Ten Four

Oh it’s been ages since I had a decent one of these…
Thanks to Spence for livening up my Monday morning!
Here are FOUR things you may not have known about me:

A: Four jobs I have had in my life:

1. Club Host at Heaven

2. Bar Manager

3. Licensee in Soho

4. Head of Training

B: Four movies I would watch over & over:

1. The Opposite of Sex

2. Thank you for Smoking

3. Twelve Monkeys

4. The Bourne Identity

C: Four places I’ve lived:

1. Blundellsands

2. Fitzrovia

3. Tilburg

4. Motspur Park

D: Four TV shows I love to watch:

1. Columbo

2. Law & Order (Special Victims Unit)

3. CSI (Any)

4. Oz

E: Four places I’ve been on holiday:

1. Sydney, Australia

2. Christchurch, New Zealand

3. Connecticut, USA

4. Singapore

F: Websites I visit daily: *

1. http://www.aol.co.uk

2. http://www.gmail.com

3. http://www.flickr.com

4. http://my.omniture.com

G: Four of my favorite foods:

1. Cherries

2. Beetroot

3. Bananas

4. Ramen

H: Four places I would rather be now:

1. Sydney

2. Wellington

3. A beach

4. Sydney (did I mention Sydney?)

* I can’t list all the work ones I visit as they are all confidential and/or behind a very good firewall.

happy birthday to me :o)

So I’m a little older today than I was yesterday (although that is true of everyday). So I bought myself a present. A flight to Singapore/Sydney/Bangkok/Singapore/London – just in time for Harbour Party and Mardi Gras. Oh and of course Jo’s Birthday!
Plus I get to visit Ian in Thailand which is cool – been promising I’d do that for years.
The presents you get yourself are normally the best but flights are brilliant :o)
Matt got me a great gift – a months subscription to the non work friendly all american heroes website. ;o) Porn the gift that keeps on giving LOL!
And northy got me…
boysuncovered.jpg

i wondered how long it would take

for reality to set in when my brother moved back to the UK from singapore. I was speaking with Linda [my sister in law] and ahd this conversation by aim…
Linda: have you heard about us moving and me looking for weekend work to make ends meet?
Me: nope
Linda: Haslemere we think, a flat definitely, and Sainsbury’s are looking for part-timers! Life sucks!

So no more 2 car surrey lifestyle then 🙁 On a serious note though did you know it cost ?60 each for the MMR jabs if you want them seperately and not the combined one offered by the NHS?
That just smacks of do as I say but only if you are poor…

my brother and sister in

my brother and sister in law [ooh and my neice of course] are coming over from Singapore for the next 3 weeks to visit family and friends and get a bit of a holiday too I hope. So I shall be going home to Liverpool at the week end to see the folks. It is nearly a year since my last visit home and I suddenly felt very guilty this morning. When I think of how many friends I have over here who are all from other countries and cannot afford to go home and visit and yet here I am a mere 300 miles or so away and haven’t been home. Especially since my gran isn’t getting any younger.
Jack will have fun too – he can wreak havoc on the beach and hassle my mum’s cat for the week end !

okay well I am back

okay well I am back in London now after the two 8 hour flights yesterday. Melatonin is a fantastic invention. Woke up sleepy [thanks scally for that call] and took Jack out for a walk – he was very happy to see me. I was very happy to see him. Pets they are fab no expectations and they are always happy to see you!
Well I arrived back to the flat like a sauna Elric had managed to leave the heating on manually full for the past 3 weeks so all my plants are a little dead or brown around the edges. The food that I left him in the Fridge before I left was unfortunately still in the fridge [and growing some new life forms] and anything that had been used up was lying around empty. So no coffee or washing powder then :o(
Luckily Andrew had brought me home with Jack and got an indian takeaway so at least we had something to eat!

I am not sure if I am missing Singapore [the company especially] or Sydney [the place and the atmosphere] more. All I know is it has strengthened my resolve to leave the UK for a while. I am going to be asking for that job in Oz with AOL and see what happens. It would only be an eight hour flight to my brother in Singapore then too. Unfortunately Naz will have moved to NY by then – not to worry I’ll be likely visiting Ny more frequently now that hotel expenses have vanished I do like wandering around manhattan. Not sure if I could live there though it’sa ll a bit too hectic like London. Sydney had a much more relaxed pace. Yes I know I was on holiday but you know what I mean.
Met up with Naz a couple more times before I left Singapore and he met the in laws he joined us for dinner on Thursday night. So all in all it was a very relaxing extra couple of days and I’m so glad I did not try and do all the trip in one day. Yesterday was bad enough. We sat and discussed last night how it was like flying to the states and sitting in the airport for a couple of hours and then flying home again . And it felt like it too. The first trip Singapore to Bahrain was made bearable by meeting a lovely boy Mahmoud from Beirut. He had the most piercing blue eyes and was generally a really nice – but a bit str8.
The trip from Bahrain to London had the little screens and games and films so that was alright. Shame I had managed to buy more in Bahrain Duty Free!

So I had better go and do some washing and buy some food and act generally depressed :o(

So no post for a while

So no post for a few days and Mardi Gras was over the week-end yes you guessed it – another huge entry coming up…
Oh and not checked for spelling errors or anything as this is a blog on the go…
Saturday I actually managed to wake up kind of early. I added some finishing touches to our fantastically cheap Shoes from Woolworths and added some more glitter and sparkle. David arrived around midday and we set about adding more sequins to the already over the top with sparkle outfits. By 2.30 in the afternoon we sparkled from head to toe in silver and black with extra body gliter and crystal tatoos for effect.
We arrived at the Albion Street Centre and met up with the other volunteers and dancers who all had more silver than you could possibly imagine. I think Sydney must sell out of sequins, glitter and hairspray in the week before Mardi Gras. There seemed to be an inordinate amount flying around the centre while we all preened and prepared for the big event. We then made our way down to our designated meeting point and armed with our ‘parade participant’ stickers set off to see the other floats all lining up. There seemed to be hundreds of them
We had the Melbourne marching boys beside us practising their routine, the Albion boys and girls also got into the swing and the few hours we had to wait before the parade started seemed much more fun. [we did have a few trips to the pub and some champagne too]. Around 8pm our section started to move off and a cheer ran through the street. As we moved off it was hard to stay calm everyone looked so excited and the crowds were yelling and screaming support. As we turned onto Oxford Street I was amazed by how many people we saw.
Earlier in the day when we had gone wandering it had been busy but nothing like the number that had now lined the streets with their step ladders, milk crates and the like. Every balcony and flat roof along the route had people sprawled all over. There were fireworks a plenty and the crowd was raucous. The 45 minutes or so it took us to walk the route seemed to go in a flash. As we hit Taylor Square I realised that Oxford Street was just the beginning all along the end of the route there where stands of people who had paid money to be entertained by drag queens during the whole parade and have seating. All the money going to the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation.
At the Captain Cook hotel I was snogged a couple of times by a gorgeous aussie boy. It seemed rude not to loiter for ore but the float had already continued so I had to run to catch up. In amongst the hundreds of thousands of people I managed to see Fran too and have her take a photo :o) So soon you will all be able to see the lovely outfit
The parade itself is very well organised and at the end we even had our own parking spot. So we al bid farewell and arranged to meet at various points and times at the party. By now it was 10.30 pm and the party was just kicking off. Scally and I took a short walk to see some of the rest of the parade and then headed off to Fox Studios for what turned out to be the party of my life!

The venue is hard to describe if you have never seen Fox Studios. All I can say is that it seems to be around the same size as Euro Disney – or perhaps larger with a little village and a few huge [and I do really mean huge] rooms full of dancing people. We met a few of the people we had arranged to meet up with but also bumped into some we hadn’t and with the amount of people there that was astounding. Saw Brad again – kept bumping into him all week actually more on that later but for now I’ll try and describe the party. Probably no words would ever be able to describe the atmosphere or the outfits ;). I would suggest you just book tickets for next year and see for yourself. It was the largest event I have ever attended and there were the most casual bunch of peole I have ever seen. People wearing nothing more than a thong or jockstrap through to those that had spent many months preparing their outfits in lame and fun fur or leather and rubber, sequins and feathers, body paint and lycra. Everyone looked fantastic and I could have just sat for hours looking at people. Unfortunately there is a no camera rule at the party so there will be no photo’s to show you unless there are some in the gaypers here before I leave that I can scan in. The party went on until 10am but around 8 in the morning I encountered trough man which brought me down big style and although we had just made another group of best new mates who were giving us beers and joints I felt hte need to leave. So we headed off to the taxi rank and went home for some much needed shut eye. After a shower to remove the glitter of course. I still seem to have more glitter than is humanly possible in my hair todat and it is Tuesday morning lol.
Woke up late Sunday and could not face Oxford Street or the recovery parties. Why they call the recovery I am not sure as al you do is end up taking more drugs and getting more muffed. So I settled down with comfort food [pizza and ice cream] to watch channel 10’s coverage of Mardi Gras.
It was fantastic – If anyone wants to see the video we taped it so give me a yell! The Sydney Marching Boys did Madonna proud!
Monday was a bit of a blur really went and changed my flight tickets at Gulf Air so I now fly home via Singapore again – not bad for $75 for another 4 days on my trip 🙂 so delaying cold and rainy London until Saturday afternoon now woo hoo. Went to Darling Harbour with Scally and some of the AOL and ex-AOL crew out here and consumed a few bottles of wine at Pontoon before Bettina and Margy turned up for dinner. We went to The Clock and I had Kangeroo which was lovely and then went of roaming Oxford Street again
So today is my last day in Sydney I’m gonna head on over to AOL here and beg them for a job and then will need to be heading to the aiport for the flight to Singapore and another few days on the tropical island for rest and recuperation. This last 10 days or so has been one long hard party but I will certainly be coming out again next year. Hopefully dragging a few morepeople out here to experience the awesome parties and the parade of course but perhaps just as a voyeur next year not a participant.

Okay well here is an update from Sydney

Okay well here is a little update for you :o)
went to the Gulf Air offices today to see about changing my flight. Looks like if they can they will only be able to change the singapore – london not the sydney – singapore. So I will still be leaving sunny sydney on Tuesday night :o(
They are going to call me if they can change the flight. Looks like they have no availability though so I will keep my fingers crossed.
Went to Bondi again today and did the cliff walk around to Bronte via Tamarama [‘glamarama’ allegedly the gay beach] all the beaches were pretty empty. When I arrived at Taylor Square I discovered why – I have never seen Oxford Street so busy [okay so I have only been here a week but you know what I mean]. People where walking on the road as the sidewalk was too busy with people chatting, eating and shopping!
Met Adam and Rob – Adam is an internet friend of Spence -so brought some of that wierd unsure emotion all back.We had a really nice meal after some drinks at The Shift and then wandered back for more drinks – unfortunately by this stage the lines for all the bars were completely mad so we went to the little bar above the shift which is always quiet. Saw a man who was gorgeous and as usual didn’t make any move – must go to assertiveness lessons or something.
So all in all a really nice evening – came home kind of early as it is gonna be a busy one tomorrow . Bettina and Margy have vacated their room – well actualy gone to Bettina’s mums for the week end as they are not participating in MG this year. So they have sweetly offered me their room. These Oz girls are so nice. I mean really nice ina genuine way.
Every morning of my stay in Sydney I have been picking a ‘tarot’ card from a pot along with the girls tomorrows is Action so I’ll interperet that in a number of ways
So off to bed in a minute or so when I have caught up on some blogs I have been missing out on and maybe a look at Spence‘s relaunch site and Dave B‘s site which I discovered in my referral logs. I may be in Oz and not on the internet much but I do chek my logs still!

HAPPY MARDI GRAS 2001 SYDNEY