The news has reached America

AJ, of American gay podcasting collective Rainbow Podsquad, says in his latest episode:

"Steven from Melbourne is fierce, fabulous and cute, ladies."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

You gotta love Melbourne

Laugh? I nearly got a six-pack

I haven't made it to the gym much recently, but I got a great ab workout today from laughing too much at the latest Ricky Gervais podcast.

Also improving the musculature that's cunningly disguised by my belly are the Adam & Joe podcasts (from the same Saturday afternoon Xfm slot that Ricky's lot started out on).

And did I mentioned that we'd jumped on the podcast bandwagon too?

Oh, yes. So I did.

Fascinating fascinators

Yes, it's finally here, the eagerly-anticipated second instalmant of the Melbourne Cup podcast. This one follows us through the post-race carnage, as we talk to fashion designers, gamblers and drunks. In the process, we become gradually more inebriated ourselves. For research purposes only.

Click here for an intoxicating experience...

Melbourne Cup - the podcast

Melbourne Cup Day is the big horse racing occasion here - and a public holiday too. Rather than go to the effort of dressing up, Steven and I wandered down to Fed Square to inhale the racing flavour.

We took with us the trusty iTalk, a handy recorder that plugs into an ipod, to save the event for posterity.

And thanks to the joys of podcasting, you too can be instantly transported to this world of highs and lows, of winners and losers, of hats and fascinators.

Click here to start your thrilling journey...

Mixed doubles

Friday night involved a spot of absinthe, with the result that we didn't do much on Saturday. In the evening we settled down to watch Match Point. When it ended, after wondering whether to call it a night, we we decided to stick on another London movie with a tennis title, Wimbledon.

Sadly, I found myself giving a novel reason for watching it: "It'd make a good blog entry." Oh dear. Is this a sign that the blogging's gone too far? They say you're addicted to something when it starts interfering with your life...

Jointly

Today we went to a bank and opened a joint bank account. I've never had a joint bank account before. I like it.

As well as being quite handy, it will be useful in the future as one of the pieces of evidence showing that we have a "co-dependent relationship". After a year of a being co-dependent, I'll be able to live in Australia. After two years, Steven will be able to live in the UK. (Of course, civil unions now provide another option in the UK without the two year rule, but still needing the same kind of proof.)

We've been slow about building up the evidence so far. We did try and get both our names on the electricity account, but the bill just arrived and the idiots didn't manage to put my name on it. So after six months of co-dependency, we're still short of pieces of paper to show for it.

Am I irritated by the hoops we have to jump through to demonstrate that our relationship is real? No. Straight couples have to jump through exactly the same hoops. In fact, I'm impressed that both our countries allow same-sex partners to immigrate.

Good on ya, Australia.
Jolly good show, Britain.

23%

At Christmas, we're heading up to the Great Barrier Reef. However, we've dedicated half of 2006 to sitting on the sofa stuffing ourselves with Twisties, chocolate and ice-cream purchased late at night from the 7-11 that lurks perilously close to where we live. Thus our bodies are currently not in the Beach God category. In order to remedy the situation we've taken drastic measures - and joined the local gym.

I'm sure I've read other bloggers talking about getting their body fat down below 10%. The relentlessly cheery gym guy measured my fat content yesterday, and it came out at 23%. That's 23g per 100g. He didn't say how much of that saturates. If I was in a wrapper on the supermarket shelf, you'd put me back as soon as you read the label.

So today, off we went to start the programme which Cheery Guy had given us. Gyms are like another planet to me. I did join one once before, but only went three times in the whole six months. Luckily, this one has practically zero members, so there's no fighting with enormous steroid-crazed monsters to get to the machines.

I couldn't keep up with the right speeds on the cardio machines. Nor could I complete the reqired number of 'reps' (hey, I know the lingo) on the bizarre contraptions designed to torture my pecs, biceps and triceps (whatever they are). Even though I was using lower weights than I was supposed to.

Meanwhile, Cheery Guy has put us on a diet of five small meals a day - with a palmful of protein and a fistful of carbohydrate. (Clint Eastwood, eat your heart out - well, a small portion of it anyway.) We cheated today and snuck some cheese into our wholemeal sandwiches.

Oh well. Rome wasn't built in a day. And nor was this stomach.