A lot of Australian legends have been dying lately.
We just thought we'd better post to let you know that we're both OK.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
2 in a row coming up - Damo only just realised that we had only saved the last posting as draft and not published, so you get twice the boredom this week!!!! :)
Damo heard back about a new contract this week, and he got the job! The biggest drama is that it's located out of London a bit, but it shouldn't be too bad - it's out near Heathrow, so we may be moving a little further out that way - not heaps, because we don't want to live too far out of London, but possibly Hammersmith or somewhere near there (2 tube stops closer to Heathrow than where we live at the moment).
He'll be working for BP, so he's now the one that you get to blame for the high oil prices!!!! It was a pretty painful interview process, with 1 telephone interview, one face-to-face interview out at Sunbury (which is miles away) and 1 more telephone interview.
Damo went for a wander in his lunchhour the other day and went and saw Westminster Abbey. It's only a fairly short stroll from his work, so that's pretty cool!
We caught up with Travis and Nicole for Trav's birthday on Friday night. He was heading off to Russia on Saturday morning, so it wasn't a big night, but it was great to catch up with them. So a big Happy Birthday to Trav..... and have a great time in the big Russki! We went out to a little Turkish restaurant just around the corner from Trav and Nic's place.
Trav.....
and Nicole.
On Saturday we went out to the Portobello Road Markets to have a look around and also to take a couple of piccies of it - it was great.
We didn't buy much , but we had a good afternoon anyway. Saw the house where author George Orwell lived.....
After the markets we headed home to get changed because we were going to meet Tory at her place at London Bridge and then head on down to a little bar/club at Clapham.
We were at Tory's house for ages and we didn't even really end up heading out until about 10.30 but this wasn't that bad because we were all on a budget and we ended up drinking a bottle of Vodka between the 3 of us.... We were both pretty shattered before we headed off to Tory's for the night though and it wasn't looking likely to be a big one, and Damo only went downhill from there and developed into a full-on flu. We only stayed out for perhaps an hour or so and decided that we'd try and get the last tube home - and we literally did - we had to change 3 times on the way home, and each one that we got was the last one on the line, so we were really lucky.
Today is Sunday and we're having a much deserved day in bed, just chilling out with Damo trying to recuperate from the flu. We've got to go over Steve's place at 4.30pm for a bbq, but that's about the extent of the day.
Steve....
Anyway, we miss everyone and hope you're all kickin' ass!
Damo heard back about a new contract this week, and he got the job! The biggest drama is that it's located out of London a bit, but it shouldn't be too bad - it's out near Heathrow, so we may be moving a little further out that way - not heaps, because we don't want to live too far out of London, but possibly Hammersmith or somewhere near there (2 tube stops closer to Heathrow than where we live at the moment).
He'll be working for BP, so he's now the one that you get to blame for the high oil prices!!!! It was a pretty painful interview process, with 1 telephone interview, one face-to-face interview out at Sunbury (which is miles away) and 1 more telephone interview.
Damo went for a wander in his lunchhour the other day and went and saw Westminster Abbey. It's only a fairly short stroll from his work, so that's pretty cool!
We caught up with Travis and Nicole for Trav's birthday on Friday night. He was heading off to Russia on Saturday morning, so it wasn't a big night, but it was great to catch up with them. So a big Happy Birthday to Trav..... and have a great time in the big Russki! We went out to a little Turkish restaurant just around the corner from Trav and Nic's place.
Trav.....
and Nicole.
On Saturday we went out to the Portobello Road Markets to have a look around and also to take a couple of piccies of it - it was great.
We didn't buy much , but we had a good afternoon anyway. Saw the house where author George Orwell lived.....
After the markets we headed home to get changed because we were going to meet Tory at her place at London Bridge and then head on down to a little bar/club at Clapham.
We were at Tory's house for ages and we didn't even really end up heading out until about 10.30 but this wasn't that bad because we were all on a budget and we ended up drinking a bottle of Vodka between the 3 of us.... We were both pretty shattered before we headed off to Tory's for the night though and it wasn't looking likely to be a big one, and Damo only went downhill from there and developed into a full-on flu. We only stayed out for perhaps an hour or so and decided that we'd try and get the last tube home - and we literally did - we had to change 3 times on the way home, and each one that we got was the last one on the line, so we were really lucky.
Today is Sunday and we're having a much deserved day in bed, just chilling out with Damo trying to recuperate from the flu. We've got to go over Steve's place at 4.30pm for a bbq, but that's about the extent of the day.
Steve....
Anyway, we miss everyone and hope you're all kickin' ass!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
(*Damo speaking*)First and foremost, Vale Brocky! You were a hero of mine for my entire life, and this was only enhanced many years ago when I got the opportunity to meet you.
We were walking around outside the circuit down at Indy one year, and I spotted Peter sitting in a gutter talking to what I think were a few of his mates. Anyway, we went up to him, excused ourselves for interrupting, and asked whether he'd mind posing for a photo with us. I was soooo nervous, because I was worried that one of the few people on the planet that I idolised would turn out to be a complete dick by saying something like 'get stuffed' or other, but instead he replied 'Of course not! You guys are the ones that make me who I am. I wouldn't exist without you'.
I think this story sums up how much of a legend he really was, and also sheds light on not only was he one of (the?!) best Australian racing drivers ever, but also that he was a real human being with a very down-to-earth outlook on life. Notwithstanding the polariser times, he was a shining beacon in Australian motorsport, and I have no doubt that his legacy will live on.(*end Damo speaking*)
The last week has been a combination of busy and not so. Damo had a work drinks thing organised by his Agency on Thursday night. Needless to say that it turned very shabby - out of about 20 people, they drank £1500 of alcohol. They were smoking £20-£30 cigars!!!! Damo ended up in a terrible state of affairs by the time he got home, but he obviously fared a bit better than others because there were a number of them who didn't even make it into work the next day!!!!
This was early in the night - it went downhill from here.....
We went out on Friday night for dinner to Zizzi's at Earl's Court and then we went and saw another movie - it's funny - we very rarely went to the movies when we were back home, and here we have been 2 weeks in a row! Anyway, we went and saw The Break Up with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. We thought that it was only ok, and not quite as side-splittingly funny as we would've hoped! Well that's 2 from 2 now - we might leave the cinema go for a while perhaps!
Ended up going home after that on Friday night, and we woke up Saturday morning with the intent of starting to look for accommodation (we've got to find a new place in the next month or so), so we had a look on the Gumtree and went up to Kensington (Olympia) to have a look at a Lower Ground floor flat, and Wow! What a dump! We were intending to try and get our own place, but based on what we saw, we may end up sharing again yet - we'll have to wait and see. We did a spot of shopping on Saturday morning at an Oxfam shop (an op-shop) near where we live, and Damo picked up a brand new shirt (from an up-market store over here called Zara - it still had the label on) and a pair of almost new Merrell shoes for a grand total of £14!!! Bargain. Of course, Nikki got nothing!!!! :-( We also ended up buying a heap of travel guides for about £0.99 each too, which was a hella bargain!
After this we headed into Westminster and got out of the tube station. It's right where Big Ben and Parliament are, and just across the river from the London Eye - which was our ultimate destination for that afternoon/evening anyway! This was after Nikki had realised that she had bought her spare phone battery instead of her camera battery and we had to head home to get it.....
We took the opportunity to take some more photos of Big Ben and Parliament and also of the London Eye itself.
We wandered across the bridge and Damo queued for tickets for the London Eye for approx. 1/2 hr.
Once we got the tickets, we went and lined up (again) to get onto the Eye itself. Thankfully this line wasn't that long. We were quite amazed to see that after the capsule's are emptied of the previous passengers that the capsules are security screened prior to boarding again - some security guys go around them with mirrors under the seats etc. It was pretty cool. The ride itself takes about 1/2 hr (All up we were in line for longer than what the ride went for),
and we managed to watch the sun set while we were up there - the timing ended up being quite good - as we were coming down the lights on Parliament were turned on, and it makes the building glow like it's made out of gold - it looks spectacular.
The view from the top
and a nighttime view of the Parliament building....
After we finished here, it was about 19:45 at night, and we had heard from Tory that she was heading out to Putney Bridge a bit later on and that we should go along - we headed home, got changed quickly and caught the tube down to Putney Bridge. (It's only a few stops further out on the District line than where we live.)
This is what we though was Putney Bridge, but actually turned out to be the Putney Bridge rail crossing - no wonder we were curious as to why people had been saying that it was a lovely bridge (well as you can see above, the view is quite nice, but the bridge was nothing to look at)..... We were in the wrong place - little did we realise. Anyway, after much confusion we ended up finding the place we needed to go to (It was a club/restaurant called Thai Square) right on the banks of the Thames at Putney Bridge, and by this time, we were both starving, so we met up with Tory, but we pretty much headed straight upstairs to get a meal. The food was quite nice, and the wine was sensational. Finished our meal, met up with Tory and Dave and a few others next door at some bar, and by this time is was getting on to be about 11:30 so we thought we'd better try and get the last tube home.
Damo had to work on Sunday, so Nik ended up doing a heap of housework and went out to the shops to have a quick look around.
We hope everyone is well over there, and we're always thinking of you all!
We were walking around outside the circuit down at Indy one year, and I spotted Peter sitting in a gutter talking to what I think were a few of his mates. Anyway, we went up to him, excused ourselves for interrupting, and asked whether he'd mind posing for a photo with us. I was soooo nervous, because I was worried that one of the few people on the planet that I idolised would turn out to be a complete dick by saying something like 'get stuffed' or other, but instead he replied 'Of course not! You guys are the ones that make me who I am. I wouldn't exist without you'.
I think this story sums up how much of a legend he really was, and also sheds light on not only was he one of (the?!) best Australian racing drivers ever, but also that he was a real human being with a very down-to-earth outlook on life. Notwithstanding the polariser times, he was a shining beacon in Australian motorsport, and I have no doubt that his legacy will live on.(*end Damo speaking*)
The last week has been a combination of busy and not so. Damo had a work drinks thing organised by his Agency on Thursday night. Needless to say that it turned very shabby - out of about 20 people, they drank £1500 of alcohol. They were smoking £20-£30 cigars!!!! Damo ended up in a terrible state of affairs by the time he got home, but he obviously fared a bit better than others because there were a number of them who didn't even make it into work the next day!!!!
This was early in the night - it went downhill from here.....
We went out on Friday night for dinner to Zizzi's at Earl's Court and then we went and saw another movie - it's funny - we very rarely went to the movies when we were back home, and here we have been 2 weeks in a row! Anyway, we went and saw The Break Up with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. We thought that it was only ok, and not quite as side-splittingly funny as we would've hoped! Well that's 2 from 2 now - we might leave the cinema go for a while perhaps!
Ended up going home after that on Friday night, and we woke up Saturday morning with the intent of starting to look for accommodation (we've got to find a new place in the next month or so), so we had a look on the Gumtree and went up to Kensington (Olympia) to have a look at a Lower Ground floor flat, and Wow! What a dump! We were intending to try and get our own place, but based on what we saw, we may end up sharing again yet - we'll have to wait and see. We did a spot of shopping on Saturday morning at an Oxfam shop (an op-shop) near where we live, and Damo picked up a brand new shirt (from an up-market store over here called Zara - it still had the label on) and a pair of almost new Merrell shoes for a grand total of £14!!! Bargain. Of course, Nikki got nothing!!!! :-( We also ended up buying a heap of travel guides for about £0.99 each too, which was a hella bargain!
After this we headed into Westminster and got out of the tube station. It's right where Big Ben and Parliament are, and just across the river from the London Eye - which was our ultimate destination for that afternoon/evening anyway! This was after Nikki had realised that she had bought her spare phone battery instead of her camera battery and we had to head home to get it.....
We took the opportunity to take some more photos of Big Ben and Parliament and also of the London Eye itself.
We wandered across the bridge and Damo queued for tickets for the London Eye for approx. 1/2 hr.
Once we got the tickets, we went and lined up (again) to get onto the Eye itself. Thankfully this line wasn't that long. We were quite amazed to see that after the capsule's are emptied of the previous passengers that the capsules are security screened prior to boarding again - some security guys go around them with mirrors under the seats etc. It was pretty cool. The ride itself takes about 1/2 hr (All up we were in line for longer than what the ride went for),
and we managed to watch the sun set while we were up there - the timing ended up being quite good - as we were coming down the lights on Parliament were turned on, and it makes the building glow like it's made out of gold - it looks spectacular.
The view from the top
and a nighttime view of the Parliament building....
After we finished here, it was about 19:45 at night, and we had heard from Tory that she was heading out to Putney Bridge a bit later on and that we should go along - we headed home, got changed quickly and caught the tube down to Putney Bridge. (It's only a few stops further out on the District line than where we live.)
This is what we though was Putney Bridge, but actually turned out to be the Putney Bridge rail crossing - no wonder we were curious as to why people had been saying that it was a lovely bridge (well as you can see above, the view is quite nice, but the bridge was nothing to look at)..... We were in the wrong place - little did we realise. Anyway, after much confusion we ended up finding the place we needed to go to (It was a club/restaurant called Thai Square) right on the banks of the Thames at Putney Bridge, and by this time, we were both starving, so we met up with Tory, but we pretty much headed straight upstairs to get a meal. The food was quite nice, and the wine was sensational. Finished our meal, met up with Tory and Dave and a few others next door at some bar, and by this time is was getting on to be about 11:30 so we thought we'd better try and get the last tube home.
Damo had to work on Sunday, so Nik ended up doing a heap of housework and went out to the shops to have a quick look around.
We hope everyone is well over there, and we're always thinking of you all!
Monday, September 04, 2006
A gun rack... a gun rack. I don't even own A gun, let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack. What am I gonna do... with a gun rack?
This gun rack is part of the Armoury at Tower of London - read on for more details....
This past week has been a bit quieter as we were both pretty exhausted from Paris.
We had a very quiet Friday night - Damo went for a couple of quiet ones after work, and then we just went out to the movies and saw You, Me and Dupree.
(*Damo speaking*) I thought it was average to OK at best. Not a complete waste of time, but I'm not sure that I left feeling as though I had been completely entertained....
Anyway, as some of you will no doubt be rushing off to the cinemas to see it, based on my history with movie critiquing, we'll try and keep this blog post relatively short.......(*End Damo speaking*)
Saturday we got up and did a few chores around the house, and got ready to go into the City. We caught the tube in, and got out here.....
....Piccadilly Circus
After this we went to Carnaby St, and checked it out - it lacks a bit (more like a LOT) of the zing as portrayed in the Austin Power films (Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Elvis Costello and Mr Burt Bacharach) - it was ok, and there were some cool little bars, but the shops were excessively overpriced, and not anywhere near as unique as we would've expected.
This is what we were expecting!
But not what we got! We didn't even get to see Heather Graham or Mike Myers! ;-)
We didn't get any photos when we were there, but Damo works relatively close to it, so he'll go in one day just to snap a few piccies, not that there's that much to take photos of anyway!
We wandered around that area for a number of hours, went and did a bit of other shopping (but didn't buy anything) and then we ended up heading home - we didn't get up to much on Saturday night, but still stayed up pretty late so that we could call home and wish both of our dad's a Happy Father's Day - and a Happy Father's Day to any of you other dad's out there that are reading this - hope the young one's looked after you well for your day!
It's Father's Day in June over here, so it wasn't even possible to get a Father's Day card anyway!
Got up on Sunday and decided we'd do a bit more sight-seeing, so we decided that we'd go and check out the Tower of London. It was excellent - we'd seen the outside of it plenty of times before, but we'd never been through it until now! It was great - we both enjoyed it immensely.
The tower bathed in rare sunlight (even though it's supposed to be Summer over here....)
It was very weird standing on the same spot where people had been executed and tortured and stuff - We got escorted around by Beefeaters (Yeoman Warders) for a guided tour and our guide was hilarious.
This is what the Beefeaters look like.
We went into the Chapel there, and we also followed the exact path through the Tower of London that all of the headless corpses follow after they were beheaded. We checked out the Torture Chamber....
(Yep - that's right - this is a rack...)
and also saw heaps of Armour from King Henry VIII....
(and Damo with a replica of it....)
...and we also checked out the Crown Jewels - they were fairly impressive, that's for sure. The chapel was amazing - the Yeoman Warder spoke about how at one time in the 1800's they decided to do a refurbishment on the church, which included ripping the floor up because it was sinking, and they ended up exhuming 1500 bodies from there - they were able to positively identify 33 of them - some of them from hundreds of years before then!!!! They mentioned that there was a sarcophagus in the middle of the room, and they opened it up and instead of finding bodies, they found the church's font (the thing that holds the holy water). Pretty sure that Anne Boleyn might have been buried beneath this church, also!
All in all, it was a great day, and comes highly recommended to any of you who might get the chance to travel over here - there's no rush though - the place has been there since the 1000's when it was commissioned to be built by William the Conqueror....
After we'd finished here, we caught the tube from Tower Hill tube station to Temple tube station - holy crap - what a shit hole of a place that is - We walked out of the tube stop, and thankfully we weren't dressed up much because there were beggars by the truckloads - heaps and heaps of them. It was fairly dodgy, that's for sure - Damo ended up helping a fella in a wheelchair get up the hill and then we ended up wheeling him to wherever he was going (Sardinia St, near Covent Garden) - he said he was having a bad day because they'd run out of food at the place near the tube stop..... The place where we ended up taking him to looked pretty dodgy too, but we left him to it - didn't really fancy heading into the middle of all that again, if we didn't really need to.
We did all of this on our way to Covent Garden, where we decided to go for Tapas and a couple of quiet glasses of vino. There was a really cool reggae band playing a heap of Bob Marley songs, and we were just sitting there listening to that and enjoying our meal - it was sensational.
The Reggae Band
The restaurant
We headed home not long after this, and walked in the door, and we got a phone call from Tory saying "I'm having dinner in a restaurant in your street! Come on down!", but even though we were both exhausted, we did anyway. We went there and Damo had a beer and Nikki had a green tea. It was a very strange place, but we were told that the food was nice, so we'll possibly consider going back - especially because it's only a few doors down from where we live....
We got a photo of the people that we went out with!
Tory's on the left.
We got home pretty late, and we're buggered today, but it was a good weekend anyway.
This gun rack is part of the Armoury at Tower of London - read on for more details....
This past week has been a bit quieter as we were both pretty exhausted from Paris.
We had a very quiet Friday night - Damo went for a couple of quiet ones after work, and then we just went out to the movies and saw You, Me and Dupree.
(*Damo speaking*) I thought it was average to OK at best. Not a complete waste of time, but I'm not sure that I left feeling as though I had been completely entertained....
Anyway, as some of you will no doubt be rushing off to the cinemas to see it, based on my history with movie critiquing, we'll try and keep this blog post relatively short.......(*End Damo speaking*)
Saturday we got up and did a few chores around the house, and got ready to go into the City. We caught the tube in, and got out here.....
....Piccadilly Circus
After this we went to Carnaby St, and checked it out - it lacks a bit (more like a LOT) of the zing as portrayed in the Austin Power films (Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Elvis Costello and Mr Burt Bacharach) - it was ok, and there were some cool little bars, but the shops were excessively overpriced, and not anywhere near as unique as we would've expected.
This is what we were expecting!
But not what we got! We didn't even get to see Heather Graham or Mike Myers! ;-)
We didn't get any photos when we were there, but Damo works relatively close to it, so he'll go in one day just to snap a few piccies, not that there's that much to take photos of anyway!
We wandered around that area for a number of hours, went and did a bit of other shopping (but didn't buy anything) and then we ended up heading home - we didn't get up to much on Saturday night, but still stayed up pretty late so that we could call home and wish both of our dad's a Happy Father's Day - and a Happy Father's Day to any of you other dad's out there that are reading this - hope the young one's looked after you well for your day!
It's Father's Day in June over here, so it wasn't even possible to get a Father's Day card anyway!
Got up on Sunday and decided we'd do a bit more sight-seeing, so we decided that we'd go and check out the Tower of London. It was excellent - we'd seen the outside of it plenty of times before, but we'd never been through it until now! It was great - we both enjoyed it immensely.
The tower bathed in rare sunlight (even though it's supposed to be Summer over here....)
It was very weird standing on the same spot where people had been executed and tortured and stuff - We got escorted around by Beefeaters (Yeoman Warders) for a guided tour and our guide was hilarious.
This is what the Beefeaters look like.
We went into the Chapel there, and we also followed the exact path through the Tower of London that all of the headless corpses follow after they were beheaded. We checked out the Torture Chamber....
(Yep - that's right - this is a rack...)
and also saw heaps of Armour from King Henry VIII....
(and Damo with a replica of it....)
...and we also checked out the Crown Jewels - they were fairly impressive, that's for sure. The chapel was amazing - the Yeoman Warder spoke about how at one time in the 1800's they decided to do a refurbishment on the church, which included ripping the floor up because it was sinking, and they ended up exhuming 1500 bodies from there - they were able to positively identify 33 of them - some of them from hundreds of years before then!!!! They mentioned that there was a sarcophagus in the middle of the room, and they opened it up and instead of finding bodies, they found the church's font (the thing that holds the holy water). Pretty sure that Anne Boleyn might have been buried beneath this church, also!
All in all, it was a great day, and comes highly recommended to any of you who might get the chance to travel over here - there's no rush though - the place has been there since the 1000's when it was commissioned to be built by William the Conqueror....
After we'd finished here, we caught the tube from Tower Hill tube station to Temple tube station - holy crap - what a shit hole of a place that is - We walked out of the tube stop, and thankfully we weren't dressed up much because there were beggars by the truckloads - heaps and heaps of them. It was fairly dodgy, that's for sure - Damo ended up helping a fella in a wheelchair get up the hill and then we ended up wheeling him to wherever he was going (Sardinia St, near Covent Garden) - he said he was having a bad day because they'd run out of food at the place near the tube stop..... The place where we ended up taking him to looked pretty dodgy too, but we left him to it - didn't really fancy heading into the middle of all that again, if we didn't really need to.
We did all of this on our way to Covent Garden, where we decided to go for Tapas and a couple of quiet glasses of vino. There was a really cool reggae band playing a heap of Bob Marley songs, and we were just sitting there listening to that and enjoying our meal - it was sensational.
The Reggae Band
The restaurant
We headed home not long after this, and walked in the door, and we got a phone call from Tory saying "I'm having dinner in a restaurant in your street! Come on down!", but even though we were both exhausted, we did anyway. We went there and Damo had a beer and Nikki had a green tea. It was a very strange place, but we were told that the food was nice, so we'll possibly consider going back - especially because it's only a few doors down from where we live....
We got a photo of the people that we went out with!
Tory's on the left.
We got home pretty late, and we're buggered today, but it was a good weekend anyway.
Vale Steve Irwin....
I'll post my proper update soon, but just thought that I'd add a special post to bid a fond farewell to Steve Irwin.
Crikey, mate! I can't believe it's happened! Poor bugger, though in all truth he probably didn't even have a chance to know what had happened, but in reality, his poor family.
Anyway, the news reaches far and fast - I heard about it first thing this morning our time.....
I guess it won't be long until the joke factory starts churning them out.
Here's a start though. ApparentlySteve managed to find those crocs in the sewers in NYC....
I'll post my proper update soon, but just thought that I'd add a special post to bid a fond farewell to Steve Irwin.
Crikey, mate! I can't believe it's happened! Poor bugger, though in all truth he probably didn't even have a chance to know what had happened, but in reality, his poor family.
Anyway, the news reaches far and fast - I heard about it first thing this morning our time.....
I guess it won't be long until the joke factory starts churning them out.
Here's a start though. ApparentlySteve managed to find those crocs in the sewers in NYC....
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