacon before settling in for the mornings waiting. The Tour is an incredible mixture of helter skelter races from town to town chasing the bikes, and then spending hours sitting on the side of the road waiting for the cyclists to race by. We're talking three hours driving, for four hours of sitting on the side of the road, for 50 seconds of cheering as the mighty peleton blows by (on the mountain it was more like 50 hours waiting for 50 minutes of cheering...). We spent our morning testing our minds with a 500 tournament, some reading, and watching the locals as they arrived to watch the tour for the day.

The good people in the Tour De France organisation are experienced enough with their race to know that they need to do something to keep the people entertained, so they send through the publicity caravan. The caravan is 45 minutes of pure joy, we decided to have a competition to see who could get the most free stuff for the day. The early running was dominated by Dav Rossi, he wasn't good in the one on one wrestling type stuff as we went for the scraps the people were throwing, but he was incredible at the scrapping around and picking up the dregs of what Kloss and I deemed not worth our troubles. The entire competition turned in an instant however when the girl on the Simpsons car took pity on the Kapitan and threw an entire box of Bart and Lisa masks to him, we called Shenanigans.

Finally forty minutes after the caravan was past the leading cars began to come past. We got out our flags and began warming up the vocal cords for a bit of Cadel supporting. There are probably 1000 cars attached the tour, its unbelivable how many team/organisation/and sponsors cars were required. There were five red cars attached to the top organisers of the trip. First the Arrival Judge would come past, a few minutes later the offical Chronometer would drive past. There would then be a lull of a few minutes before the Assistant Director would come by, finally about 15 Gendarmes on bikes would go past and we would know that the race was finally getting real close. The fourth red car was the one to get you real excited it was the Directors car and would be immediatly in front of the Peleton. Half a minute later the cyclists would be disapearing into the distance, our Tour experience finished for the day.

The fifth red car would then pass amongst the team cars, we had no idea who was in it because we wouldn't be watching, we would be busy packing up and getting ready for the Fin De Course blue van to tell us we good move on for the day.

Thats the Tour De France experience ladies, that's living.

Stranded

2007-07-17T02:16:00.000-07:00

So I didn't think that traveling would be easy, but no one could have predicted we would run into as many challenges as we have in this first week of the tour. We are currently holed up in a hotel in Geneva, after the Messy Days Express broke down yesterday.

The tour didn't start strong, we missed the train to Dover by about 2 minutes, the next day we got lost in Dunkirk and couldn't find anywhere to eat, more problems. We finished that day in Ghent, Belgium, where after getting horribly lost again we managed to get the Messy Days bogged thanks to our parking not on the concrete tire paths provided but on the grass so that our awning would look more impressive.

Day 4 provided more challenges as our Tom Tom broke down as we tried to go into France, all of a sudden we were back to navigating by the sun, this day also saw us get to our campsite so late that the reception had all ready shut, leaving us on the side of the road for the night.

Day 5 was full of positives, we did briefly get stuck in a huge traffic jam out side of Charles De Gaulle and we didn't actually camp at the camp site we originally planned on, but all in all that day wasn't that bad.

Day 6 will live in infamy, we set off in high spirits, the Kloss had fixed the Tom Tom and we were heading for a Feed Station. Unfortunately, trouble was just around the corner as we managed to get the Messy Days stuck in a ditch when we tried to park on the side of the road. Thankfully 20 or so people on the side of the road came and helped and we manged to push the 4,500 kilo beast back on the road. The rest of day 6 was fine, except for when we arrived at the Col de la Colombiere where we were going to stay the night, the only stretch of road that the Messy Days could stop on was a serious 6 degree incline, not a comfortable nights sleep.

Day 7 was an excellent day for the tourists, we saw an excellent stage of cycling and had a fun day in the sun. the trouble struck when we got caught in a ridiculous traffic jam, a 50 minute journey blew out to closer to 5 hours, we spent another night on the side of the road. Day 8 isn't even worth a mention, we cut the Tour de France to spend the day in Geneva, Switzerland and had an all round enjoyable day. The only real problem was we missed a bus and had to spend 25 minutes waiting for the next one.

Day 9 provided the piece de resistance however when half way through the day, just as we got ready to head for the Col De Galibrier (massive hill on today's stage) the Messy Days wouldn't start. Four hours on the side of the road later a tow truck finally arrived and we headed off for the Fiat Dealership to try and get it fixed. It is now mid day on the next day, the only English speaking person at Fiat is not giving us much hope of salvation today so the trip is really off the rails. The lack of other languages amongst our touring team is really quite noticeable, and is helping us understand why other Europeans tend to treat us English speaking monkeys with contempt.

The only upside is that surely after this nothing worse can happen. Hopefully tomorrow we will be back on the road for Monaco and Anitbes, then rejoin the tour for the race to Paris.

Quick Update

2007-07-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

Hello

Am in a truck stop in Belgium, it is day three of the mega journey. So far we have managed to miss trains, get caught in thunderstorms, get lost (twice), bog the bus at the camp site, and do very little touristing.

But on top of that the actual tour de france has been pretty good so far, we are starting to get our bearings a little bit better and should be more succesful over the next few days.

Not much else, Dav Ross joins in a couple of days and then we head for the Alps, which should be good.

Bill

The End of The Beggining

2007-07-03T13:37:00.000-07:00

There is a point when you realize that maybe things in your life aren't as perfect as you thought they were. For BA in London that moment came about fifteen minutes ago. On the back of three weeks of whiskey being required for sleep at night I realized I was at a low point when Neil Cavuto (of Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox) nearly drove me to throw my lap top across the room.

I was just finishing my third drink for the evening when Cavuto had the gall to suggest that QLD's own Mohammed Asif Ali was a terrorist. Incensed I slammed my drink on the coffee table and attempted to throw my laptop at the TV. Luckily for me I am watching Fox News on my Laptop so the metaphysical impossibility of throwing something at itself saved the fate of the Dell Inspirion.

One of my favorite scenes of celluloid history is in the Ivan Rietman classic Stripes when Winger realizes he will be dead in 6 months if he continues with life as he is currently living it. Winger joins the army (with hilarious results) but I am going to try and shake things up by embarking on the Grand Tour of Europe- 2007, known on other sites as the Tour de Fear .

I've just about packed my bags (that is I have thought about what to do with my stuff) and quit the job. The bus is hired, the e-tinerary has been created, its time to venture out and leave this cold, wet, dull city in my past.

We are going to start this July with a casual jaunt around France in the HMAS: Messy Days Express, joined by long time supporter and Team Love Train Domination team mate Kapitan Kloss, and my old nemisis, the A team's Dav Rossi. July will see your favorite blogger visiting all the sites of France (the English Channel and the Cognac Distillery - we will find something to do with the rest of the month), who knows where we will end up? (if I was a better blogger I would have a Google Earth mash up showing the route). Also follow closely for a surprise visit from Le Chez who we're told is still lurking somewhere in the South of France. Who knows, maybe we will end up at a mustard or a cheese factory - Whoa, we may have to rate a few posts (AO) in the coming month.

Oh God, Cavuto is gone and has been replaced by The Big Story with John Gibson - why do I do this too myself? We've switched to the old tawny now.

So at the end of July we will drop the dead weight represented by the Kapitan and Dav Rossi (who is going home with a ring in his pocket - you heard it here first). And adventuring off along the Mediterranean Coast - the e-tinereary is less specific here, basically the entry looks like this: "August - ??". We will see what happens. The August Adventures will be worked out by a complex formula basically looking something like: how far will the money go? (if you are contacted by anyone from Barclays, Visa or American Express asking about me - pretend you don't know me) but hey- even if I only sit on a beach in Croatia for the month I will still be rocking harder then most of my winter bound constituents.

Finally the Grand Tour will find its end in the decadence dipped debacle that will be the Rugby World Cup 2007 in France. Joined by a no less luminary support crew as the Kapitan, the Ayatollah, F.U.C, Duggan (who needs a nickname), Dangerous, and others. September (and early October) promises to open the all ready wide eyes to their furtherest point yet.

The blog posts may come a little slowly over the next few months - for this I apologize, but know that it is better that I get out of Britain and the utter Fear that currently congests the streets (Seriously three machine guns on the way to work this morning - someone in the the first world beat that!). Anyways, the dream is finally coming to fruition, don't be afraid to come and visit! (some lesbian on The Big Story just said that touching is a form of sexual assault. Am I assaulting myself?)

Technical Notes

2007-07-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

Hello

two quick technical notes:

1) have added a link (to the right) to my online picassa album- so those people who are asking for photos can see them there.

2) we have a new blog for the Tour de France- I will probably publish posts at both blogs but check it out to get the inside running from the Money and the Count as well.

http://letourdefear07.blogspot.com/

B A Tron

Box Ticking

2007-07-01T05:20:00.001-07:00

So when you move to a city like London there are any number of things you 'just have to do' in order to get the full experience. That is, you a long list of things with a box next to each one and must tick off the box in order to claim genuine Londoner status.

So with the grand depart fast coming up I have been madly trying to tick off as many boxes as possible in the last month so that I can say that I did it. (some bridge)

It all started last weekend when old Joe Knorks and I had a grand day out to get a number of boxes ticked. We started with the V and A museum - which is basically a homage to the great tradition of Brits stealing the best things another culture has to offer. Quite a good museum though, lots to see, some cool sculptures etc. Then we went to Harrods - which is big, you have to give it that. The notable part of the store was the Wimbledon range of clothing - was very close to buying the best cardigan that has ever been knitted, but couldn't justify 500 Aussie dollars for a cardy. Finally we set off for the river in order to find the MI6 building - I know what your thinking - in Golden Eye Bond gets from the MI6 building, past the eye and bast the millennium dome within about 30 seconds of each other - but it turns out they are in three distinctly different parts of the city.

(Half expected to run into Kapitan Kloss - but he must have been inside)

So with the wind in our sails and three boxes ticked in one afternoon we decided to have another go at ticking some boxes this last Wendesday - by going to Wimbledon to see some tennis. I left work mid afternoon on a slightly overcast day with expectations of seeing a solid couple of hours of Tennis - but conditions would conspire to screw me.

I got the overland from Waterloo to Wimbledon, intending to meet Joe Knorks and catch a bus to the Championships, but was surprised to walk out of Wimbledon station straight onto centre court:

(Wimbledon Centre Court - Smaller then you would expect)

(Four Time, Four Time, Four Time, Four Time Wimbledon Champion - or could it have been a look alike considering what was happening on Court 1 at the actual Wimbledon at the time?)

Anyways, I was quite surprised to walk out of the station straight into a Roger Federer match, I watched for a few minutes and started to realize that the reason he was has won so easily for so many years was the quality of his opponents- it appeared he was playing school girls! Then I realized that this wasn't the actual wimbledons and was more a promo type thing.

Right then - I had to wait for Joe Knorks, I got there ten minutes early but expected her to be there considering she had nothing else to do that day. But Joe Knorks being who she is managed to keep me waiting till 4:30, I was annoyed but not that annoyed (I'm not that big a tennis fan, we were really only going to tick the box after all) there was some nice sun, and laughing at all the people who were asking the fake Roger Federer for autographs was good. Anyways, Joe Knorks finally arrived so we headed off for the championships - or should I more accurately say the queue - a central part of the Wimbledon's experience.

(Was more then prepared to give a mouth full to the smug jerk who gave me my 'Guide for Queueing for the Championships' but Joe Knorks stopped me as there were children present)

So we stood around in the queue until about 5 when all of a sudden it started to rain - just as we got to go into the ticket area - no problem we thought, just a quick delay, will give us a chance to get the lay of the land and find some booze. But oh were we wrong.

(Joe Knorks with a Pimms at Wimbledon - thirty years to the day her parents where there. Could the Wimbledon Pimms be the reason she is with us today???)

(Just one for the Old Grey Mare - you wouldn't get away with that sort of health and saftey risk in Oz).

So it rained for maybe 6 minutes, enough time for us to get into the courts, find a pimms, and inspect the facilities. We went straight to court 8 to get a good seat in order to watch the Stubbs doubles match that was nearing conclusion. We sat down and waited.

(Rain delay Wimbledon Style - no your not wrong- that's sunlight in the back ground not rain - oh so they would be playing then you say - apparently not)

and waited and waited. (hang on Race 7 is about to start, hopefully the Kiwi's can make this go into a couple more races - Massa has the French gp all sown up - no Raikonnin got him in the pit stops)

I'm back the race hasn't started yet... where were we? oh waiting, and waiting.

The sun came out, I worked on my tan, but I didn't see any tennis - Why? because British people are the biggest girlie men that ever lived - after 10 minutes I was a little bit annoyed, after 20 disgruntled, after 40 - pissed off. The organizer finally came over the loud speaker to announce that there was still rain around - could have fulled me, but just to prove his point we got a minutes worth of drizzle just after he spoke.

That minutes worth of rain cost us another 40 mins of waiting (we were drinking during this break so it wasn't that bad) we used this time to walk all around and see the sights - the show courts, henman hill, etc. And finally the loud speaker crackled to life again and he said THE SAME THING - once again a light drizzle happened and we settled in to wait again. You have to understand that even though it was now 7 pm we have sun light till 10 pm at the moment so there was still a chance to see some tennis.

Finally at 8 pm the loud speaker came on again and announced that the covers were coming off - but he covered himself by saying that there was some rain just west of the courts and if it hit we were fucked. The covers came off to loud cheers from the few die hards who had hung on in desperation.

(A Tennis Court)

So they got the covers off and we started to look around for the players (we all know the reason I was there was to see fit chicks in short skirts). but the only thing we saw was suddenly a lot of court attendants listening to their radios - to our outrage (and this time I did give them a mouthful - long evening on the beers by this time) they started to put the covers back on!

(When the rain came it came hard)

The rain then hit, and hit properly, the loud speaker came to life and announced that their would be no play that day - the dream was over.

So deafeted we then started the two hour journey home - Wimbledon, and the softness of the British people in general certainly got bad mouthed for the entire journey home.

Anyways, I didn't see any tennis - so I don't really know if I can tick the box or not, but thats ok - I don't care, I will never go back.

The Spy Who Loved Me

2007-05-28T03:09:00.000-07:00

Friday
The arrival of the kapitan, Le Chez, Mediterranean nights, The Cafe Love.

You may not be able to accept all of this, but every word is the truth. The Kapitan arrived on Friday looking suspiciously fresh for someone who had just flown across the Pacific. So we got his bags stowed away at the Pickle, had a quick greasy breakfast and then headed for Luton to catch the plane for our secret mission.

Things did not get off to a good start when we arrived at Luton Parkway train station to find out we had the wrong tickets for that train, the kapitan took the ticket guy off to the side and made him an offer he couldn't refuse- the ticket guy let us through. I'm not sure what secret agent skills he used to talk our way past the ticket guy, but it goes to show the kind of power that the great man wields.

Finally though we were on the plane and ready to go, but apparently EasyJet had made some sort of mistake with their scheduling so that our plane couldn't take off for over an hour after it was supposed to take off, eventually though the stalling weekend got on its way and we were off on our way to the south of France.

I had spent some time in the week leading up to the mission trying to work out how the flight details would work. Headquarters told me we would be leaving Luton at 2 and arriving in the Cote d'Azzure at 5, but on the way back we would be leaving the Med at 9 and getting back at 10. How could this happen? I wondered, luckily the Kapitan is a very experienced international man of mystery so quickly cleared this up for me by explaining the existence of time zones, the penny dropped!

Anyways, thanks to the EasyJet stuff up we didn't get into Nice until 6 pm, so when we finally got to the hotel, the kapitan went to sleep. At first I was worried, had he been poisoned? had one of our enemies got to us? No it just turns out he had been traveling for something like one hundred and forty hours so needed a sleep. I was left with the challenge of going out into the mean streets of Nice to find the third member of our mission team, Mace Windo the Kapitans personal chef (when your a spy with so many enemies it is important that you don't allow just anyone to touch your food).

Armed with three years of school boy French and the first three CD's of the Michel Thomas French program I was very confident in my ability to navigate around the town, unfortunately my Mobile Phone credit ran out, but as luck would have it Mace managed to find his way to the Hotel Beau Rivage all by himself, we quickly went to the bar to sort out a plan for the best way to support the kapitan on his secret mission. It turned out my French was good enough to order beers but was not good enough to make friends with the young French babes who were also at the bar, Mace's French also wasn't good enough for this purpose (although sometimes I wonder if our English would have been good enough for those babes). After a few beers we decided to wake up the Kapitan and get this mission started.

(The lads in the elevator with it all in front of them)

We headed off into the heart of Nice, the Kapitan wouldn't tell us what our mission was but it seemed to involve a lot of waiting around sitting in bars. The best bar was called the Cafe du Love which is on the main mall just down from the Med. Eventually we decided we needed food, so as you do whenever you visit a new country for the first time we went to Macdee's to try the Big Mac's. Most excitingly the Kapitan and Mace were able to have Le Royal's with Cheese(for those with no pop culture at all that is a Pulp Fiction reference) it was very exciting. After dinner the mission got serious for a moment we were looking for something, I'm not sure what it was but the Kapitan led the way and seemed very confident that he knew what he was doing, but basically we just walked around for a long, long time looking for a club, we didn't find one for hours, but I guess that is just the life of a secret agent. Eventually we found a likely looking club called the Dancing Discotheque- we went in. Unfortunately it wasn't the greatest club in the world so after a quick drink we headed home- the mission was not going well.

Saturday
Continental Breakfast, the TGV, Rain, A visit from God, Casino Royale, Loews, We make it to the Harbour, Q and A with Sir Stirling Moss, Fear and Loathing at Rascasse, Deleted Scenes.

(Kloss and Mace at le Cafe)

I woke up early and headed down for a quick dip in the Med, as you do, finally the Kapitan and Mace managed to get themselves out of bed and we headed off towards Monaco. A quick breakfast at the cafe, then the old TGV into the principality. Unfortunately when we got to the track it was raining, but that was all right cause it meant the practice was a little more exciting with some monkeys trying out wets and others on inter's- chaos ensued.

(Yes those are the pits)

Anyways once practice was over we went to find the Chef (who didn't have tickets) but being the rocking roller that he is he managed to get into the same area as us, so we went to the bar. Now being an international spy has benefits, one of which is that you get back stage access to certain things, so we all went for a walk upto the paddock, which is where we saw Adrian Sutil, Nick Heidfeld, and to top it off - The Rat Nicki Lauda (the burns look worse in real life). Anyways we killed the few hours till qualifying drinking, and taking photos of the boats in the harbour (Massive- more on this to come) and slapping each other on the back for being so Awesome. I'm not sure that much secret agent action went on, although the kapitan did spend a lot of time using his telephoto lense and at one point disappeared for a short while.

(SEVEN TIME, SEVEN TIME, SEVEN TIME, SEVEN TIME, SEVEN TIME, SEVEN TIME, SEVEN TIME WORLD CHAMPION (and all round nice guy))

Qualifying came along and was probably the most exciting motor racing period of the weekend. Q2 was absolutely fucking amazing- Kimi managed to clip the exit of Le Piscine (just up from where we were sitting) and then we had a great view of the Ferrari guys trying to get his axle fixed in the pits- they couldn't do it. Q1 was also fun as we were all going Aussie Mark crazy and he didn't disappoint (unlike Massa) by grabbing 6th place- could he win the next day? (more on this later) The other magic thing he did was make his car about three times wider for three corners during old Lewy Lewies flying lap- result he started second.

Once qualifying was done we were done with motor sports for the day, a change came over the Kapitan as he refocused on the job at hand. He immediately commanded the Chef to take us to the Casino- it was time for action. 1 hour 15 minutes later we had walked all the way around Monaco (up a massive hill- great views) and finally got to the Casino, the enemy was inside I could feel it. In we walked to one of the most famous gambling houses in the world and we were surprised to be asked for our passports. The kapitan handed over a passport for someone called Jim Lovell, I was about to comment that it wasn't his name but the chef quickly silenced me. When it was his turn the Chef tried to talk his way in, but eventually refused to give his passport- not letting any Itai wannabe get my details- he muttered as he stormed out. I was worried but the kaptian looked relaxed- I realized that the Chef was probably going to get us some back up.

We wondered into the bar, taking my cue from the rest of the day I went to order some lagers, but the kapitan (more experienced in these surroundings then I) quickly silenced me and ordered up a couple of 50 Euro a glass whiskeys. I quickly got the picture so when we got to the first table I threw a 100 euro on the table and got some chips, but apparently we weren't supposed to play roulette as the kapitan took over and subsequently went four spins without a dime coming our way- we were cleaned out.

We went to the cashier and the play all of a sudden became obvious when the Kapitan asked for a single 10 000 Euro chip- we were going to scare the enemy out of hiding by taking the ultimate gamble. But our enemies had all ready gotten to the Casino and they refused to cover the bet - undeterred the Kapitan muttered we'll do this the hard way and sat down at the Black Jack- Worried by his poor showing at Roulette I quickly sat down with him someone needed to carry the team at the gambling.

In the early shoes I was right to be worried, the kapitan was rubbish- he seemed on edge constantly eyeing off the two other people at our table- a smooth looking Frenchie who was sitting in position one and taking some outrageous hits and a huge fat man in a tuxedo sitting on the end playing very smart. At first I thought the Frenchie had to be the enemy but then noticed he was wearing what is obviously an Interpol issue Cartier watch, identical to the Kapitans, he must have been the back up the Chef was organising. The fat man played cagey some big hands some missed hands- I suddenly knew he was the enemey.

Slowly the pressure built, no one winning much but no one blinking, until finally (and thank the lord for non automatic shufflers) I realized the count was getting high, I doubled. The kapitan realized the single and the next hand immediately got involved. The fat man was no slouch himself and immediately hit a 21 by hitting on 16, but that was to be his last mistake. The kapitan looked out raged that he had taken such an insane risk and somehow managed to go on a run of four black jacks in a row. I went a long for the ride and suddenly we were a net 1500 Euro up, the fat man was wiped out.

Enemey defeated (or so I thought) we got up and went out to find the Chef.

(The exit of Lowes)

Outside the Chef had been busy, he had organised us entry to a party on a Yacht. So we headed off down the track, taking some time out to ham it up in the hairpin and then the Tunnel (the kapitan was elated after his victory over the fat man) and then finally we got to the Yacht.

The Lady Anna of Fire was to be our vessel, all 120 feet of pure opulence, but most importantly an open bar. I got quickly to work at the bar and with some of the old ducks on the boat, I was also excellently verbose when the Great Sir Stirling Moss came on board for some Q and A, but out of my sight the kapitan couldn't relax. He could sense the fear approaching- that is why he has spent so many years at spy school.

One minute I was standing there happy as larry and the next the kapitan and chef had grabbed me and told me we had to get out of their- Why? - I asked. Can't you feel it man - the kapitan hissed - the fear is all around us. We walked off the marina and rejoined the track at the Swimming Pool, by the time we got to Rascasse even I could feel it. The fear struck at what it thought was the weakest member of our party- the Chef, but when I was busy laughing at him it deflected its attack and grabbed me. Caught unawares I was swept up into the maddening rush of a full blown attack of the FEAR, our mission was in jeopardy.

DELETED SCENES DELETED SCENES DELETED SCENES DELETED SCENES

Sunday
The Worlds most Expensive Cab Ride, Here's to You Mrs Riakonin, The Full Spread, Mclaren Cheats, Don't Fly Easy Jet into Stanstead.

(The Kapitan caught on film, standing in front of the Med)

I awoke feeling bad and remembering less, but the Kapitan seemed in fine spirits- with our fine victory over the Fat Man and our battle with the Fear only resulting in one casulaty he seemed to think the mission was a success. We headed off for the Train to meet the chef only to find out that he was missing. Not wanting to be late for the party on our Yacht the Kapitan pressed a button on his watch and immediatly a cab appeared. The Chef had told us that Antibe (his home base) was only ten minutes down the road- 30 minutes later we met him at the station. By the time we got to Port Fontville to meet our tender the cab charge had risen to 180 Euro- I was ready to do a runner, but apparently Interpol has budget for this kind of thing (run through their covering company Mint Finance).

We then went down to face the challenge of finding our tender in a very French speaking part of France. But luckily your B A Tron is such an affable mother fucker he quickly made friends with old Willi Opitz, owner operator of Willi Oppitz wines, and friend to such luminaries as Kimi Riakonin and Bill Clinton (and one of the few people to ever hand feed the Kapitan honey due soaked in white wine( I strongly recommend his Kiss range- brilliant)). The affable Austrian, on his 11th visit to the Lady Anna quickly put us on track. Although we were very surprised when we got on the tender to find out we were cooling out jets because we were waiting for Mrs Riakonin, we were a little put off until we saw her, and let me tell you gentlemen she was a ten like you've never seen before.

(I thought it was John Cusak but the lads assure me that thats Ashton Kutcher)

The only other interesting story to come out of Port Fontville was when we saw Ashton Kutcher (or it may have been Jude Law) on the tender across from ours- the lads tell me he is a famous singer, but I'm not that interested in that kind of thing. Anyways the tender took us into the majestic Monaco harbor and once we had dropped Mrs Riakonin at her boat we went round to the Lady Anna and were happy to find out that the bar was open- good times.

(They know how to put on a spread on the Lady Anna of Fire)

Not much happened for a few hours, we pressed flesh, drank, then lunch came out- a good spread (see photo). We can recommend the Mediterranean Sail Fish (nearest the fork) as well as the the Cumin and Paprika three bean salad- tout le monde. The Tofu (I was drunk) was awful.

(We could see the famous entry to the Swimming pool from the other side of the boat but after McLaren cheated (like all Mercedes drivers) we watched the big screen in the hope they would change the channel)

Finally the race started and we settled down for what could have been one of the greatest sporting events ever (who will ever forget the 02 race when Colhtard held up a possession of six cars for 33 laps with a gap 1 to 6 of a little under five seconds) but No the Mclarens (read Lewis Hamilton the spineless Brit jerk (read the same as Princess Zara)) decided not to race. two hours alter the race was over- luckily the bar girls were busy during the race so they let me start free pouring my Bacardi's- that 1820 Bacardi (or whatever) is really quite good.

Anyways, by the end of the race your B A Tron was quite inebriated. After the race we tried our hand with some old ducks, then some younger ducks, then we just resorted to drinking Willi the Winemakers fine wines- there good I tell you. Anyways, the famous glint finally returned to the Kapitans eye and he started calling around to change our flight untill the next day- but eventually cooler heads (and the fact that when I switched to Bicardi he switched to water) prevailed- we left the Lady Anna of Fire with heavy hearts and headed for the Nice airport and home.

The reporting of the party on the boat has been deliberately sparse- I was never good enough at school boy English, and no one who has never been there could ever possibly understand what it means to stand on a super yacht, surrounded by other super yachts (with super women in little clothing) watching the words greatest sporting event can feel like. I will leave it to your imaginations.

Anyways we got to Nice to find our flight delayed, it was midnight and raining by the time we got to Stanstead- no stories except BA stayed on the piss whilst the kapitan nursed a coke, and their was a brief moment of the Ragged Edge on the plane when I made a dash to the john fearing a visit from my insides- but I managed to keep it in.

Arriving after midnight meant the train had stopped so we had to catch a bus- I finally arrived at the Pickle at 2:30 am, the Kapitan at the Soho Hotel at 3:30. All in all easily one of the Top 5 weekends of all time.

Dr No

2007-05-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

so the call finally came through, after a 5 year apprenticeship, hovering as it were on the edges of a world hidden from view, Kapitan Kloss has finally called me up to help him out with one of his dangerous missions.

wE have a long history of near misses and close calls together, but never in the line of official duties, and never on the international scene. Oh there was that time I came across him in Praha, but he wouldn't let me in on the secret mission that time.

But not this week, I got the call a few weeks ago, very low on specifics, but I was told by a muffled voice coming out of my computer to be at a certain point on a certain day ready for international travel. I got few more details, the Kapitan would be using his most favored disguise that of 'everybody's favorite millionaire' whilst I was to develop a similar personer, one that would allow me to fly under the radar in a European city. The only other piece of information I received was that the Kapitans' able man servant and chef, Mace Windo may also make an appearance.

Naturally I was intrigued, a weekend mission with the kapitan somewhere on the continent. Where would we be going? What would be our mission? Who would be our Mark? Do spies still use the term Mark? the questions were endless.

So what have I been doing since I found got the call? practicing.

Many people who know me understand that I am a little bit of a perfectionist in everything I do, and naturally with the chance to be the kapitans wingman on a mission of international significance I do not want to let the team down. So I have spent my days (and nights) practicing all the skills important to international men of mystery.

First there was skulking, a lot of hanging around dark alleyways and just behind corners following random people. But since the whole madeline thing its been a little bit un pc to randomly follow people in the uk so I have had to give up that practice.

I ran into the same problem with my photography practice, any good spy must be able to take surveillance's without being noticed, but I had some trouble coming up with the right technique, when people noticed the camera in my hat that day in the park I thought I would be lynched...

Then there was romancing beautiful women- I have never seen a spy who hasn't had to charm (literally) the pants of an evil seductress at some point to get the mission done, so I have been spending my evenings in various wine bars working on my smooth talk and practicing the A smile - I think there should be no problems when the euro babes get to meet B A Tron.

So that's the state of play. i am prepared to do anything to make this mission a success. I will report in over the weekend to try and give you an indepth account of what life is really like when your deep undercover saving the world from all manner of evil doers. If you hear any strange sounding news stories coming out of Europe this weekend you can rest easy knowing that the Kapitan and his new side kick are on the case.

Super 14 Final blog

2007-05-19T06:21:00.000-07:00

Am sitting on the couch watching the Super 14 Final and decided to right a bit of a minute by minute style post.

The Sharks are playing the better football so far (14 mins in) but the mighty Piere Spiers who I have in my test rugby team:

FR	Gary Botha	BUL	0	0	$1,590,000
FR	John Smit	SHK	270	270	$1,222,500
	LK	Victor Matfield	BUL	0	0	$1,415,000
	LK	Johan Muller	SHK	290	290	$1,450,000
	LF	Jaques Botes	SHK	0	0	$1,110,000
	LF	Pierre Spies	BUL	170	170	$1,360,000
	HV	Derek Hougaard	BUL	260	260	$1,527,500
	HV	Butch James	SHK	0	0	$1,167,500
	CT	Bradley Barritt	SHK	90	90	$1,167,500
	CT	Waylon Murray	SHK	0	0	$1,157,500
	OB	Percy Montgomery	SHK	0	140	$1,435,000
	OB	JP Pietersen	SHK	210	1535

Thats the squad - really I can't loose at the moment the others are so far behind- worlds best fantasy manager = b A Tron. But we need those players to do well. Unfortunatly JP Pietersen just gave away a penalty.

Anways score 7-3 will post again soon.

3:30 - Hooray Pietersen just redemeed himself and scored- what pace. 12 Tries for the season- Note Tiquiri 1 - need I say more

3:31 - ok so Percy missed the kick :( score 8-7 22 minutes in.

Let me tell you about what I am doing, my screen is divided into four parts in the left top corner is the Super 14 final thanks to livesporton.tv, in the bottom left hand screen is the Star Sports coverage of the FA Cup (thanks to ppm mate) - at the moment where 30 minutes out from the kick off and they are talking about the teams I think. In the bottom right corner is the Lois Vitton cup - at the moment Luna Rosso is beating BMW Oracle- Can you believe it- Valencia looks very appealing right now. Although can anyone beat Alinghi? I doubt it. (thats thanks to tvants) in the top corner is firefox, obviously with blogger open, aswell as bbc sport with the cricket over by over

npower Test Match Series: England v West Indies
17-05-2007 at Lord's, Day 3 of 5

In Play

West Indies won the toss and decided to field

England 1st Innings

553 for 5 (142.0 overs)

West Indies 1st Innings

155 for 3 (41.1 overs)

current score - come on the windies, can anyone believe Bell got a hundred- fucking worst cricket player in the world. Although I like the new keeper. Other web site is the cyclingnews.com covering the Giro for us:

Current race situation

Rubens Bertogliati (Saunier Duval-Prodir), Beñat Albizuri (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Fabien Patanchon (Française Des Jeux)
Elio Aggiano (Tinkoff Credit Systems) at 39"
Peloton at 58"

Go the mighty T Mobile- unlikely to loose the pink jersey today. Unfortunatly my stream for the Giro is working today so I cant watch it :(, but I do have the audio from Eurosport that I am checking everynow and then.

We are also currently torrenting- Joe Knorks wants to watch Pride and Predijuce (no idea) so I am downloading that, but with everything I have open am only averaging about 20 kbs.

Apparently Wayne Rooney is one to watch in the FA Cup- surprise? oh yeah- KAKA to score 3 and Liverpool to loose the championns trophey.

John Smit just had a field goal attempt that almost went over- interesting- Percy is about to kick a penalty- Go Sharks!

Oh Ashes just posted on my Facebook I will be back in a minute after I read taht!
I also have my google desktop open - oh ashes just posted on my Facebook

Ashes says go the sharks- I said yeah baby! Percy kicked the penalty but then the bulls did too, current score 11-10 (31 minutes) JP Pieterson chasing from the kick off has been outstanding- mashed matfield just now.

3:42- You can always relie on Dion Karstens to make a few metres...

Penalty Sharks- going for goal.

JOSE is being interviewed- lets listen he thinks Eissen won't go that well at central defendder- that injury is a big problem for the blues- I think the reds might win.

Is JOSE the coolest manager in teh history of sport- despite the fact I agree with the faithful at Graven Cottage and hate the Chelsea- I do like Jose.

No Fergusen is on- I am snoring. He likes the new Wembley- Surprise.

Percy got the goal 14-10 sharks 35 minutes

BMW is closer in the sailing.

West Indies 1st Innings

165 for 3 (44.0 overs)

Current race situation

Rubens Bertogliati (Saunier Duval-Prodir), Beñat Albizuri (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Fabien Patanchon (Française Des Jeux)
Elio Aggiano (Tinkoff Credit Systems) at 39"
Peloton at 58"

The pack is going to catch the break away soon. Robbie McCewan has been in some up and down form, won well the other day, but then got out strategised the next day.

isn't the spelling bad when we go live.

Percy just missed a penalty kick- c'mon percy- Pieterson just monstered Houugarrd.

Photo of humprhies at the airport saying good bye to me just went by on the side bar. a) how come more people didn't come to say good bye, b) does humprhies look like the guy from REM who got the aides? I vote yes!

Half Time- Sharks 14 Bulls 10.

I think the Sharks are doing the best. Lynagh thinks the sharks deserve their lead, and are exciting and are having a dig. The bulls are nervous and giving away silly penalties.

Niel De Cock (funny name) agrees the sharks are playing brilliantly.

They just showed some footage from in side Wembley- there is fuck all people there, I thought it started at 3...

Peter Cech- very good goal keeper- stupid head gear though.

I thiink Luna Rosso are going to win!

Really the FA Cup final is a bit rediculous- poor old Spurs- 3-1 we lead at Stamford Bridge- how did we let Chelsea back in- 10 centremetres is all lennon missed with that final goal- it would have been us in the final if that had gone in :( oh well, at least we made it into Eufa and we look like we will keep the Mighty Berbatov- My vote for best player in the world, even if he does wear a head band.

the players are about to come out onto the field- not a John Terry fan. Oh a cross to a reporter standing on a boat closer to the yachts- he is talking spanish but I think he is saying that Luna Rosso are looking good. and that the yanks are shit- I love the bit in sailing where one team tacks one way and the other tacks the other way- Excellent.

In the back ground you can see the NZ team warming up- I think they will end up getting to the big dance- Emirates are a canny sponser if you know what I mean.

Whats it like being the Queen when everyone sings god save the queen? maybe she's not there- it looks like William is there- he is singing, does he sing god save my nan?

The NZ team just went straight through the middle of the two boats- maybe they are lost- it was a bit like the time in top gun when they buzz the mig 28's - now that is a movie.

Sharks 57% possessions, Bulls 42 tackles to the Sharks 24. interesting- What will the wind do in the second half?

Is there a moto gp this weekend? how about young Casey Stoner- Could we all be about to get interested in Bikes again? bring back Doohen.

Lynagh thinks the bench's will be important- Fuck I am sick of hearing about the fact they used to work with Bob Skinstad- get over it, he has gone back to the light side again you media jerks!

Another wicket- Mad Monty is doing his thing-

West Indies 1st Innings

173 for 4 (47.0 overs)

15:55 CEST
Reader Sergio Azkarate wrote in an predicted the top three:
1-Hushovd
2-Petacchi
3-Napolitano

Current race situation

Peloton together

Picking Hushovd to win- brave pick choosing the current world champ 35 km's out from the finish.

I pick Robbie M- cause I am an Aussie.

Play has started at wembley- Drogba to score a goal (another brave call)

Hougard kicking from a mile out.

3:05 - He missed- Short in kicking as in life.

Garry Botha makes a break- they don't score- the Saffies certainly love to off load in the tackle, I hope J Connely is watching.

Meanwhile the Reddies look good to resign Holmes GD and Squeak Moore- good news- Sharks wooden spoon two years ago - comeon reddies in 09!

ohh the new Office episode torrent is available

3:10 - I would just like to point out that I don't do anything with those torrents, I just like to know they are available...

It turns out there are two sailing races on at the same time- good tracker at the America's cup page. Luna Rossa is up by 48 seconds after the second check, the Kiwi's are up over the spanish by 50 seconds at the same marker.

You need to be the first to win 5 races I think to win the louis vitton cup.

No score at wembley- are the players letting the occasion get to them? who cares?

Loyd Phillips dives- no surprise

Monty is average under the high ball today

The free kick was badly taken.

3:15 pm

What's happening- the rugby is becoming an arm wrestle... a try could break it apart. either way.

Steve Walsh has been a ref for 10 years- where does the time go? how has he avoided the snipers?

Habana almost makes a break- but nothing.

Cech clears the ball, Drogba pressures the Utd keeper.

nothing changes at the sailing

Rooney misses an easy goal opp in the 15th minutes, maybe off side.

Sharks building momementum- then kick it away.

West Indies 1st Innings

187 for 4 (52.1 overs)

Wait- almost a try- no

16:17 CEST 244km/10km to go
Cioni is on the front for McEwen.

Current race situation

Peloton led by Quickstep

the art of cycling is reading the play.

Damm can't get the 3d animations on the America's Cup page to work :(

18 minutes in the soccer- nothing

There is a moto gp - Colin Edwards on pole- Casey second, and the Doctor 4th - should be a good race.

Now the bulls might score- this would be interesting.

NO

Derek Hougarrd kicks the goal- score- 14-13 61 minutes

I predict the sharks to win by 9.

Maybe time for some substitutes

We appear to have lost our stream at the soccer- maybe its just cause soccer is boring - no, we've lost the stream.

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

Bob Skinstad comes on- Go Bobby. Sharks are getting near the line

Knock on!

How about those saffer loose forwards- Schalk, Watson, Venter, Spiers, Van Nierkirk (or is he injured) Floors, the bulls number 8 whose name I ahve forgotten, Juan SMith- good players all

Really a solid pack.

and a mix of lightning quick and big heavy backs

and some decent field goal options - everyone knows BA Tron's reciepe for a world cup success...

Although I say that every time. How many darkies do they have to have in their side? Pieterson, Habana, maybe a prop- but there are a lot of really good white guys in SA rugby at the moment- should be interesting- is Franz Stein better then Habana?

James knocks on in goal- he is a silly monkey

this could change the whole thing...

The team that scores the most points will most likely win.

3:30 pm- Penalty - this Bulls could be in the lead.

No its too the sharks- that Steve Walsh sure can referee

The old sharks sure do love to chase their kicks- big effort by all.

the Kiwi's are up by a minute, adn the Luna Rosso's (ities?) are up by 56 seconds- Call it off through the mercy rule.

Real Player is the stupidest media player in the world.

West Indies 1st Innings

203 for 5 (56.3 overs)

Monty again- that follow on mark is a long way away!

in other cricket news Tendulkar got century number 36 today

9 minutes left this game is in the balance

Will vunder west hizen ? make the boks team- there are some very good players, and percy is a banker.

3:36 pm - Still nil nil in the fa cup

we have lost the feed, I tried to get it with tv ants so lost the sailing :(

Vunder west hizen just kicked a terrible field goal attempt- the blues needed to hold onto the ball more and just wait for the penalty.

HUGE scrum for the Sharks- stole the ball, that will be a big point- look for the sharks to paly the rest of the game in their 22 - 4 minutes to go.

Sharks looking good to score soon

must be a drop goal here

Someone just dived over the line, but without hte ball, I almost spilt some beer.

Provisional Results

1 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Milram
2 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Crédit Agricole
3 Paolo Bettini (Ita) Quickstep-Innergetic
4 Danilo Napolitano (Ita) Lampre-Fondital
5 José Joaquín Rojas (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne
6 Alexandre Usov (Blr) Ag2r Prévoyance
7 Maximiliano Richeze (Arg) Ceramica Panaria-Navigare

14 McEwen

TRY - the sharks score to seal the victory- Great Final!

3:45 pm - A message from Joe Knorks- We are meeting cousin Judith for lunch tomorrow.

We are back with ppm mate- nil all

Luna Rosso wins- BMW oracle guys look sad. from the reports I think they false started- stupid yanks

The bulls might score

No - huge tackle on ndungani.

The bulls are going all out

HABANA TRY!!!! Oh my god - what a run.

3:47 - oh jeez- steyn missed the conversion before- this is for the victory- should be FT. He runs in, no he doesn't the sharks charged early

Goal- they win, the bulls win, what an amazing victory.

3:50 pm- Jaco Vun Der West Hizen climbs on the goal posts- what an incredible finish. The sharks were the better side for mine, but that was pretty cool.

I think this might make timmy the victor in the tipping contest- my inside word was that he was going for the Bulls.

The big question is what did Pietermen do- I would hate to drop another position.

My test rugby team was full of sharks- but I don't think anyone could ahve caught me.

The Kiwi's are about to win.

West Indies 1st Innings

217 for 5 (59.0 overs)

There has to be a loser- could commentary that. OH someone just pulled out the old winner on the day is South African Rugby- I love it.

now that the cycling, sailing, and rugby are over what should I do, oh wait, my office episode is ready- one thing I will say for the brits is they do have good broad band speeds.

Ashes is back on Face book- that was bullshit- it was ashes you are correct.

Half time at the soccer- one decent shot for the half- edge of my seat I am.

The sailing is all over for the day.

If you look above you might see me saying Percy was kicking terrible- I was right. watching a replay of the final minute

Knock on went unnoticed 30 metres before the try.

Lynagh says it doesn't matter- I think we all know who he backed.

The hole was massive, side to side dragging the sharks around, big gap- pure gas.

Anyways, thats got to be the end I guess. Its been a fun way to spend an after noon.

5:25 PM - GOAL! Drogba in the 116th Minute- the art of football is reading the play!

Back to Life

2007-05-06T05:33:00.000-07:00

So some of our more avid readers have noted in private conversations of late that there has been over a month between posts on everyone's favorite online journal, and there are few excuses for this laziness.

Basically your reporter, B A Tron has been struck down by a bad case of horrible routine. It is near impossible to come up with a weekly column of pure adventure and wit when you have fallen into a terrible rut of inactivity and boredom. The crowd keeps demanding more but I haven't been able to deliver. Things have become so bad, in fact, that when the opportunity to change the world came up I have to admit I passed. As our sister site reports (http://ficklish.blogspot.com/) recently 4500 Londoner's dared to dream enough
to set out and break one of the hardest records there is, they joined forces

and brought art to the masses as the Worlds Largest Coconut Orchestra (here is a YouTube link of the event).

(Joe Knorks, APF, and the Fonz at the event)

Now you may ask what is a Coconut Orchestra? and how does one go about becoming a coconut record holder? Well basically it is a situation where a couple thousand monkeys get together and bang too halves of a coconut together in order to make a beat- sound fun? you bet is does.

So why hasn't this story appeared on Funtheque before now? Because the rut the great B A Tron had fallen into was so deep that he passed on this once in a life time opportunity. That's how bad things had gotten.

But no more.

With the onset of summer, and the generosity of the British Government in giving me a Bank Holiday. I decided it was time to break out of the rut by going on B A Tron's and Joe Knorks Amazing and Excellent Adventure (tm) .

I decided that the only way to break the mold and haul myself out of this funk was to go on a one day jaunt through the heart of England. A day filled with so much adventure and excitement I couldn't help but begin to live again.

Here is a map of the adventure route:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=Hackney&daddr=Heathrow+Airport+to%3AStonehenge+to%3ABadminton+to%3ABath+to%3AHeathrow+Airport+to%3AHackney,+UK&mrcr=5&sll=51.47015,-1.410165&sspn=4.76421,2.955322&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=51.407773,-1.137085&spn=1.207828,2.570801&z=9

So with my trusty side kick Joe Knorks as always loyally at my side we set off from the Pickle on a cold and dreary 6:30 AM morning with nothing but an open road before us and adventure on our minds. The first step was to catch the bus to Holborn, so that we could get the tube to Heathrow, so we could then get the hire car for the day- I know, it seems ridiculous that anyone would take an hour and a half just to get to the place where the hire car was, but that's just the kind of town London is. And don't think for a moment it was an hour and a half of pure mind numbing boredom in the early hours- no, I can advise anyone who comes to London that the Piccadilly line to Heathrow is one of the most exciting Tube journeys on the map!

So anyways, we finally get to Heathrow just after eight, and catch the courtesy bus out to the car rental place to hire out fantastic British version Em Mobile.

After a brief period of uncertainty I remembered how to drive again and we were off to our first port of call, you may have heard of it: STONEHENGE

(From Top: Joe Knorks hamming it up, BA Tron in the 4 the Grandkids shot, You can't see it but the yellow hat is a wallabies hat- two cheap arse aussies not paying the entry fee, and B A Tron playing the man of steel)

Stonehenge has been there about 5000 years which is quite impressive, and they rocks were very big, and it was in the middle of no where, but really overall it was a little underwhelming. Maybe not worth the 3 quid we had to fork out for the right to do a lap of the henge. Anyways, we did have quite a lot of fun hamming it up and taking silly photos.

So, it was time move on we got back into the mighty mobile and headed off for the Horse Trials at Badminton. It was about an hours drive but we managed to get lost, Joe Knorks having forgotten to pack the maps. But the beauty of England is its so small that you can get yourself out of trouble pretty easily, we eventually arrived at the Horse Trials, only to find that the main attraction, the wonderful Zara Phillips had pulled out, apparently she was too scarred. Doesn't bode well for her olympic chances, you need heart to take olympic gold, kind of like Aussie legend Matt Ryan (pictured) and his horse Bonza Katoomba.
The horse trials were fasanating. There were thousands of people there and the Jumps were huge. Evidence:

The horsey set were also quite funny, lots of popped colars and puffa vests. As we arrived at the grounds the sun came out so it was really quite a fantastic afternoon, walking miles over this huge country estate watching every now and then as a horse went by- good times.

Some of the jumps were a little confronting to see the horses go over live. The water, and sunken road jumps were sort of heart in the mouth type moments when ever horse and rider game to jump them. It was also a little confronting the next day to find out that two horses didn't last the night after doing battle with the Badminton Course. But overall I would recommend getting along to the horse trials to anyone.

So I bet your thinking that after fitting so much into our day all ready that Joe Knorks and I would be about ready to head back to London, but no such partyers are we that we decided to head south and check out historic and beautiful Bath.

Which I do have to say is quite historic and beautiful, the entire town, at least the bits they let you see are Georgian (no idea) architecture straight out of Jane Austin movies. We walked around the stone streets, went to the 17th century Abbey, almost went to the Roman Bath's (but there was a long line and they were charging 10 quid), sat at a local cricket ground in the sun, walked around the weir, and went to some cool markets- really quite a fun town.
However by this time we were both so tired that speech had stopped, the smiles were gone, and Joe Knorks' Dwags were barking so loud that people were looking at us. We decided to leave, unfortunately we parked at the top of a big hill so we couldn't walk very quickly. Funnily enough we parked on a street with a funny name, it was called 'Gay street' oh how we laughed.

Finally we were made it to the car and turned the mighty English version of the Em Mobile for London and home- or so we thought, after some brief navigation issues we decided to just go fast and hope we found the highway- luckily we did.

The M4 is a big six lane highway running east west from Bristol to London, and it is full of crazy maniac's going as fast as they possibly can. It was one of the most frightening experiences of my life, we were in this very small car going very very fast. At one point I looked down and realized we were being overtaken when we were going 100 miles per hour, it was all a bit helter skelter. Now, remember I have ridden in the kloss mobile at these sorts of speeds and havn't been scared, BUT this wasn't the kloss mobile.

The only could thing about racing across England at 130-160 KM's an hour is you can cross England really quickly at those speeds so we finally got back Heathrow at around 8 PM. Great we thought, home at last, but finding the Eurocar place, and a fuel station to fill the car up turned out to be a challenge, and frightening in its own way. We came out of a tunnel at one point and I swear to god a Lufthansa Airbus 330 landed on our heads, the car shook it came so close- we freaked. After half an hour we finally found fuel and got back to the Eurocar place and returned the England version of the Em Mobile.

Just before we left the rent a car place we got another flight, the Eurocar office is right next to the runway (like 70 metres) and a 747 took off right in front of us- it was loud, very, very loud. Joe Norks nearly cried but luckily I there to be the strong silent type.

So that's it- the most jam packed day in the history of the world- we finally got back to the Pickle at 11 pm - 17 hours after we left- that's touristing ladies and gentlemen- pure touristing.

The Boat Race

2007-04-07T10:56:00.000-07:00

OK so I haven't posted in a while, but I have a good excuse.

I, like the rest of the people in this crazy town, have been going Boat Mad for the last three weeks. As I am sure you all know the Oxford vs Cambridge University Boat Race was held today on the choppy waters of the mighty Thames. A true contest of human determination if ever there was one.

For the last three weeks no one in London has done anything but talk boats, some of the more fool hardy have even been inspired to try their hands at the rowing themselves. Your fearless reporter even had a go over 1/10th the Boat Race distance on the rowing machine at the gym (and impressed many with his technique). From the people on the DLR to the locals at the old Billy 4 no one has spoken of anything but the merits of the two sides. My ultimate boss (an Aussie who works in New York who was visiting London- as you do) came to visit the team last week- his first question upon arriving from Luton?

Not how's the team? Not are all the training courses running on time? But What are the light blues thinking dropping their Cox? We all agreed.

Apparently the Light Blues (the nickname for Cambridge- a nickname derived (I guess) from their tendency to wear lighter shades of blue then their opponents the Dark Blues (Oxford who traditionally wear a less light version of the 'Blue' guernsey)) Where were we? Oh yes the light blues dropping their Cox- crazy move of desperation by a former rowing powerhouse trying to stave off the ignominy of three losses in a row? or a tactical maneuver comparable too Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama?

Well do the amazement of all 250 000 people who flocked to the banks of the Thames this fine London Spring day it turned out to be the greatest selection gamble seen in the History of Boat Racing - all 139 years of the history.

What an event- you've never seen anything like it- thousands (I want to say millions- but I am trying to cut down on needless Hyperbole) of people standing on Thames side paths, drinking (the one thing London does better then back home- drinking in public) waiting, and waiting for the big show to happen, then off in the distance you see a couple (maybe 18) chaps cruising down the river in their row boats- very very slowly approaching your vantage point, passing by, then very very slowly rowing away, leaving you with no idea who wins the race until you get home or a pub- FANTASTIC.

When the two crews past by our vantage point, around mid course in Hammersmith, I was quietly confident as the dark blues had a solid half boat length lead, but as a I commented to RDP at the time, the next bend in the river favored the lite Blues and they looked like they were lifting their rate- how right I was- we dashed up the street to a near by pub, then too another pub as the first one didn't have a TV, we saw the boys from Cambridge cross the line with an easy boat lengths lead- a mighty victory.

So a box had been ticked - twenty years after the famous mutiny edition of the boat race caught the worlds attention (when a couple of yanks mutinied in the lead up to the race but the mighty dark blues fort back) I have finally seen the boat race- and I rate it very very highly on my list of international events that get listed as a MUST SEE for any young sports fan. Forget your World Soccer cups and your Monaco Grand Prix's this is the greatest sporting event in the world- mark it in your calenders for next year.

There's 570mls in a Pint

2007-03-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

So I got half way through a post the other day talking all about my St Patricks day and the super human 11 pint effort I put in, sassing a little the fellows who were cliaming 10 pints when they were only drinking cans, and that sort of thing.

Then I looked back at the blog and noticed there is a bit of a theme to some of the stories I have been telling- any one would think I am a fall down drunk, a little one dimensional if you will. So I decided to post on a different subject.

But what to talk about...

I could tell you all about the plays and opera's I have been to see over here, but the last play we went to was a one man show with a guy from the West Wing, and I would be a little embarrased to come over like that big of a groupie.

Then I was going to tell you all about my favorite parts of London and how good it was now that it was warming up, but then this week it has become fucking cold again (snowed a few times) and I have remembered that I don't like any parts of this backwards town.

Finally I was going to talk about my excellent new job and how cool I am going down to Canary Wharf or the 'Wharf' as those of us who work down there call it, but then I remembered that I'm just not that guy.

So I've got nothing. Here is a very funny link that will at least make you smile!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IEaKjRyPjVY

Bill

The Battle of Walkabout

2007-03-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

So there has been some sass flying by the usual suspects suggesting that the reason that the flow of posts on this blog have slowed to a trickle is that your very own B A Tron has becoming too boring to come up with interesting posts.

Well let me assure you that it is for the complete opposite reason- The Mighty Tron has been so busy out living life of late that he has had no time to get it all down on paper. Nothing major, just 7 nights on the piss, and 2 nights at the theatre in the past 10 days- pretty standard stuff for us londonites.

What Proof do you have? I hear you asking- well let me tell you a story.

Many, many years ago, in a country far far away a young chap by the name of Rocky (B A Tron) set out on a journey to test himself against the strongest, and hardest of them all, Apollo Creed (Kapitan Kloss). In their first meetings (years 1981 thru c.2000) Apollo had the upper hand establishing himself as the pound 4 pound champ many times over. Until Rocky saw off the legend that was Apollo Creed with a last round knock out in the greatest challenge of them all The RUM A THON.

Rocky was now the champ, he was young handsome and couldn’t possibly be beat. The ladies described him as a stallion of some kind.

A champion doesn’t rest on his laurels however, over the ensuring years Rocky has put his title on the line over and over again, most notably twice against Clubber Lang (Dav Rossi or Fuc take your pick) over the championship distance of the Gabba Stack-A-Thon.

By this time Rocky was now considered the greatest too ever live- domestically he was unchallenged, his eyes turned to the world stage.

All the time Rocky was on the rise a young Russian Ivan Drogba (RDP) had been staking his own claim to be the greatest. Some consider him responsible for the metaphorical death of Apollo Creed with the fall of the Break-a-ways.

Anyways, Rocky was troubled, he new he couldn’t claim to be the true champ until he had taken Ivan on in his own territory. So this intrepid adventurer set off around the world, spending time training behind the Iron Curtin (cue the music montage of Rocky training- Rocky IV when he’s training in Russia- clearly the best of them all) all in the lead up to the biggest battle to ever occur- The Battle of Walkabout.

On a sunny (read rainy) day in London, Rocky and Ivan met to sort out once and for all who was the best of the best, it was the top gun of contests, planned for many years (the never occurring ‘Lighthouse to Koala Marathon’ and the ‘Stanly St Ironman’) this was a true battle of masters at the top of their game. Rocky with his man of the people appeal, beef based training program vs Ivan and his 40 hours a week in the gym approach to human perfection.

The test- why a simple race around the tubes of the worlds greatest city visiting all the establishments with the name Walkabout in the title, Finchley Rd was the meeting point, followed by Upper St, Temple, Covent Garden, Shaftserbury Avenue, Wimbledon, Putney Bridge, finally finishing at the holiest of holies the mighty Shepards Bush Walkie, the greatest Australian themed pub in the world. The Task: Over the course of the day drink 10 pints of the poisonous Snake Bite, followed by the Jug of Death to decide the winner at the SheaBoo.

This was a journey that was previously unthought-of by some of your more famous traveling hero’s, the likes of Mr Monkey and Ned Kelley would never have considered such an audacious challenge (we all noted that they ran for cover when Rocky arrived in the UK).

So the competitors met at Finchley Road, Rocky arrived a little late and looking a little seedy, thanks to a run in the previous night with the infamous APF, and he was quickly behind. Ivan finishing his snakey long before the hour for that pub was up. Rocky eyed the snakebite but couldn’t handle it so early, a quick pint of fosters was needed to steady the nerves, by the time he was on to his snakey for Finchley Rd it was almost time to leave, some quick sculling was required but it was obvious to all punters present (how good is the alliteration going in this post?) that Ivan had the better of early running- could Rocky come back?

Yes as it turns out. Two at Upper Street, followed by 1 at temple, and 1.5 at both the Garden and Shafterbury saw the hard punching Balboa clearly out class the crazy Ruski. As the competitors turned for the dangerous run down to Wimbledon Rocky sat on an easy 7 (with three pubs to go) whilst Ivan was sitting just behind on 6- he needed to turn it around. Both players had enjoyed strong periods, there was some controversy when Ivan was caught holding on during a game of 'no hands bus surfing' between Upper and Temple, but he quickly made up for that by a kamikaze ‘jump of the bus run and touch a wall and run and jump back onto the bus before it left again’ move- classic RDP.

The biggest question remaining was how would Rocky handle the long run down to Wimbledon? A noted rhythm specialist he has never been good in a stop start style affair, the fitter Ivan was much more suited for that kind of situation.

At this point there was a fairly nefarious interruption to proceedings by that legion of the dark angel Kapitan Kloss (playing himself now not Apollo Creed) the London Tube system was brought down by an unknown fault- clearly an action by Kloss trying to aide his Iron Curtain comrade by brining down the darling of the west, Rocky. What was going to be a 30 min break in drinking now became an hour 20 bus ride from hell. Rocky’s rhythm was shot, he was almost out on his feet when Ivan quickly closed the gap with 2 to his 1 at the famous lawn tennis association walkie, and all the momentum was with Ivan the terrible.

Putney Bridge all of a sudden loomed as a key round, could the mighty Rocky fight back? Or would the Russian hit the final blow?

Looking deep within himself the wily Rocky called on all his strength, all his experience, all miles he had put into his legs to claw his way through the final two pints and score the winning blow as the two warriors stood toe to toe at the bar in Putney Bridge Walkabout, the young, fit Ivan tried as hard as he could to summon the strength tackle a second pint and make the battle go to Jug of Death, but he was done. The battle was over, it was now just a short bus ride to SheaBoo for the coronation service. Ivan tried valiantly to down his 10^th pint quickly upon arrival. But the mighty Italian Stallion was all ready too far into his Jug of Death for the Russian to muster a fight back, reluctantly he muttered the words, almost indecipherably in his thick Russian accent ‘I concede’!!!!!!

Unfortunately someone in the organizing committee stuffed up and there was no prize for Rocky to collect, but after a truly memorable speech (or did that happen in the movie?) he returned to the Pickle with his mighty reputation intact.

So with the scalps of Apollo Creed, clubber lang, and Ivan Drogba hanging off his belt, and Mr Monkey and Ned Kelly hiding in foreign countries scared, and Fuc, T Mac, and the Ayatollah unheard from, Rocky stands undefeated and unchallenged- waiting for anyone who is brave enough, who is made up of enough of the right stuff to come and challenge him on his next three adventures: Madness in Monte Carlo in May, The col d Tourmalet Wine Challenge in July, and Around France (and Cardiff) in 40 days in Sept/October. (NOTE other none sanctioned events include: Whiskey in the Wilderness at St Andrews in April, Silly Sailing in Valencia in June)

Who will stare into the great divide and jump?

Vale Billy Thorpe - Or Alternativly, stay strong Smokey Joe Camel

2007-02-27T15:38:00.000-08:00

So its not been the strongest 24 hours to be a Lovell.

First we learnt that family talisman Jan 'the man' Ulrich had decided that the accusations where too much and he was quitting cycling, all of a sudden July was looking a lean month for Lovell expectations. Then, far too early for one so young, Billy Thorpe, leaving honorary Lovell member, B K Warwick without a hero, passed. We all have a favorite Billy Thorpe memory, but let me just say that trying to remember what mine was has left people saying I'm acting a little crazy...

Anyways, there are always positives in this sort of situation. First of all Kapitan I urge you not to cancel your flights for june/july until you read this story:

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,21299418-23218,00.html

Second, it has been Smokey Joe Camel's birthday over here (no idea what date it is over there) and a few remarkable things have happened.

1st. old Joe Norks had an ephinany this morning, she realised that smoking was a bad thing, and she has decided to give it up- so next time you see her, if she is smoking, be sure to go mad at her.

2nd. We all got drunk (it was her birthday)

3rd. I had a whole list before but have forgotten them as I began writing this post.

So let me just bring you up to speed. Had a job interview for a slightly decnet job today, all fingers are crossed (especially Joe Camel after I promised her I would move out for her birthday if I got a job).

and that's about all, I'm sorry, when I started writing I thought I would have a lot to talk about, but really, I have found out that your very own TGO was first to bed on Saturday (otherwise known as the Pickle House Warming) but as I have tried to explain I am the worlds champion at early nights at house warmings (lousy the tunny's and their Cuavar ? who the fuck knows?) anyways, what do peiople expect of me, i propped the party up for as long as I could (if you know what I mean) if it turned into an extended bridge game after I went to bed what can I do?)

So anyways, thats the end of the post, except to say that the first call old Smokey Joe got for her 41st birthday was from one David K Lovell, now I don't know if that means that old Linda J Mcdermott/lovell/hall/Warwick is slipping or if the old man is getting better after 30 years of practice, but it is still a debate topic.

Cheers

The FA Cup

2007-02-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

So not many posts in recent times- because so much has been happening you ask?

Well not really.

Things have been progressing along nicely in terms of living a life as an English person. When I last posted (in what is arguably the greatest piece of Gonzo seen on this or other blogs) I was suffering amnesia from the Wytangi day misadventures and was beginning to approach the point of being too poor to go on living the high life. How quickly things change. As luck would have it just as I began to notice that the dwindling of my cash reserves was becoming chronic a nice company offered me some work as a temp- so that is what I have been doing with my week days for the last week and a bit.

But the fun story's come from the weekends, so that's what I should talk about.

I will say nothing of the weekend, two weeks past, but to comment on the fact that none of you replied to my hilarious txt message regarding the Frogs croaking at Croke Park when they played the Irish. I will also comment on the quality of the Rugby- high quality indeed.

So after a quite weekend with Joe Norks in Australia for the weekend and APF hanging out with Amelie, I was keen to get up to some mischief this last weekend, and thankfully our young friend RDP came to the party by organizing tickets to go the FA Cup on Sunday afternoon.

A fixture on nearly everyone's list of things to do when coming to this town is to go to a Football match at a major club, so when young Mr Paul asked if I was interested I said Yes.

Sunday afternoon then, came around far too quickly, as I had spent the previous two evenings taking in the various venues in the area surrounding the Pickle. Friday at the Barracuda Bar watching the mighty Stormers prove that my tipping powers are truly returning (a world cup year, was there any doubt?) and then the Horse and Groom talking loudly and very quickly with old Joe Norks, who wasn't nearly as drunken as I was so not talking nearly as loudly or quickly. Then Saturday turned into quite a pub crawl as a long day on the couch (dealing with a sore head) meant that I had more then enough energy on Saturday night.

So Sunday morning was spent also with a mild hangover- a common state it seems with these heavy English Lagers (Fosters that is). But finally it was time to go to the match, and so finally this post begins to go somewhere.

We headed out to Craven Cottage (near to were RDP lives) home of the cleverly named Fulham Football Club to see the home team take on the might of Tottenham Hot Spur (now thats a name for a team) on a freezing cold afternoon. The stadium is right on the Thames so gets all the benefits of the breeze off the river that the likes of the Shangri La and Marquise enjoyed, except that in sunny old England that is most often not the best thing to have.

So anyways, the game, it was cold (have I mentioned that) but that wasn't going to stop me going to watch the beloved Hot Spurs do there thing to the hated FFC- I was channeling the might of Archie Thompson and knew, deep down in the place we don't often talk about at parties, that the Spurs (who have been terrible for the last month and a half) would not let me down.

And they didn't- 4-0 to the away teams end- FANTASTIC. Although to tell the truth it wasn't really that fantastic- poor old Fulham, played there little hearts out, but in this world of Mega clubs and then not so mega clubs there was no way that they would beat the might of Spurs- the game was fucking boring- yes the standard is a lot better then the A League, and the passing more precise etc. The goals were good, but came from no where, not the scintillating build up of attack that you hope for, but lucky breaks leading to even luckier strikes, that went past the desperate hands of the very unlucky Fulham goal keeper, and then there was no replay screen so you couldn't even see the goals a second time. All in all I would have chosen Suncorp and mighty Dario's two goals in September (?) over this occasion.

But in the end the quality of the match didn't matter at all- I am sure the lads who were at the Reddies on Saturday would agree- in these types of intense match's (local derbies and fifth round cup ties don't happen every week) the crowds are so amped up that what is happening on the field was really a sideshow. The home support was well organised, loud, and extremely passionate for the cause. However, I am afraid to say they were shamed by the undeniably far more incredible performance of the away teams end.

The Spurs supporters were out numbered by at least 3 to 1 (there being 4 sides to a football pitch and them taking up one end makes that claim at least slightly feasible) but were much louder and having a much better time (which is easy when your team is leading 1, then 2, then 3, and then farcically 4 - zip). The two best moments of the afternoon came early in the match, in the early sections of the match both sets of supporters were doing their best to inspire their lads to better things- first the Fulham supports tried there hand at singing a version of When the Saints Come Marching In, and immediately upon finishing the Spur's supporters started their version (aptly when the Spurs come marching in) and blew the roof of the stadium, they were twice as loud, and twice as well organized- and it must have meant something to old Keane who immediately converted the softest goal I have seen scored since Spurs own Paul Robinson let that back pass through when playing for England a few months ago. Which lead to the second best part of the afternoon- watching the away team go absolutely nuts- like you see on TV when a goal is scored they were jumping up and down and waving their arms around and all sorts of other crazy acts that would have you believing that it was the fans themselves, not the lads on the pitch who had scored the goal.

The last thing of note to tell you about is the funny old man who was sitting directly behind us. Now all the world knows that your B A Tron is a passionate die hard for the likely lads from White Heart Lane- so there was no way I wasn't going to be cheering for them when they won 4-0 in the cup (the last bit of silverware they are still in the running for this season) even if we were sitting in the home supporters section(when I stood up to cheer the 3rd goal I was the only person standing up in the entire stand). Now I had spent Monday night reading Fever Pitch, so I was ready for anything the pommie soccer hooligans could throw at me (some would think I was looking for it) but I wasn't ready for the funny old man. This was a guy who was at least 60- at the game with his old lady, so you wouldn't expect that the only prospect of soccer vilionce we would face would be from him- but as I jumped for joy with the fabulous third goal, all reports indicate that he either nearly killed me, or killed himself in what could only be called a fit.

I apologize for the slightly disjointed narrative in this post- I am busy doing other things at the moment as well so this post is coming together slowly.

So anyways, the FA cup- a good time out, although with no replay screen, no drinking in the seats, fucking cold, lame arse home team, did I mention no drinking in the seats ? it wasn't necessarily something I would do every week.

Oh yeah- as a bit of a post script- after the game I headed back to the Willie the IVth for Sunday Roast and a movie at the Loft- which was uneventful but for the moment when Joe Knorks sat on a plate of Ass Jam Tarts- its a long story but try imagining a Smoking Camel walking around with an Ass Tart stuck to her butt, doing a dance to My Little Buttercup (from the Three Amigos)- an image that will live with me for ever.

cheers

Waitangi Day

2007-02-07T09:35:00.000-08:00

So last Saturday, after some emotional moments watching the mighty QR QLD Reds do there thing I headed off to meet RDP and friends at the Waitangi Day Circle Line Pub Crawl.

For more info see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_Line
For an example see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqanmTarrEU

Basically its just a pub crawl around the Circle Line tube line (clever name) where your supposed to have a drink at a pub near each stop then catch the tube to the next station and have another drink, all the way around the line until you get to Westminster where everyone goes out onto the Parliament Square for the Haka at 4pm.

Now Google is telling me that my spelling of haka is wrong! is it?

So anyways I jumped the Central line to Notting Hill Gate station where I was to catch up with RDP and friends not really knowing what to expect. I'd had a couple of breakfast beers watching the Reddies so brought some roadies for the trip, by the time I got across town I was a little tipsy. I hadn't ventured to Notting Hill before so I was hopeful that Robbie would be somewhere near by and easy to find (Mobile's don't work in the Tube so for the 30 minutes I was traveling I was uncontactable) So I come out of the tube, and in my belligerent, slightly drunk state don't realize I am shoving a cop out of the way in order to leave the station, and my friends I can't really describe the scene that confronted me.

The nice policeman I had shoved out of the way was standing there because they had SHUT the tube station! The high street outside the station looked like something of CNN coverage of downtown Bagdahd, lots of rubbish and lots of rubbish on the ground, high police presence, it was weird. There were so many people standing around drunk on the street I couldn't believe it. I called RDP - We've moved on to Gloucester Rd.
-Well Fuck you Robbit- I thought, then turned back to try and get into the station, this is when I realised that the Bobbies were there to shut the station. I needed some quick lines to get back into the station. At first I tried the 'but I'm an Aussie not a Kiwi' line but unfortunatly my Wallaby jersey was still in the laundry from Aussie day, the copper thought that Waitangi day was an Australian thing anyways, and finally I was wearing a Black t-shirt in an effort to fit in with all the fucking Kiwi's- so I was batting 0/3 at that stage, but some how my next trick of pretending to have nothing to do with the circle line crawl- What there something happening today? was clever enough to trick my way onto the train.

Well the train ride was something, it turns out that the station was shut because there were so many people coming from up the line that each train was packed, luckily I'm big enough and mean enough looking that I could force my way on board. Anyways, this story is starting to get longer then it needs to be so we'll skip ahead. I got to Gloucester Rd and hurried out of the station with about a 1000 other kiwi's to get in on the fun, when one guy pulled out a Conch I started to have a little Lord of the Flies moment in the middle of the pressing masses rushing out of the tube stop, but luckily I hadn't been near any strong liqour at that stage so any homicidal urges I was having were easily quashed.

So we come out of the tube and into the Caxton St Seafood and Wine festival, at least that's the deja vu moment I had for a little bit. It the only way to describe it, except that instead of stalls set up they just have off liscences (which quickly ran out of beer). Anyways, I found Mr and Mrs RDP and their friends and we stood around drinking for an hour or so, and then decided that the only thing to do was to join the streaming mass on its walk to Victoria, the next stop, at this point all thought of trying to get on the Tube was abandoned.

A mob of a couple of hundred or so left the Gloucester Rd mob and walked the couple of blocks to Victoria to join another bigger mob of a couple of thousand or so, and we stood around drinking some more. It was at this point that the lack of sleep (love the super 14) and many beers started to combine, the problem was a complete lack of Hurricanes jerseys to heckle. But finally I saw one and?

a) kept quiet
b) pretended to be a Kiwi and called him Bro
c) got Mouthy

OK who was right? the answer was C- TK would have loved it. The problem is over here I don't quite have the posse that I once had, RDP is a stout enough lad, but the and Co part of the group consisted of Mrs RDP, and there two house mates, and one other girl- not quite a fighting bunch. But luckily enough we have spent enough time treating the Kiwi's like a younger sibling that they are far to timid to fight back against a full blown Aussie assault despite being in a crowd of a few 1000 of their brethren.

RDP decided not long afterwards that it was time to move on, so we decided to skip ahead a few stops and go to Parliament Square to try and get a good spot to watch the dance (which is what I might have started calling it). We jumped the Tube and I was quickly told that you weren't allowed to hold on while the train was moving- Tube Serfing in a very crowded train, good times. Eventually we arrived and headed up onto the aprk. Try to picture (or watch the Youtube link above) a crowd of about 10 000 Kiwi's standing around in a park drinking (I guess you could also just go to any Auckland city park on a weekday to see the same) but anyways where off topic.

10 000 Kiwi's standing around in the park, framed on one side by the Parliament and Big Ben, the other by Westminster Abbey, on a perfect London winters day- it was really quite a scene. A couple of hours drinking went by until about 3:45 when B A Tron and RDP decided to try to get into the middle of the crowd to have the best view of the dancing- which was a lot of fun. One thing about being used to seeing so many Maori's at rugby is that when your mixing with the prodimently white crowd of Kiwi's that is in London you realise that your much, much bigger then most of them. So with some pushing, and cajoling (its amazing home many people got out of the way when I told them that RDP (the whitest man alive) was performing in the dancing) we started to make some head way through the crowd.

Our progress became really impressive all of a sudden, it was like the crowd was melting away, moving the other way, this went on for about 30 seconds until someone told us we had missed the dancing and that it was all over- Duh!

So that was it, I was officially without sight at this point, RDP and Gang wanted to kick onto the Walkie with the other 10 000 people, but I declined going instead to find the nearest pub to watch the England Scotland game. it gets hazy after that, I remember being in the bar trying to hide that I was drinking a beer I had brought in from outside, I remember booing when Wilkinson kicked his drop goal, I remember making a hasty retreat when I realised that no one else was booing the field goal, I remember going to an ATM to get cash out and then finding the cash I had all ready gotten out somewhere else, and i remember getting of the bus a couple of 100 metres past the stop on the Shoreditch High St. but that's all.

Good times.

The Pick and Go

2007-02-03T03:14:00.000-08:00

How do I love a pick and go? let me count the ways.

So I thought today would be the hardest of the trip, the one where I had to miss a Reds home game. I missed one last year (thank you very much Ben and Ali), but to that point I hadn't missed one in a long, long time. From memory it was the Otago match that was played when we were on our duke of Edinburgh trip in grade 10 canoing to Stradbroke (there also may ahve been an otago match in the last year at Ballymore- but its more romantic this way).

But it has not been hard to miss at all. After a panic stricken couple of hours on Friday when it became apparent my 1st choice for streaming (damn you Rugby Channel online) wouldn't work I eventually found away to watch the game. and what a game- dispite having to put up with Marto and Clarky during a Suncorp match it has been great to watch, for a fairly slow of foot prop like me, who has based his entire career on picking, and then going (have I ever thrown a pass? I wonder what that feels like) to watch the mighty red heavies do it for at least 77 minutes (this game ain't over) has been special- now I go onto the Whytangi day Circle line pub crawl- ask Tio, you would be impressed- so a good day all round. more later.

B A Tron

Aussie Day

2007-01-31T14:13:00.001-08:00

So lots of chatter online about the fact that I never put up any posts on this thing- really I have no stories, it turns out you all just thought I was a dynamo, I'm not really very exciting.

Last Friday, the day of days then, Australia day. Could this be my favorite public holiday? It's close, I would put it in a tie with Ekka Wednesday, The first day of the Gabba test, and Cup day- now I know, those last two aren't public holidays, but I've never worked on either so how would I know?

Lets quickly revisit some of the classic Oz days of yore:

The original and the best at the bat cave- two years in a row I think we had parties out their, griffo and her jello shot vodka's, alcholic watermelon, and the home brew kegs- hang on - Oh I'm back APF got a package from home yesterday, some super expensive mega weather conditions two man tent, he has now set it up in his bedroom- so I had to take some photos of him so he can show peeps back home that he has the tent- anyways were was I? oh, of course

Australia day at the Bat Cave- the thing I left out? the presence of the Challen sisters- who will ever forget the quality of the B A Tron rum fuelled rage attacks I managed at a couple of those parties, sigh.

Moving on, the Lockerbie Aust days- am I confusing things or were their two? I don't know but I can certainly remember the one were Kloss dogg kicked Ty square in the nuts and Ty cried- those were good times my friends.

There weren't two, I've just remembered where the one that I had forgotten was- old Humpty had one one year at the Valley Run house in Capalaba- Ashes split his head wide open and Steph was yelling "get an ambulance" we all had a good laugh.

Then Park Ave- arguably the best- why? cause no fuck showed up, just humpty, J dogg and B a Tron hanging out at Park Ave boozing, why was this good you ask? cause before the count down started or the cricket got under way Humpty and I were very bored watching Discovery when what should come on but a documentary about folk heros in other cultures- first there was El Santo- the mexican wrestling god who would later be reborn as DJ El Santo, and then Kapitan Kloss- the polish secret agent who always got all the women- it seemed appropriate - a legendary nickname was born. That afternoon is also memorable for the massive storm that hit the RE, 'no that's going the other way' said a sage like B A Tron, the made dash in said storm to the Gatta, the Governator (hooray for the new Mrs Bob- by the way kloss I brought them a congratulations your engaged bottle of champers- you owe me 5 pounds if you want in), and finally it stands as one of only two times I can every remember being actually invited around to the Kinross st palace- I've been there more times yes, but invited not so many times.

What's next- oh of course Hawthorne Rd- the purple house shirts, the blow up pool, the forty degree heat that almost killed the bird (was shithead its name?) and am I wrong but was that Humpty and Simba Kahn 1? (Humpty seems to feature a lot in Aussie day memories)

Last year, what a day, J dogg and I playing the immortal listen to the count down on the net to find out the first song an hour early joke, the worlds greatest game of street cricket ever, and of course Mick- thats two years in a row a poor showing from the Ayatollah (or so I've heard from this year)

So what would 2007 bring? I sense you leaning forward on your chairs.

Well, it started badly on Thursday when I went to the Australia shop to by my specially ordered cartoon of the News and bottle of Bundy- only I was heading home from my house sit in fulham so had my big backpack on, and no real way of getting the cartoon home- it was difficult.

Anyways, so we sat up waiting for the countdown for what seemed an age- so long that I decided to start drinking a little early, just so I could stay awake, you know... by the time it started I was fairly drunk- I called J in Chenomix, feeling a little home sick, reminisicing how it had been exactly a year ago when we had been at Lambert... he rang off pretty quickly.

Anyways, I stayed up talking to monkeys back home till about 2, the countdown was
safely on its way so I could sleep.

at 5:30 I got back up, and felt really really sick, why you might ask, well on inspection it turned out a little over half my carton and just under half my bottle of rum had disapeared, this only just being the start of Australia day I was naturally a little surprised (in my defense the stubbies were only 330 ml).

Anyways, back to the story.

Somehow the voters got it all wrong and Clown Prince only came in at 23- I was heart broken, it was not long after I woke up and my hangover was very bad. Then the top 10 came along, 7 (I think) gnarls barkley- my god I thought I even voted for this crap, then 6 was it the artic monkey's I can't remember but it was crap and I voted for it, the same for numbers 4 and 5- I was starting to get worried that my voting for this crap was what caused the hoods to be so far down, but then I remembered I voted for two hoods songs- there was still a chance, when, Damm number 3 the hard road- who would have thought fucking eskimo joe and whoever the fuck was number one?? oh well at least the hoods were number 3.

So I spent a slow morning recovering until about 10:30 when I had to leave to go for lunch with Uncle Peter and Auntie Eilean (i feel really bad about the spelling in this post but there is a reason- fucking microsoft have revoked my copy of word for some reason adn the internet isn't working so I am writing this in notepad- not the worlds greatest word processor) where was I?

oh of course, my trip to lunch- I was going early cause I knew I would need a couple of eye openers if I was to continue living- Mr Monkey was right you do get worse hang overs here then at home, must have something to do with not drinking as much water here as you do at home- did you know that the water in London has been throw a human at least 9 times? something to think about.

All this typing has made me thirsty, need water... haha I couldn't resist.

So anyways, I hit the Castle Greyskull (possibly the best nickname for a pub I will ever hear) for a couple of eye openers, and then lunch with Julie and Australian relatives- an enjoyable affair, made bad only by my realisation that when it ended I would have to go to Action Town (its real name) which is about as far down the tube as you can go. Old St is in Zone 1 (admittedly a crap area, a little bit the valley 15 years ago (when it was scary)), Fulham was zone 2, a lot like the nest, a little out of town, a little run down, but in such a ritzy area that any complaints would sound like two mothers boys who had never known a hard day in their lives

- did I tell you I saw Valinto Rossi riding around on his moped (really you say, cause I heard he was in Malaysia riding his real motor bike, well I say, it may not have been him...)

We keep getting side tracked and its not good. I got on the tube to Action Town which must be at least Zone 5 if Fulham is Zone 2, we're talking Cleveland, we're talking Edithvale- END OF THE LINE- type stuff, long enough at least so that by the end my couple of beers buzz was wearing off I needed desperately to get to the house of RDP and Mrs Bobby. When I got there I was sick enough, and it was cold enough that we decided to forgo the walkie and just get drunk before heading to the Red Back a little later in the night.

And oh my goodness let me tell you, the Red Back. If there are a couple of places that are central to the Australian experience (I'm talking Flemington on Cup day, the G on Boxing Day, Gallipoli, Kokoda- those sorts of things) then there are three things that are central to the Australian in London experience- The Shepard's Bush Walkie, The Church, and finally the Red Back- what a great pub.

One long room divided up into a bar section and dance floor, lots of aussies, lots of bad music that you just have to sing a long too- its the full package, we are talking the Victory but turned up a few watts on the energy front. It was a pretty massive night, we started innocently enough on the Snakey B's but eventually I think we were drinking Fosters Stubbies at two each ago. A dance floor hasn't had its foundations tested by such tearing up since Fridays a long long time ago, but the old firm of B A Tron and RDP still have it. We danced this way, then that, and then the other way again.

basically we are talking a good night had by all. It ended at about 2 for yours truly, I noticed that it was fucking late, and the line for the coat check was huge, so I grabbed a couple of beers and went and got in line, after a while I realized I had lost RDP and started looking around for him, but I couldn't leave the line- he was gone (Robby if your wondering I did get home fine...)

anyways, the rest of the night is a little scketchy, there was some Blond Yank in the coat check line, we were hugging at one point but that's the extent of my memories of her- I don't know her name, but lets just call her Annie 3, and then I was on the bus (one of many) that I had to take to get back to Old St and the safty of the Pickle. I ended up home sometime around 3:30 I think- but who the fuck really knows.

All in all it was a pretty good Aussie Day- fairly sure it was better then what I could have gotten at the Lodge or on South Straddie at least.

B

Summer Holidays

2007-01-24T00:27:00.000-08:00

OK so I haven't posted in over a week. There are a couple of reasons for this.

1) Dav Rossi's incredibly harsh comment to my last post- it has left me broken, hiding under my covers for a couple of days, I didn't want to come out lest someone else tell me I was useless and no good.
2) It's England, nothing has been happening- what can I say?
3) The only things that have been happening have been looking for work, and boozing, so really I could have just reposted the last post, but I didn't think that would do at all.

However, at the urging of the readership I have decided to venture out and have a rant. Congress may not have liked what Georgy said overnight, but dammit he still got out their and said it- little topper that he is.

So two things to report, the first, I have ventured away from the Pickle for the week. One of Joe Knorks' very nice friends has gone away for the week, and since they live on the mean streets of Fulham requested that I house sit for them. So that's what I am doing, hanging out it Fulham, sleeping on a real bed, hacking into other people's unsecured wireless networks, and getting lost when wandering around the afore mentioned mean streets.

It is fun, but really at the moment my life is reminding me a little too much of the grand old days of Uni Summer holidays, you know, when you thought, you beauty three months off, but then by mid way through summer you were beginning to get bored, and then when Feb rolled around you realized that you had to go back to Uni so you wished the summer would keep going for awhile longer, well that's where I am at the moment. At some point I am going to have to get a job, and now I just want to keep being an unemployed bum for ever. Oh Well.

Second, It is currently snowing, I ventured outside to take some rubbish out, and low and behold, it was a winter wonderland. I can't say if it is wide spread, or if it has only been snowing on Radipole St, Fulham, but nonetheless the London winter has finally come through with some snow. It surprises me considering the rest of January has been rather warm, almost Bris Vegas in winteresque. But then over the weekend it turned real cold, dropped about 5-6 degrees during the day, and so now it has snowed. I do have to say it is a lot prettier outside, but is that really that much of a bonus?

Anyways, hopefully this will tide the Funtheque junkies over until the weekend when I promise there will be another post. I have huge plans for Aust day- I have to go to the Aussie shop today or tomorrow to pick up my bottle of bundy and cartoon of News. Should be a good day- no pool ponies to speak of but this years game of street cricket will rival last year's if its played in a blizzard.

The Slow News Cycle

2007-01-14T17:15:00.000-08:00

So, nothing much happens when your an unemployed bum living on your sisters couch in the mean streets of east London. Hard to find anything out of the slightly mindless blur that was the last week that is even nearly newsworthy. Last night I even tried to do the obligatory blind post, however I fell asleep using my computer as a pillow so whatever wisdom I managed to come up with was lost.

So anyways, after the dizzying heights that were Dublin I decided that now was the time to try out one of my new years resolutions- to have 10 weekends off the piss in 2007 - as many of you know, I am a reasonable drinker, I'm not one of these 12 hours pass and I need a drink kind of fellows, no, what damages B A Tron is the three days each week where I decide that soberism is for the geeks and I follow my natural tendencies.

Tuesday was fine, just a normal day in the unemployed's lifestyle, a job application session in the morning followed by a nap. Wednesday, much the same, except we got a bite on the job hunt, the delightful Suzzy (I regret to say representing the Hays recruitment junta) called and offered me an interview with Transport for London- a huge public service company over here. So anyways Thursday was filled by a) the interview (which went all right) and b) the return from 7 weeks of Eurotripping of Bonnie and Kendell (APF's cousin and friend).

So after the interview I was feeling fine, then the two young (were talking sub 20's) girls arrive to party at the Pickle for the weekend- life was good. After dinner I decided to head downstairs to the bottlO- just one or two beers- wouldn't really harm the week off the piss...

Down three flights of stairs I descended, like a the Cougar add, 1 5 pack of cans, 1 bottle of red, and 1 bottle of white for the girls, 1 5 pack of cans, 1 bottle of red, and 1 bottle of white for the girls, 1 5 pack of cans, 1 bottle of red. OH MY GOD THAT IS A BOTTLE OF BUNDERBERG RUM IN THE FRONT WINDOW OF THE OFFIE DOWNSTAIRS.

I did a double, then a triple take- yes, the random wine store in the middle of Old Street is now selling B.U.N.D.Y Rum until the middle of February (it must be an important time to be an Aussie). So not really being in full control I walked into the bottle shop and ordered a bottle of the mothers milk (I couldn't tell you if I delivered on the other three items on my shopping list) with an new found vigor I bounded up the stairs and cracked the bottle of holiest amongst holies. For all of those non religious folk I recommend getting something you really love, but take for granted, then go with out it for 5 weeks (Kloss you blew it by coming to Prague) then getting the opportunity for a no questions asked reunion. Thursday was something like that- I like Bunderburg Rum. - there I said it.

So anyways, despite what you might hear on other blog posts- I did not drink the entire bottle right there and then

1) APF helped me out by having at least (and you never know with that freddie) one cup of rum, and
2) sitting here right now I can still see the bottle, and there is still something left in the bottom of it.

so there you go, let the tabloids have their fun, but we all know the truth.

So Friday, the week off the piss was shot, as was the week of solid job hunting, I wouldn't here from the TFL for London job till Monday (you will be the first too know) so I decided that their was nothing else to do but drink- and that was the pattern for the rest of the weekend- Friday night drinks at the Loft, Saturday breakfast at the greasy spoon followed by dinner at the Reliance and drinks at the loft, Sunday- a day of thesis (and procrastination) followed by dinner at the William IV (th) and drinks at the loft. A week off the piss ending up in a deborturous torture of pub feeds and deep pints.

So where are we?

The young girls left today- happy to be on their way back to the land of Oz, leaving a very jealous B A behind, dreaming of the beach and games of cricket that actually last the distance. My main New Years resolutions of: find a job, find a place to live, loose some weight, and cut back on the piss remain unfulfilled. and the Pickle has a strange odor about it, that apparently can not be solved as we are playing a game of rubbish standoff- who will win? will B A Tron join the ranks of the employed? will he ever manage to go a weekend without threatening the establishments rules for gentleman's behavior?

Find out all this and more in our next post- later in the week.

Peace Out

W M Lovell

Dublin

2007-01-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

As my flight broke through the clouds to provide a first glimpse of the emerald isle the Garth Brooks' Ireland queued up on the Ipod- I couldn't decide if that was a good or bad omen for the coming couple of days. Bored of post New Years London I decided to head to Dublin for the weekend, I left on Friday and came back Monday night. The most exciting part of the trip I think was that the flight across cost about 15 pounds- very cool.

Friday

I arrived in old Dublin town around 12:30, by 1:30 I had dropped my bags at the Hostel and set off for the most obvious venue, St James Gate and the Guinness Factory. 45 minutes later I was still walking, apparently I should have taken a bus. Nonetheless eventually I arrived and did the tour - which was surprisingly good for that sort of thing, not a patch on the Nurdle version of the XXXX factory tour but still good. The best part would have to be the free pint of the Black stuff at the end- excellent.
Seeing it was now getting on to about 4:30- so therefore sunset in this ridiculous hemisphere I decided to set out on a pub crawl back to town, and a big night in the famous Temple Bar district. Unfortunately I didn't quite plan for how many pubs would be between the Factory and Temple Bar - so my plan for a pint per pup quickly became realistic. Through 5 pints I was still a couple of blocks short of the destination and starting to get a little messy, on the positive side though I was half way through the 10 pint challenge and starting to think I would easily reach the magic mark.

Although as anyone who has rang that bell will tell you pints 8-10 are the hardest, and as I reached 8 I realized I was beaten, I chewed through 8 and then 9 but then had to tap out. By now it was about 10:30pm (the last two pints must have taken an hour each) and I think I had started talking to myself- at least people (bouncers mostly) were beginning to treat me a little like a madman. Beaten I headed back to the hostel.

Saturday.

So Saturday, much touristing to do. Got going around 10 and headed to the famous Trinity College- home of the Book of Kells. I had a look around the college then went into the library for the star attraction, I thought 10 Euro was a bit steep to see some old book, but they had a good museum attached so in the end it was interesting. After an hour learning all about ancient book making and the importance of scribes in the monestaries I finally moved into the Book of Kells exhibit, and was confronted by this:

"Sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam."

I did a double take, but I shit you not, the Book of Kells, written approximately ad 800 was open to John 3:16 - apparently the Irish custodians did have a sense of humor- I haven't laughed quite so heartily in quite a while- BRING BACK STONE COLD.

So anyways, after that I did some more touristing, but was really marking time before the important part of the day- Leinster- home of BOD were playing the Ospreys that night so I decided to go out and see if I could get a ticket. I headed for Donnybrook around 4 (3.5 hours before kick off) thinking I would easily get a ticket, then find a pub to watch the big FA cup match, then go to the game. Only this plan was ruined when I got out their and a nice old fellow laughed at me when I asked where to go to get tickets.

Defeated I headed to the nearest pub to drown my sorrows- which was a mistake as it was the main supporters pub and therefore full to bursting of jerks in Leinster gear- I got even more down hearted as the night went on and Arsenal (who apparently everyone hear hates- sorry Ashes) were beating Liverpool. Until I was finally saved about 15 minutes before kick off of the big game when over the loud speaker came the voice of my Saviour- five tickets available at the bar- saved.
Donnybrook is an awesome field, just like Ballymore but even smaller- max patronage must be all of 10 000 maybe less. The home team's back line included: Whiticker, Contempori, D Arcy, BOD, and Dennis Hickey- rock and roll. They rolled the Osprey's (who omitted Gavin Henson, but did include Brent Cockbain) easily- all in all a good night.

Two discussion points for a separate post include how the Argies with a fit Contempori, and Ireland could cause a huge upset and keep the hosts out of the second round at the RWC, and two how the ARU can loose a player like Chris Whitiker to a club whose home ground holds less then 10 000 people, and third (I know) is how good it will be if the national club comp can start to attract about this number of supporters- its just the right size crowd- easy to get a beer, but still some good atmosphere.

That would normally end the Saturday section of this post but for a bit of misadventure on the trip back into town. In the pub earlier I had set about drowning my sorrows with a couple of pints, then at the game for some reason I went out after the Bakers Dozen (missing by heaps I am sure) but regardless after the effort I was fairly drunk. I got on a bus back to town planning all sorts of mischief but fell asleep. I woke up after a time somewhere on the North side of town- I got off the bus and then realized I was lost- a fucking random street in the middle of nowhere in the rain- not cool. I wandered around for a while and finally found a bus stop- there were two random German looking backpackers who asked me if I knew the way into town- I gave them a bit of a strange look and said 'yeah just get on the next bus' - you see I was hoping that that would be right (I had crossed the street from where I had gotten off the bus so hopefully the next bus would be retracing steps...). The bus finally arrived and we all hoped on, but the fucking Dublin Bus Service only accepts coins for payment so all of a sudden B A Tron was in danger of not having the fair- but thankfully Hans and Fritz as I had decided to call them came back down the bus and paid for my fair for me- those Germans, a friendly bunch of people...

Sunday

So after my huge first two days in Dublin I decided that Sunday would be more low key. I went to the two big churches St Patrick's (of the day) and Christ Church and then also went out to Croke Park- the GAA home ground which at 82 300 is the third biggest stadium in Europe- it will host its first ever Rugby match on February 3rd- up until now it has been against the law to play English sports (Rugby and Soccer) at the home of Gaelic Football and Hurling. Those Irish know how to take their hatreds seriously...

After Croke I headed back into town and decided to have a walk around in Temple Bar- nothing serious, just a few brews. Hahahaha – it went bad when I got to my second pub and met Christina – a 35 year old Seppo from Cheyenne, Wyoming who was also in town for the weekend- we ended up getting pretty blind and having a huge night in Temple Bar- another big night.

Monday

I woke up in my own Hostel to the sound of rain- apparently my plans for a round of Golf where cactus, so I decided to do more touristing, I went to the Zoo which was good, lots of animals (as you would expect) but fuck all other people- probably because of the weather, which was also good.

(A Brazillian Tapir- Apparently best when roasted and served with apple sauce and a Waldorf Salad)
I then headed home to dreary old England- a 1 hour flight bookended by four hours of busses, queues, trains, and tubes- really Ryan Air might be cheap but the gates are so inaccessible that some times I wonder if its worth it.

2006 a Year in Review

2007-01-01T02:40:00.001-08:00

Ok so I don't want to labour this post too much, but I was thinking back a little sadly on 2006 the other night. And it was a pretty fun filled year, considering I came over here because TK said I hadn't lived its a pretty impressive base.

Some things in 2006 that I will remember:

F1 in Melbourne
Sanctury Cove 1 and 2
Blakey's Wedding
Dav's Bakers Dozen and that girl at the Normanby
Q School
Reds Golf Day
NFC Straddie
NFC Brunswick
FOO in the Cox
Two birdies and subsequent collapse at Wynumm
Pacific 1, the near miss and the collapse
The Shark Hat
The Nest and the Shangri La
NFC Armidale 2006 (Annie, Cameo for Armidale United, 134 to loose by only 5)
The Gabba Stack A Thon
Chardies at the Whickham
Lucia D'Lamemmor
MSN at Accenture with Grealsey and Dav
Bledisloe 2 and Rob the 17 year old
Donga and Kates Engagement Party and the day at the Races and the Vase
Alex Attacks 1 and 3 - That mystery chick
Skinny dipping with Ahes and Cat
Roulette with Humphries and John Senden
Derby day at the O then the pink pants on Cup day
Club night 2 (Australia v Sth Africa in Sydney, worst test match ever)
Kloss Dogg and the gleam

So all in all a pretty good year, hopefully will be able to record as many adventures on this site in 2007.

B A Tron

The Lamest New Years Ever?

2007-01-01T02:39:00.002-08:00

The day before New Years I was feeling a little melancholy, it got to about six at night and I realised that the lads would probably soon be getting ready to head to the New Years Eve golf challange and here I was in lame old England. Joe Norks and I had done little all day (a tip for everyone if you plan to go out with Joe Norks make sure you add two hours for how long it takes her to get ready to do anything) we had tried to go to the Spitlefield Markets but they were closed, then had an unispiring burger at a pub near Liverpool St Station.

So we decided to head to the Reliance, a charming local with interior decorations from the ship, The Reliance. Two of Joe Norks' Canberra friends came to meet us and we ended up having a largish night, my few memories from the end of the night include jumping in a cab alone and asking to be taken to a 'cool club', then meeting a girl in said club (no idea where the club was, but the girls name was spookily enough, Anne), then waking up the next morning on a random couch with clothing still fully intact- I bid a hasty retreat.

So slept most of new years eve day, trying to recover and come up with something to do that night. Robbie Paul, (or is that Mr Robbie Paul these days) was equally unfull of exciting ideas so we decided to meet for the fireworks later- I couldn't belive it myself as I said it.

So Smokey Joe Camel and I went to dinner at the Brick Lane, which was really just a whole bunch of indian resturants all located in the same place- big deal, I've been to Sunnybank before... Then we walked into town to go to the fire works, only we got into the middle of town faster then expected so ran out of Offie's to buy piss at, so we walked, and walked (the centre of town is pretty big) until we finally got near to where the fire works would be, when we reached a barraicade, the fucking Bobbies had decided to stop letting people onto Embankment past Temple, so we couldn't get in to meet Mr and Missus Robert Paul for New Years- Not happy.

We finally found an offliscence to buy some beers, waiting in a line for 30 minutes to get into it, and then raced down to the river banks to ring in the New Year.

The Fireworks were pretty well located, the London Eye and houses of Parliament giving it a nice back drop- but for someone who is generally underwhelmed by Riverfire the best of Britain just wouldn't do- There was no sense of Drama, no sound track, and no Dump and Burn!!! I mean really, what's a fire works display without the best of the Airforce commiting some needless pollution.

So after the fireworks we went home, in bed my 1 after having all of three beers all night- very, very lame.

In a post scipt- the next morning we found out that some fireworks had been visible to Tony and Amelie on the balcony of the Pickle.

A Very Happy Unbirthday

2007-01-01T02:38:00.000-08:00

So Kloss dogg delivered the Ipod when he was in Prague so I was ready to get back onto the tourist horse when I got back to London, Julie had the next Friday off (two days before New Years) so we decided to go on an adventure. After a bold suggestion from yours truly that we simply go to the bus station and get on the first bus that was leaving, (our rules where that the trip could only take two hours (so we could get back in one day) and it couldn't be too an airport) Joe Norks and I set out for Victoria St Coach Station. We arrived at 9:31 and immediatly where a little disapointed with our Bus Station Roulette, unlike we expected all the Busess' left at the same time, on the hour or half hour.

So we couldn't really just let fate decide where we would go, we would have to decide, that was until I noticed in the O's that their was a 9:40 bus to Oxford, rock n roll I said, lets hussle, so we had to race over to the ticket hall, wait impatiently to be served, get out tickets then run to the bus, in the end our haste wasn't really necessary as we cooled our jets on the bus for a good couple of minutes, but anyways, there we were, completly following chance on an adventure to Oxford.

Oxford was pretty fun, we did a bit of a tour and found out all sorts of interesting facts, then went through one of the colleges (where Lewis Carol worked and later wrote- hence the Post title) (NOTE: am sitting up in the middle of the night watching the cricket, Clarke just got Cook for 20- sucks to be a Pom). (NOTE 2: Blaino I tried to find out your number but got no replies from the lads).

Anyways, after a few pints it was back to London on the bus, overall I have to say that Bus Roulette ended up a big sucess and I am sure I will be able to report on other bus adventures later in the year.

Billatron

Absinth and the Jungle Bar- Or a very Lovelly Christmas

2007-01-01T02:36:00.000-08:00

OK so next up we headed to Prague for Christmas. This was going to be awesome, a white christmas behind the iron curtin in the Cheque Republic (anyone who has been there would get the joke) with Joe Knorks, Tony and his French girlfriend Madeline ( I mean Amelie). But then disaster struck for the first time. In the week leading up to Christmas fog struck London, Heathrow was basically fucked all week, half the flights out where cancelled and their were delays everywhere. So the day we left we had to get up at 3 am in order to get to a flight at 7. Of course it all went a little wrong when the house members of the Pickle Flat decided to drink until midnight.

So we got to Heathrow around 4:30/5 am and then had to join a queue to get into the airport, they were so considerate they had even set up a marquee outside the building just to control people. It was cold, fucking Englishly cold. And let me tell you about people not behaving well in queues, that day was not a positive advertisment for the people of London. Anyways, after queueing to get in the building, waiting to be allowed to queue to check in, queueing to check in, queuing to go through security and customs, we had to run to get to the plane. Three hours of messing about in order to get on a 1 and 3 quarter hour flight.

Anyways we got to Prague and their wasn't a flake of snow to be scene, but that was all right there were still two days to go... We caught a cab into town, to the majestic Atlantic Hotel and as we were too early for checking in we decided to adjourn to the bar for a drink. In we walk, noting as we entered that the bar advertised Absinth on its menu for only 69 koruna (no idea on the spelling) which works out to about 4 3.5 Aussie dollars- nice and cheap place old Praha.

So we walk into this bar and I notice some European jerk sitting at a table facing the wall. Funny I thought to myself, you don't expect to see many ex Warsaw Pact mother fuckers with necks that short and thick. Then I noticed something else, funny, you don't expect to see a hair cut that looks quite that bad from behind in too many places in the world. Then finally I saw his shoes, Funny I thought, I didn't think the Cheques would be any good at making cowboy boots. Then it all clicked, it was old Kapitan Kloss himself, obviously there on some deep cover assignment (his cover being obvious tourist (he had two guide books on the table next to him and his oversized camera)). What a surprise it was for him, on the other side of the world, ready to commit some dastardly deed when in walked his bigger brother and sister ready to ruin his cover.

With his mission comprimised he decided to hang out with us for christmas, which was good. The first time Team LoveTrain had performed with all members present in a long, long time. So fastforward to later that night, where in down town Praha, slightly off the beaten track in a Communist era themed pub. I'm talking guns, and maps of the USSR on the wall, pretty cool. Anyways, we started getting on it but after traveling thru a couple of genuine Prague pubs the night was starting to flag, people hadn't had enough sleep and we just weren't drinking fast enough. After losing Tony and Amelie- they needed some 'alone' time, we gave into temptation and decided to hit an Irish Bar- Rocky O'Toole's (just of Wencelsas square- big thumbs up). We arrived and having had enough of fucking about I ordered us a round of Absinth's- Lets see if these Eastern Europeans really know how to make a spirit.

It turns out they did, after much fucking about lighting sugar, and nearly burning down Rockies thanks to a slight mistake with the flame getting into the cup, we finally achieved what we really went their for- Absinth, hallucinations here we come- now seeing that we ahd all seen Eurotrip (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356150/) we took some elaborate precautions to not end up pashing each other- basically we just started argueing with each other- Tommy wouldn't have enjoyed it- and wow, those Absinths, they'll get you ever time.

Anyways, to cut what is becoming a long story a little short we ended up in the Jungle Bar, Praha's best gentlemens club and settled in for a long nights looking at naked girls. It turned out to be a really long night, getting back to the hotel at 7 am. Keeping in mind kloss had traveled around the world, and we had been up since 3 am the preceding day, I think it was a fairly impressive night out.

But I was wrong, Absinth's had a hidden effect, when I woke at around 1 in the afternoon I was suffering from by far the worst hang over I have ever experienced, most people would attest that I can normally back up fairly strongly (follow the link to the Gabba Stack A Thon if you don't believe) but I was done and dusted, it turned out so where the other two members of Team LoveTrain so we ended up writing off a complete day of our Prague experience. We ended up having to do all our sight seeing on Christmas day...

That's about all thats real exciting from that trip- although on the Tourist side I will talk up Prague to anyone who asks, the old town square and christmas markets, the Charles Bridge, the Castle (especially the amazing gothic St Vitus) and basically anything else up the top of the hill where the Castle is, are absolutly worth while. However I will say if you get sucked in by the White Christmas angle, dont as we didn't see anything that even looked like snow, but you can't have everything.

Billatron

P.s.- This is not the definative post on Christmas in Prague, Joe Knorks has spent the day working on a post for her sight which I will link in when it goes up- should be good.

London

2006-12-27T21:02:00.000-08:00

So after the Monkey and Mace left town I was left to my own devices to explore this amazing city on my own- I still didn't have my Ipod- Fucking Kapitan Kloss hadn't sent it over yet (more on this later) so sometimes I was a little bored. But overall I have to say I like London. I have often times described Melbourne as having a feeling of its own, whilst Sydney is more just Mega Brisbane (i.e. feels the same but with more people), well fortunatly for a home town boy like myself, London is most like Mega Sydney. Brisbane has a few old buildings and a bit of history, Sydney has more, and London has a lot. That's the real difference.

I've seen all sorts of things, every now and then having a real Wow moment as I see something that is truely amazing (the Rosetta Stone at the Mueseum, The Albert Hall, the tomb of the unkown solder at Westminster) but my absolute favorite was when I stumbled across the London School of Economics, I had taken a wrong turn down Kingsway and ended up near Australia House and the Strand, I found a random alleyway that looked a lot like a typical shopping street off Regent street so I went down, the buidlings were old (like the rest of town) but something seemed familiar about the place, as I went into a building I realised what it was, it felt like home.

Dav Ross back your bags I am working on our enrollments for the Michealmas Semester next October- We can be home by June.

My other favorite place has been St Pauls Cathedral- its a massive old school building a bit away from the rest of the middle of town. You can climb up to the coupala (?) at the top of the dome which gives a magnificent veiw of the city- its over 500 steps, but well worth it.
I'm told, the day I did it was the first day of the cursed christmas fog (more on that later) so my view was fairly limited. Still it was a nice building inside.

I like the Churches here because they tend to include Military monuments- and the best thing about English History is that it fairly closely matches Australian History. So everywhere you go their is mention of our boys at Gallalipoli or the Light Horse which makes me happy.

The only other story I care to share of pre Christmas London has to do with the amazing third day of the Perth Test (or was it the second ?) Jo Knorks and I woke early on a Saturday morning (4:30 am) and jumped a bus for the centre of town. The only place showing the Ashes live all day is a sports bar of Picadilly so that was our destination. We arrived at 6 just after lunch and settled in to watch. I was excited cause I thought Haydos would be near his ton by now, unfortunatly we arrived just after he had thrown it all away for 92. But that was all right we got to see Hussey then Clarke get their tons.

(NOTE: As I am writing this I am sitting up at 5:30 am, I have been up all night, I have finally worked out how to stream the cricket live on the web to the Pickle and have watched the amazing Aussies kick some arse- as we talk Warne ahs just got Mahmood with a flipper- All Right)

Anyways, it was a lot of fun, their were a bunch of poms (very drunk) singing all sorts of barmy army songs and having a great time. That was until Gilly got off the mark, for ten balls they were being very loud and obnoxious, then for the next 46 odd balls they looked on in amazement as Gilly did what only he can (or perhaps Viv Richards...). It was amazing, possibly the only time in my life I will ever watch a game from six am till 10:30 am, and for something as excellent as Gilly's innings to happen will make it all the more memorable.

Joe Knorks has just suggested that the most remarkable thing about the experience was having a Sambucca shot at nine in the morning, brought for us by a Scottish friend we had made, who enjoyed sticking it up his English brothers all most as much as we did.

Anyways, that just about wraps up London, some cool old buildings and history, some fairly bland areas, lots of drinking, many, many Aussies, and lots of cricket. Good Times.

London and the Monkey

2006-12-27T20:39:00.000-08:00

So I finally arrived at 5 in the morning, on the eigth of December. Some 40 odd hours of travel. The final leg of the flight was long, but not that bad as I got to stretch out on a bigger plane. Arriving in the UK I was surprised to find how easy it was to get through customs. The box of chewable mints I had smuggled thru Brisbane Customs, into Malaysia and finally now to the last hurdle once more went unnoticed. Now sure they were just smints, but how the hell did they know that?

So leaving the baggage collection place I took the last few corners with my trolley, putting a move on a slow moving lady to beat her out of customs by a good three metres. There up ahead was the destination, sister Joe Knorks beaming with a very excited smile for the time of the morning. Strangly she was alone, my supposed friends the Monkey and Mace Windu were supposed to be their to meet me also- how strange I thought to myself.

After an excited greeting with old Joe Knorks I had to inquire, where are the Lads? well you can imagine my amusement when I discovered that they had been there to meet me, 24 hours earlier. The next 90 minutes made their fuck up even more funny as I began to appreciate how rediculously difficult it would have been for them to get up at 4 in the morning, catch a bus, and maybe a tube, out to Heathrow, only to have to turn around once more and catch the tube home. If it wasn't such classic mubleford I would feel sorry for them.

So anyways, sans a lot of the fanfare I had been looking forward to we left Heathrow and headed for the Pickle. Which is a delightful little flat on Old Street in Hackney (?) surprisingly close to the centre of town (watch for more on this topic in a later post).

Eventually we got organised, I was now armed with my Oyster Card and London A-Z - both esential items for the new Londoner. Joe Knorks and I headed for Bond street to meet up with the Monkey and Mace and as it turned out also old Stack herself. Bond St is close to Oxford Circus, which is at the head of Regent St - a popular shopping district. My first morning in London consisted of wandering around this area seeing all sorts of shops that Master Mace assured me was infact that largest of its kind in the world (i.e. thats the biggest virgin mega store, thats the biggest hmv, thats the biggest and so on) you can imagine I was amazed.

After awhile we managed to drop Joe Knorks- who apparently couldn't get the day off work... and after a couple of dodgey touristy experiences (Trafagler and Bucks Palace) we finally managed to do what I had come for, the Covent Garden Walkabout- its a great pub, snakey bees as far as the eye could see. As I settled down over my second (or third) pint I couldn't help think that they should open this type of pub back home- then I remembered- duh!

The Lads were very excited to have me in London, the Monkey couldn't wait to tell me that he was going in a week, Mace confirmed that he was out of their in 10 days, and Robbie Paul couldn't even stay at the pub for long as he had to go back to work. I was feeling loved.

Anyways, my final memory from the first day comes from when the Monkey returned to our table with the biggest jug of snake bite you will ever see- if the Walkies do one thing right its the Jugs, there not that expensive and you get a lot of beer in them- Hooray.

Anyways, spent the next 10 or so days partying hard with the Monkey and old Ned Kelley. After two years we had a lot of catching up to do, which we did well at various pubs in the hammersmith and shepards bush areas.

The crowning achievement of my first week in London was when we went to Church. The night before had been the Monkey's going away party at the Sheh Boo Walkie then back to Mace's for a night of Vodka indulgence, then the next morning, with all of 4 hours sleep we headed to Church - which I was surprised to find isn't actually a church but an excuse for Aus/Kiwi's/Saffa's to drink on a Sunday. After lining up for an hour and buying our drinks cards we finally got into what can only be described as the old Alex without the lights on the roof. Their were skantaly clad ladies everywhere, an amazingly poor relationship of males to females, and lots of people looking worse for wear. Anyways, after a couple of drinks we all began to relax a little, and found ourselves having the time of our lives. There was a camera man on a stand going around picking hardbodies out of the crowd and zooming in on their chests- delightful.

To top of the experience at the Church a bawdy British comic then came out and sang a couple of his customized tunes, and was then followed up by a stripper- jaws dropped all around. Good Times though. After Church we headed back to the Walkie for another evening of Snakey Bees- good times all round.

In a post scipt to this story I later discovered that one of the girls we went to church with had left home on Friday morning wearing one outfit- that she didn't get out of until after work on Monday- Respect to Kelly, she is truely living the dream.

The Legend of Funtheque

2006-12-27T09:49:00.000-08:00

8:00 pm. Flight KL755 (I made that up) arrives in Kulua Lumpur and my Overseas adventure had finally started. The flight was pretty much as you would expect, got jammed in a window seat, with fuck all room. Watched the Devil Wears Prada, and a delightful Jennifer Aniston movie called The Breakup - I don't recommend either.

I was a little bit disapointed when I realised that KLIA was exactley the same as everyother airport I could remember (Brisbane, Tullamarine, and Sydney...) except for the husslers who were praying on unsuspecting tourists, selling everything from taxi rides into the city, to hotels, to passess to various KL tourists spots.

Minutes later I was in a cab headed to the Malaya hotel studying my new map of KL planning all the touristy things I now had tickets too.

9:00 pm. the Malaya, all 2.5 stars of it is located in the China Town section of KL outside of the more touristy "Golden Triangle" section of town, but thats just how I role.

Now I know beofre I left I made all sorts of claims about the rock n roll nature of not bothering to get a hotel room while I was in KL, but my good friend Harry at the airport had reasoned that I would need somewhere to keep my bags for the day I was in town - good point I thought.

So I arrived at the Hotel and headed down to 'checkout' the local area.

Anyone who has travelled with me in the past will know that I sometimes struggle to keep the surprise off my face when I am presented with new things. Well I like to think that my reaction to the Chinatown markets was pretty reserved, I was taking everything in my stride. However the reception I was recieveing from the street vendors suggests that my eyes may have been a little wider then normal.

I cruised around the markets, quickly snapping up a couple of bargains, a shirt, some sunglassess, and down one extremely dark alley some pirated porn dvd's. It was extremely exciting, lots of colour, lots of people, lots of humidity, and plentiful Tiger's from little stalls.

10:30 pm. I had had enough of the markets- really there are only so many cheap wallets you can look at- so I jumped a cab and told the fellow to take me to the coolest hot spot in town. He looked me up and down and said sure thing, five minutes later he dropped me to one of the most generic Irish Pubs I have ever seen. I was a little disapointed. I decided to start walking around looking for a bit of an unique KL experience.

An hour and a half later I had been to 10 different pubs, eaten a seafood curry from a stall set up actually on the street (although I didn't eat it all as it was too spicy), bartered with a little shopkeeper over the price of a seafood curry, had walked down all sorts of vibrant KL streets watching the locals sit at street resturants eating, and was getting a little drunk. But I still didn't think I had experienced KL culture.

12 am. As luck would have it as I was having these dark thoughts about my experiences I happened to take a random right turn and managed to find a new KL street to adventure on. As I wanded along I noticed that this seemed to be a much more upbeat section of town, more riverside then the old valley style section that I had been in.

and then I found Funtheque, some neon lights announced the name, and I thought to myself, I HAVE to go in here. So up the winding staircase I walked, with each step getting a little more excited by the pumping muzak I could here from above.

When I got there it was as good as I had hoped. Lots of bright lights, lots of hot asian babes, and a staff full of rock n rollers looking to have a good time. I sat down delighted with the whole ambiance of the place, and ordered a drink off the nice fellow who was standing next to me, he turned around and gave me a funny look which made me realise he didn't actually work there. I then found someone to actually get me a drink, when the sound came off. My face fell as I was concerned that it was closing time, but I needn't have worried.

As on stage strode 'Chemistry' - without doubt the greatest the Malay/English covers band I have ever seen. The lead singer was a smooth as glass young fellow, the only thing I can think of to describe him is the cowboy picture of Sanjeev that used to be one the set of the Kumar's at number 47. He was abely supported by two complete hot asian babe back up singers who really made the show. One was a a curvey temptress who you could tell was the more serious musician of the three, the other, made the group. She was a complete hardbody, built for speed as the kapitan would say, wearing a pink holter, a pink cheer leader skirt and the best pair of hot pink fuck me boots ever made. She had it all, watch hollywood in the coming years and I am sure she will be there at some point. They sang a couple of numbers and I was having the time of my life. They could do rock, they could do roll, they could do funk, (for some reason they also did I will survive, but I will forgive them for that), and then, just when I thought it couldn't get any better they slowed it down a little by swinging to the Keyboardist to do a soulfoul number in Malaysian.

1:30 am. With a heavy heart I realised I was running out of ringgits and my hangover from the morning before was beggining to come back, so I left Chemisty and Funtheque, but not before promissing myself one day I would return.

I went down onto the street and decided that it was time to get back to the hotel, I didn't have enough money to get back to the hotel (I thought) so I decided to strike out on a bit of a stroll, it couldn't be that far back to china town... I set off in high spirits, mentally preparing this post in my head, thinking of hilarious ways to tell you all about Funtheque. 1.5 hours later as I walked past FunTheque for the second time I realised that maybe I should be paying less attention to how funny I could be and more attention to where I was walking.

Forty-Five minutes later I had a sinking feeling in my chest, it couldn't be, there was Funtheque again. Where the fuck was chinatown???

Now I am a fairly relaxed fellow, but if you want to find out how to get me worried put me in a asian mega city at 3:15 in the morning, drunk off my tits, with only 13 ringgit in my pocket. My dogs where barking like mad, I still reaked off lasts night rum (which I had been sweating for about 20 hours straight) and I had no idea what to do next. A cabbie pulled over near by and I walked up with some trepidation, could you get me as close to China Town as possible for 13 bucks? Sure he said, two rights and a left and a little under 3 minutes later he pulled up at the Malaya, I was saved. I passed out.

The story of the next day pails into insignificance so I wont bother. I went to petronus towers, I had a walk around, I went to the aquarium (a good aquariaum), I walked around, I headed out to the airport. I sat at the airport for four hours, I chatted to Abbey Lou on the MSN, then I went to my gate.

It seemed like fate, but right next to KL2315 at gate 40 was KL2310 at gate 42. KL2315 was headed to London, KL2310 was heading home. By this time I was over the whole adventure, I could be home by 8 in the morning if I jumped in the queue at gate 42, it would all be fine.

Thankfully I was more worried about the ridicule I would cop if I turned up back at home three days after leaving then what was ahead of me so with a few deep breaths I boarded flight 2315 and headed on to London.

Leaving Home

2006-12-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

After the dust settled from the crazziness that was the Gabba Stackathon I all of a sudden realised I had a week left before heading on the big adventure. I still had to finish thesis, pack all my stuff and find some time to go to the beach.

Thankfully I had long stopped caring about thesis, didn't really care which clothes made it into the bag, and had all ready got the tan into tip top condition. By about Tuesday then I was a little bored...

Wednesday went to the beach with Holepunch, but it was overcast. Friday went fishing with the Oldman, but got out fished by the Kapitan. Saturday had early christmas with the family, but once again Taylen the Nephew got better presents then I, and Sunday played golf with the lads, but got beaten by Tunny, and finally went to going away party on Sunday night, but it rained :(. I have vague recolections of late Sunday night, but if anyone can update me on what happened between Ashes and Cat after we finished skinning dipping I would love to know.

By the end of the week I was ready to go.

Monday I woke up very hungover, reeking of rum, still needing to a thousand errands before leaving for the plane. So by the time we got to the airport I was ill, sweating spirits, starting to get nervous about the whole thing in general, and dreading the next 40 hours of travel. It was about this time that I realised I had left my Ipod at home, my mood got worse. Thankfully Holepunch, Nylex, Embo, Kloss Dogg, Kitty Cat, and Crabby Abbey, had come to say good bye and ensure that I got on the plane.

So there it was, Gilly got out for another soft dimissal and it was time to get on the plane. As expected Kloss was the first to break blubbering like a little girl, holepunch looked a little misty eyed, but my little sisters really looked a little releaved that it was finally time to go. With a smile and a bit of a tear of my own I went through customs and was off on the adventure.