A Stroll to AFTRS in Autumn... Axle as photographer

Even the bus depot looked pretty in the amazing morning light
Trees of Centennial Park


The weekend markets at the Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park.

Gagagaga for Spoonerisms

I'm writing this to you in reverse...

After a few bugs of jeer at the Lox and Fion on Friday night, I headed along to see Texan band Spoon at the Forum Theatre. A first for me on both band and venue fronts and I was mightly pleased with all outcomes.

The Forum is a really well-laid out venue with an ample sized dancefloor, a bunch of different levels and mezzanines and various bars placed in super convenient locations. There's even a get-out-of-jail-free exit with an aforementioned bar placed appropriately close to our little spot stage right. This is handy if you need to de-beer your body mid-set, you can actually go without making enemies with half of Sydney.

First things first. I wasn't aware of this before but the lead singer, Britt Daniel, is a bona-fide indie babe and he's on that very elusive and also very short "I'm allowed to wear skinny jeans because they actually make my bum look good" list. And he took pleasure in bending over, bum to audience, on many a pleasing occasion.

There's a British quality about Spoon that I really like... Perhaps it's in their "I'm a rockstar baby but I still have a sense of humour" swagger.

At this point I should probably mention the music before KB, one of my dates for the evening, votes me off the island for being vacuous and shallow.

Spoon as a band were tight, charismatic and musically spot on. One of my pet peeves at gigs is that set structure can be largely ignored with bands pulling you one way and then the other in an unpleasant tug o' war of tunes. Spoon hit it flipping spot-on mixing a couple of older tracks with a bunch of tracks from their new album Transference and kept me dancing to their melodic, piano-driven rock the entire night.

I think I might have even lost a bit of myself.

Suburban Rave

I heart Woollahra. Did I insert the appropriate amount of 'o's and 'l's?

Had a luxurious sleep in till 7am this morning (due to the fact I have no way of waking up without my loo-water logged mobile) and stopped at Pasta Pantry in Woollahra for a coffee.

The Eastern Suburbs can sometimes get a bad rap for pretentiousness plus and charging an arm and a leg for everything from parking to bananas but there's something so charming about the leafy streets, posh butchers and sandstone terraces housing some of the most expensive cotton t-shirts I've seen in the Southern Hemisphere.

This is a blatant plug. Beware. But I'm so grateful for a coffee vendor that:

(a) Doesn't charge $4 for a small, weak, bad tasting soy latte (hang your head in shame Harry's Espresso, you may have amazing pastry but woah... you'd send me broke in a week)

and

(b) Baristas that smile authentically and sincerely wish you a good day while only taking $2.70 for a smashingly decent coffee.

So pleased I was with my coffee bargain that I indulged in a Mango and Macadamia nut muffin (another bargain at only $2.50) which was simple heaven on a Friday morning.

Well played Pasta Pantry well played. Bondi cafes take note...

Plop

What's the etiquette when dropping things in the loo?

Surely most people just curse uner their breath, hope that noone was in close enough proximity to hear a louder than ususal plop and retrieve the item, never to give it another thought.

Not me. I'm scarred.

I shouldn't be allowed a mobile phone. I think I average around three drops per day, most of those onto roads or into sticky piles of jam left lying around the kitchen bench by some charming flatmates.

Previous precipitous falls from grace for my poor blower paled in comparison after it worked its way out of the snug pouch that is my Zara cardi pocket and plummeted a fatal thirty centimetres to clunk and clatter around the bowl and then PLOP into the loo water.

WaaaaaaH! The wambulance was called in and after a quick howl and hmmpf! I reached down, tights around knees (lucky I hadn't 'started' otherwise it might have been too late to stop and then a true catastrophe would have occurred) and popped my timid phalanges into the toilet water.

Even when it's clean, there's something inherently gross about loo water. It was like a near death experience where, instead of my life flashing before my eyes, images of the posteriors of my work colleagues doing their business ran like an old movie on fast forward through my skull.

Moral to this story. Lucky I didn't buy an iphone. Oh and don't try to call me. The handset's having a holiday in the hot water cupboard.

Blogging 101

For three years I have been living on a super yacht travelling around The Med, Caribbean, French Polynesia, the US and Mexico. The old axiom applies: "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"...

My life oscillated erratically from swimming with humpbacks in the wild in Moorea, Tahiti to cleaning the unidentified splooge of the uber-riche and somewhat famous from various expensive surfaces.

Most of the time my living space consisted of a 1.5m x 1.5m cabin with bunk beds a bit like coffins sharing with people who were like my family - sometimes you can't live without them, and sometimes when they're drunk/snoring/farting/getting laid or just being randomly obnoxious you want to throttle them and throw them overboard.

It must be noted here that I am not, have never been and probably never will be, much of a sailor yet I completed two crossings of the Atlantic and one of the Pacific. I have to say there is nothing quite like sitting on the aft deck at sunset with a cheeky glass (or plastic tumbler) of wine gazing into the horizon and knowing that a glimpse of land is two weeks away. Magical.

I have recently moved to Sydney to study a Graduate Diploma of Radio Broadcasting at the Australian Film, Radio and Television School (AFTRS)and wanted to blog about the experience of trying to settle back into the real world.

When I say recently, it was actually about six months ago but I’ve found your life flies when you have to make use of your free will.

This is my first blog, it has no fabulously tight theme, it's no Sartorialist or GoFugYourself but it's nice to have a crack.