A Taff In Oz

Friday, 9 February 2007

Big weekend.............

Hey Kids! Last weekend was a bit of a busy one. Involved a lot of sport, booze and music. Lets start with the sport. Went to see Western Force kick-off their super 14 season and it was abysmal. They lost 8-7 in what can only be described as amateurish style. Imagine the scenario: your pack is getting shoved all over the park but you're dominating the line-out and you have a penalty on their 22 10m in with 10mins to go. Do you a) kick the points to put you in the lead for the first time in the game; b) kick to touch for your lineout and spin the ball quickly to the backs for a try; c) kick to touch for your lineout, go for the driving maul and get pushed into touch by their superior pack? Well option c is what they chose, squandering any chance of a win. Rubbish. Also rubbish was the crowd. No-one sings!! Riley was right about the Aussie singing. They don't know any songs and only get involved if they're winning. As for the rest of the weekend's sport, well Utd pummeling Spurs was nice to watch (more on that later just for Riley) but the Wales-Ireland game was appalling. Great phases from Wales for most of the match but some equally abhorrent play too in a couple of patches. Why oh why didn't Cekaj just watch that O'Gara kick go into touch???

I've jumped ahead of myself here a bit. I should try and put all this in some sort of order. On Friday I went down Subi to watch the super 14 game and it was then onto the Irish Club for a decent (yes decent!!) pint of Guinness. Mind you, we got to the club sober as they shut the bar 20 mins before the end of the game - what the hell is all that about???? Heathens!! Saturday involved a lot of chilling by the pool as it was really hot (topped 45) and then I headed down to Donna's pub The Queens in Mt Lawley. After a few refreshing ciders we bought a carton and headed back to Donna's for some darts before heading off to the Inglewood to watch the Liverpool derby (very disappointing). Got back to Donna's around midnight and it is at this point I should have called it a night and headed to bed as I had the Big Day Out the next day. Unfortunately there was a 21st next door so I took a load of cider and headed over and promptly drank till 3 talking to people who had no idea I was. Great stuff!!

All that cider (and Guinness during the football) and only a KFC to eat the day before meant that I was not feeling too great in the morning. In fact, I had a monster hangover which will please a few people no doubt. Took me an hour or so of chucking at the Leederville where I was meeting Gav and Ricky before heading down to BDO. Once there though I was alright. In fact the day was amazing. Saw a fair few bands including some local talent. Pics as follows:

Little Birdy. Lead singer lives opposite Donna!

Eskimo Joe. Brilliant band. Go and download them! Latest is called Black fingernails, red wine.

Kasabian. I'm sure you all know these. They were fucking amazing. 2nd best band of the day easily.

Killers. Need I say more?? Actually I do. They'd be great in a hall or a closed stadium, but on the open field they were not so hot. At least not for us.

Jet. We watched these from the beer tent. Thirsty work watching bands all day! They were pretty good but the crowd ruined it and the gig was paused half way through whilst security pushed everyone back. Pesky kids!

Finally. We get to the act of the day. This was the 2nd best set I'd ever seen so it suffices to say it blew me away. (Only Kelly and co. have outdone this on a cold December day in the Millennium Stadium in 2003.) I give you.... MUSE!!!

Ok, so the pic is really bad and it was also at this point that my batteries gave out so had to switch to my phone. Gutted! This happened last time I went to BDO!!

As it was a big weekend, this rant is also going to be big. Still need to talk about the 6 nations. After BDO me and Gav headed to Northbridge (via Donna's as I needed trainers - not allowed flip-flops in a pub after 7 usually) to Rosie O'Grady's to watch the rugby. The Celtic game was on as we got in so there were a few oohs and aahs before the real event. All I can say is that it was a bit shambolic at times. Ireland were lucky to have 13 players at one point. How many times are we going to see hands in the ruck and players not penalised for it? I should have guessed they were going to get away with it as soon as the Kiwi ref walked on . They're the masters at it after all! In fact the ref was atrocious. There was one incident where Peel kicked the ball in to touch thinking he'd get the deliberate knock-on by the Irish forward on 3m from the line and was rightly flabergasted when the ref awarded Ireland the line-out instead of a scrum 5. What cheered my up (apart from the good Guinness... I tell you, Bryant and Riley you need to come to Perth) was the crushing defeat of Spurs later that evening/morning. Great stuff! Also, a special mention to Pussy Bunny. The man has learned the meaning of the c word... commitment that is. All those who know him, go and pester him to find out what it means. All I'll say is that he's going to be needing a bigger flat... Till next time!! Taff

Friday, 2 February 2007

All good things come to an end...

It's happened... I've been given a job. I'll be working for the loss management company starting on the 12th Feb. That means I've got 10 days of freedom left so I'll make the most of it before re-joining the real world! I'll probably head down to Margaret River for a few days next week - back in time for Lesley's birthday on the weekend. Then it'll be work, work, work. Although I am looking forward to it (yes, I am weird). What's great is that I'll be earning more than I was in London, for less responsibility and the cost of living is less. Sweet!! Not sure what I'm going to do in terms of living yet. May move to Donna's, but may also try commuting from North Perth. We'll see. What I think I'd really want to do is find a flat/house share somewhere in West Perth where the job is as walking to work would be ideal. Subiaco is a prime candidate as is Leederville but we'll see how things pan out. Right, got to earn my keep and do some cleaning before heading to the beach. I'm off to watch Western Force kick off their season against the Highlanders in the Super 14 league tonight too (that's rugby to all you ignoramuses out there!) which should be a good match. The Force have made a couple of signings over the summer including Matt Gitteau so the standard of the backs should be pretty good - they're just light up front in the pack. Speak to you all soon... Alex

Tuesday, 30 January 2007

Update!!

Hi guys, thought I'd best give you an update on what I've been doing. I can't believe I've been here over 4 weeks already - it's a bit mad to think about it but the up side is that I've been doing a lot of nothing in that time. I've been doing some job hunting - got 2 interviews tomorrow (31st Jan) with a loss management company as a financial/data analyst and with BankWest as a SAS developer. 1st sounds more appealing as it's only for 3 months initially, with the view to extend to 6. I don't think my SAS skills are up to development yet! Apart from the job hunting I've been doing a lot of sitting by the pool or on the beach. Oh and playing snooker. Although my break hasn't got out of the teens yet so a lot more practice needed! It's been kinda annoying not really being able to do anything as I don't want to blow my money as I'm not sure when I'll be in a job. Potentially it could be as early as next week which means I would have missed out a little bit. If not I'm planning on either going down south to Margaret River for a few days to bum around in a hostel and visit all the wineries or head up North somewhere. It was Australia day last week too, on the Friday. A load of us went down to Mullaloo beach to play football, cricket, drink, swim, drink and drool over the fine array of women on display (pics below). The entire day we listened to the Triple J Hottest 100 which is basically a countdown of what listeners thought the top 100 songs of 2006 were - the top 3 were all Aussie bands which was a first in many years. The weather was hot too - the entire weekend saw tops of over 40 with it dipping down to a swealtering 23 during the nights. Keeping with music, I've got the Big Day Out to go to on Sunday which should be a top day. Me and Gav have worked out who we're going to see and it's going to be impressive. New Rules For Boats, Sleepy Jackson, Little Birdy, Eskimo Joe, The Vines, Kasabian, Killers, Jet, Muse & Violent Femmes! The forecast for the day so far is a mild 27 which means the day should be sweet. On the weekend the original forecast was 37 which would have been quite painful indeed! Once I know more about the jobs I'll let you all know and I'll post some pics up from BDO next week. Hope you are all good and I'll speak to you all soon. Till next time... Pics from Australia day...

Trust me that the bird in the photo is fit. You can zoom in and look for yourself - may have to brighten it up a bit.

Another great shot from where we were camped all day.

These two had matching bikinis on. Fantastic! What I did fail to get a pic of was the many Aussie bikinis on display - as one lad said "I'd quite like to be the Southern Cross right now".

The guys who were left by about 7pm. We'd been on it since 10am so there had been a couple of casualties by then. After this it was back to my house for more beer, bbq, pool and spa - oh, and loud music!