Dan in Melbourne

Wordage

2007-06-06T07:29:00.000+10:00

So I caved in and got a new blog. It's called Wordage. Here's the link:

http://wordage.wordpress.com/

Do drop by when you're in the neighbourhood.

That's all, folks

2007-02-03T01:40:00.000+11:00

And that brings this little blog to an end. I started it in the first throes of love - the modern equivalent of shouting it from the rooftops - but although our relationship continues to deepen, I find myself less and less inclined to share those little moments that would previously have had me rushing to the keyboard. And, of course, I'm no longer 'Dan in Melbourne'.

At some point I may start another blog and post the address here. But until then, thanks for coming along for the ride, and for all your comments and support.

It's been fun.

...London

2007-02-03T01:39:00.000+11:00

And so back to London. We awoke the next day to a a carpet of snow, which was great, if slightly surreal having come from summer. It was incredibly cold, but it was good to be home.

...Hong Kong...

2007-01-31T20:32:00.000+11:00

We then stopped off in Hong Kong for a few days, staying on my friend's junk and zipping around on the island's many forms of transport. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there's something about the hangovers over there...

Sydney...

2007-01-31T20:20:00.000+11:00

After a frantic week in Melbourne shutting up shop, packing and saying goodbyes, we headed off to Sydney. The sun shone, the waves... did whatever waves do, and it was a very pleasant way to spend our last few days in Australia.

...And a Dannii New Year

2007-01-31T20:00:00.000+11:00

For New Year, five of us headed off to Hayman Island in the Whitsundays. As well as drinking cocktails by the pool, snorkelling on the reef and helicoptering to Whitehaven Beach, we attended the New Year's Eve party. Dannii Minogue hopped on stage to sing 'Kiss' which was exciting enough (as Steven is a bit of a Minogue fan). But that was topped a couple of hours later, when I turned round to see Steven buttonholing the young lady. As he talked away into her left ear, she tipped her head back and laughed. Even the famous aren't immune to a bit of the old Steven magic.

An exceedingly merry Christmas...

2007-01-31T06:20:00.000+11:00

Christmas was spent in deepest Queensland with our friend Jane, who laid on a magnificent day. It was a traditional Queensland Christmas - shrimps on the barbie, beers drunk through a length of piping, tennis balls shot out of a flame-throwing spud-gun and a 2am skinny-dip in the pool. With a traditional Queensland Boxing Day hangover to follow.

Laid down low

2006-12-21T21:33:00.000+11:00

We've been laid down low with what we thought was food poisoning, but judging by the number of people with similar symptoms we now reckon to be a bug. And to think I was oscillating between blaming our friend Ubergay for the BBQ at his fabulous apartment and castigating myself for the improper heating-up of our hangover ready-meal.

So that pretty much wrote off a whole week - and what a week to write off too, what with a bunchof pre-Christmas do's lined up and - more importantly - the long-awaited trip to see Kylie. We still made it to the Rod Laver Arena, and despite the dizzy spells and the urgent clambering over the middle-aged ladies next to us to get to the bathroom, it was still a good night.

Before the bug hit, Steven and I made it to Q&A. Having previously met Jay there, this time we bumped into the twin stars of the Melbourne blogging scene, R*yan and D.U.P. They were both excellent value - and my time here would have felt incomplete if I'd left without meeting them. Man about Town was a fabulous Mistress of Ceremonies as ever - thanks for the Eurythmics track!

We're now back in rude health for our Christmas and New Year jaunt to Queensland.

Whatever you're doing, have a happy one.

The final frontier

2006-12-13T09:34:00.000+11:00

Why is this picture from the International Space Station causing excitement amongst Apple-heads?

Because if you select the high-res version on the NASA website, you can see the guy's iPod to the right of his head.

An apology

2006-12-10T21:05:00.000+11:00

To the reader in Paris who came here (two days in a row) via a Google search for "pecs torture" - Sorry. I suspect my post on the tribulations of joining a gym wasn't quite what you were after.

Fire

2006-12-09T12:08:00.000+11:00

We live right in the middle of the city. And we can smell the smoke from here. Much respect and good luck to everyone fighting the fires.

A vision in khaki

2006-12-06T12:05:00.000+11:00

On December 1st, game rangers Vernon Gibbs and Tony Halls became South Africa's first gay couple to tie the knot. According to one of them, "We did not have a very romantic wedding night because we have two baby bat-eared foxes that kept us up all night wanting to be fed and cuddled. And then someone brought in a black eagle with a broken wing and we had to take care of that." Bless.

Come on, Australia. Your turn next. Get those civil unions on the statute books and don't let Howard overrule it this time.

Cover me slow

2006-12-03T17:19:00.000+11:00

You know when you hear a cover version that's a really slowed down version of the original, so that it kind of sounds like the song's been left outside and it snowed and the song froze and it's only now starting to thaw out again, and it's covered in particles of frost that glint in the pale winter sunlight and make you see the shape of the thing in a way you never did before? Well, Steven put a CD on with one such track on it (the first on the list), and it made me think of a few others that I like:

Temptation - the Moby cover of the New Order song
Sweet Jane - the Cowboy Junkies cover of the Velvet Underground song
Mad World - the Gary Jules cover of the Tears for Fears song (as featured in Donnie Darko)
Let's Dance - the M Ward cover of the David Bowie song
Baby One More Time - the Travis cover of the Britney Spears song

Nice.

Oldbus

2006-12-03T16:25:00.000+11:00

Every other blogger in Melbourne has been banging on about how Shortbus is a must-see movie, so on Saturday afternoon we finally caved in and went down the road to the Kino Dendy to see it.

Now I don't know if the Dendy people have a special afternoon deal for pensioners, or if the lure of "unsimulated" sex is particularly strong for old people, but we were pretty much the only ones there under 60. The cinema was fairly empty, but here and there were groups of old women, old couples, and a rather worrying group of old men in the back row.

This was, quite frankly, a little disconcerting. I was suddenly reminded of an uncomfortable occasion watching Not the Nine O'Clock News with my grandmother back in the Eighties. A pastiche of Olivia Newton-John's 'Let's Get Physical' video came on screen, with Pamela Stephenson in a leotard riding a stuffed sheep rather suggestively. Awkwardness filled the room.

There was no awkwardness this time round, though. The oldies cackled with mirth at every new combination and contortion that flashed on screen. I enjoyed the film. By the sounds of things, they enjoyed it even more.

(If you do visit a Dendy cinema, try the choc-tops. To. Die. For.)

Heidi at Bondi

2006-12-03T15:33:00.000+11:00

So what do you do when you fancy a nice healthy breakfast at home, but want something a bit special because it's the weekend? Why, you whip up some of bill's (the Sydney restaurateur always refers to himself in lower case) Bircher (the Swiss doctor favoured the traditional upper-case B) muesli. "A little bit Heidi, a little bit Bondi," says bill.

At the risk of incurring a lower-case law-suit from the bills empire, here's what you do: Soak a cup of rolled oats in half a cup of apple juice overnight. Sleep well. In the morning, add half a cup of grated apple, a quarter cup of natural yoghurt and the juice of half a lemon. Mix it up good and proper and spoon into two bowls. Top with sliced peaches and nectarines, throw in some berries and drizzle (such a recipe word) with honey. Lovely.

The trip of a lifetime

2006-12-01T19:20:00.000+11:00

So it's almost the end of 2006. And what a year I've had. It was always going to be a bit special, what with it being the year of my once-in-a-lifetime round-the-world trip. (A five-hyphen trip, no less.) It was going to be full of adventure.

It didn't disappoint.

The adventures, as it turned out, weren't all quite the kind I expected. Sure, I got lost on the LA freeways, hiked up a New Zealand mountain and danced in a Bollywood movie.

But I had other adventures too, things that I never thought could possibly be adventures, things that involved eating in restaurants, watching DVDs and buying shoes.

In short, I did the one thing I hadn't planned on doing this year. I fell in love.

Soon, 2006 will pack up its wheelie-case and head off to the departure lounge. Shortly after that, I'll return to London, to my apartment, to work. But I'll take with me a very special souvenir. A guy by the name of Steven.

The trip will be over. But the journey will just be beginning.

The news has reached America

2006-11-29T20:16:00.000+11:00

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

2006-11-24T18:06:00.000+11:00

Laugh? I nearly got a six-pack

2006-11-23T12:42:00.001+11:00

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

2006-11-17T16:04:00.001+11:00

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

2006-11-09T22:34:00.001+11:00

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

2006-11-05T21:26:00.000+11:00

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

2006-11-02T18:35:00.000+11:00

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%

2006-11-01T17:20:00.000+11:00

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.

You can never have too many shoes, bags... or Apple Macs

2006-10-30T22:07:00.000+11:00

The gays love the Apple. I've got two, Steven's got one, and an alarmingly high proportion of the gay blogs I read are tapped out on a Mac. In Stephen Fry's documentary about bipolar disorder, there's a fabulous scene were a therapist accompanies him on a shopping trip. As he practically drools over a Mac Mini, the therapist asks him if he really needs it. "Yes!" he replies vehemently. She then asks him how many Macs he has already. "Oh, nine," he replies casually, in a way that emphasises the irrelevance of mere numbers in the presence of beauty.

So it's kind of nice that the Greenpeace Apple campaign starts from the premise "We love Apple." It's true. We do. And, yes - it would be nice if we could lord it over PC users not only because Macs look nicer and are easier to use, but because they were greener too.

In other Apple news, if you've ever thought that the Shuffle feature on your iPod wasn't really random, the problem isn't inside the shiny case, it's inside your head.

Let there be light

2006-10-29T13:44:00.000+11:00

The clocks have changed to summer-time, and the sun now gets high enough in the sky that it actually manages to descend seven floors into a small courtyard and reach right into our apartment, illuminating a narrow patch of floor by the windows for a good five minutes. The irises lapped it up. Steven just managed to snap a few pics before it was gone again.

Meanwhile we're listening to Minilogue, some progressive techno thing that Steven downloaded this morning. (Well, it would have still been morning if the clocks hadn't changed.) Steven informs me that "progressive" refers not, as I'd assumed, to any forward-thinking tendencies on the artist's part, but to the gradual build-up of the music. You learn something new every day.

Grudgingly

2006-10-27T18:50:00.000+10:00

OK, a quick post, to get me back into the swing of blogging if nothing else. Got back on Wednesday last week, Steven had taken the rest of the week off, which was fantastic. And he's now got every Wednesday off, which is excellent too. Tonight we're off to Hoyts to see The Grudge 2.

Steven introduced me to the first film before I left, with the result that every time I opened the sliding door of the cupboard in my hotel room in Tokyo, I got a horrible creepy feeling shivering its way up my spine. Thanks, Steven!

I'm back

2006-10-19T11:19:00.000+10:00

Back at the ranch, back to the future, back in the day, back in Melbourne.

Bread & cheese

2006-10-13T10:24:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I had bread and cheese for lunch – not just any old cheese, but Cornish Yarg, Cashel Blue and the ever-fabulous Keen’s Cheddar. I washed that lot down with a Cox’s apple, the impossible mix of sweet and sharp flavours mirrored in the delicately interwoven colours of its skin.

It’s not like I’ve been pining for all things British while I’ve been away, but I’ve been enjoying certain things with extra enthusiasm while I’ve been back. The sunlight gleaming softly on the leaves. A cool wet breeze on my neck.

It’s partly nostalgia, of course, the comforting lure of the familiar. And yet, somehow it feels that when I start my journey back to Australia tomorrow, I’ll be heading home.

Not because Melbourne is home. But because Steven is.

Beside the seaside

2006-09-27T07:59:00.001+10:00

Did a whistle-stop trip to Brighton this weekend to catch up with a bunch more people, as half of London seems to have moved down there now. On the Saturday I had breakfast, mid-morning, lunch and afternoon booked in with various old friends. But my first appointment of the day was a telephone call from Steven. I was staying at my sister’s flat, and the only phone socket was in her bedroom. She’d left the phone out in the hall for me, and the receiver just reached into the spare room, so I lay on the floor with my head up against the door for an hour. It was bliss.

A last-minute change of plan left me with a gap in my schedule before lunch. I sat on the beach in the abnormally warm weather and felt the physical sensation of missing someone.

I took off my shoes and socks and hobbled over the hot pebbles down to the sea. The water coursed over my feet, the same expanse of water that was lapping at Melbourne’s shore.

O for a beaker full of the warm South

2006-09-22T07:39:00.000+10:00

I miss Australian coffee. Those little latte glasses filled with delicate brown and white froth. And the cups of flat white, still frothy on the top but with more substance underneath. And the artful patterns etched into the surface.

And having the mornings free to savour them. And a groovy Melbourne cafe to savour them in. And a handsome man to savour them with.

You couldn't make it up

2006-09-20T07:24:00.000+10:00

Thank you for Smoking meets An Inconvenient Truth

To all commentators

2006-09-18T05:26:00.000+10:00

Sorry. I've been by turns too preoccupied, lazy, offline, dimwitted or busy to reply to comments over the last few weeks. But, thanks. I do appreciate them.

Nine Eleven

2006-09-18T05:00:00.000+10:00

On a day that was filled with memories of the carnage of five years ago, we looked back to a more recent event - the day six months beforehand when we'd met. We marked the occasion with a phone conversation as I sat by a river in Surrey during my lunchbreak and wittered on about how the woman in the sandwich shop had callously charged me an extra 30p for having cheese as well as ham in my salad box. What more can you ask for from a partner than that they actually enjoy listening to you spout nonsense?

So far yet so near

2006-09-18T04:09:00.000+10:00

Ahhhh, the joys of iChat. That was the best hour I've had in ages.
Nice to see you, Steven.

The doodle bug

2006-09-16T09:09:00.000+10:00

In between seeing everyone, I’ve also started on a month’s work. Working again after such a long break has actually been no problem at all. It’s the first time I’ve spent any time sitting in a confined space with pen and paper (as opposed to a laptop) for a while, and I’ve rediscovered the joys of doodling. And today I had to smile, as I found myself doodling a word I’d never doodled before: Steven.

Catching up

2006-09-16T08:56:00.000+10:00

So after eight months, I’m back in the UK. Thursday went to my mum’s, Friday had a night out with the Boyz (my gay friends), Saturday played football with John, Clare and godson Jake, Sunday limbered up with my tai chi friends and then headed up to see the North London posse including other godson Louis, Monday had a night in, Tuesday had a lovely paella at John and Austin’s (the couple that were over for Mardi Gras) with Woody (their crazy but cute Dalmation), Wednesday visited some old Soho haunts with Lynda, my ex-art director and the architect of me meeting Steven, Thursday was another night in and now I’m off to catch up with the rest of my family. It’s been really great to see everyone – but of course there’s one guy missing. And I miss him.

Upwardly mobile

2006-09-13T08:06:00.000+10:00

Before I left the UK, a gay friend of mine gave me a tutorial on getting an upgrade. His fundamental thesis was that you should try and establish a relationship with the airline employee, be it at the check-in desk, gate or on the plane. Techniques include establishing eye contact before you approach, smiling, joking, calling them by the name on their tag etc. I tried variations of these at every stage on my world tour, but sadly it never worked. Airline staff, it seems, take an instant dislike to me and get all huffy on my uptight English ass. That is, until the final leg of the trip. With the heightened security on flights into London, I’d had my bags x-rayed twice, been made to move stuff from one to another, joined countless queues and then, just when I thought it was all over, been frisked and had my hand-luggage searched again in the corridor that takes you down to the plane. Staggering down the final few yards, I rolled my eyes in a conspiratorial way at the lady who was waiting to check my boarding pass. She smiled and greeted me with the magical words, “If you could just wait a moment, sir, there’s been a change to your seat.” I guess my icy front had finally melted. Leaving me with a very pleasant 10 hours.

Hooray for Bollywood

2006-09-12T06:30:00.000+10:00

So what do you do on a rainy Tuesday in Mumbai? Be an extra in a Bollywood movie, of course! I’d been stopped by a scout on the street the day before, and joined 30 other tourists on a leaky bus the next morning.

I always love watching party scenes in movies, mostly to enjoy quite how unconvincing they are, so imagine my delight when I found out we were bound for one of the city’s groovier nightclubs, which was standing in for a London club.

We were given the once-over by wardrobe, hair and make-up – short skirts and ringlets for the gals, vivid T-shirts and spray-on hair colour for the guys (blue and gold stripes in my case – London’s obviously changed while I’ve been gone).

The Assistant Director positioned us all on the dance-floor, with me in a solo position by the bar. The main actress (who we soon christened Diva) had to walk through the throng to get to her friend at the bar, stopping on the way to say hello to someone. As I was standing apart from the others, I was the natural choice.

Her face lit up as she approached me. ‘Hey!’ she said. Quick-thinkingly, I improvised. ‘Hey!’ I replied with a broad smile. ‘OK, let’s go for a take,’ boomed the director. Oh my god, I’d done it. I’d landed myself a speaking part.

Diva had a quick chat with the director, after which the A.D. bundled another guy towards me. ‘You stand there,’ he ordered him, before bundling me off to the back where the other guy had been. ‘And you stand there.’

Chewed up and spat out by Bollywood, I relayed my fate to the extras beside me. Diva must have heard, because she turned round and smiled apologetically. ‘Too small,’ she said, illustrating her point with a downward motion of the palm.

Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.

The rest of the morning was spent dancing frenetically to the same tune over and over again, which was actually a lot of fun. ‘Dance louder!’ the A.D kept urging us, by which he meant increase the jumping and flailing of arms – he even suggested throwing in a few high-fives. We were happy to oblige – I really hope they use the take where we decided to do that old cheesy synchronised dive move.

Each of the stars had a mirror man – a guy who rushed in between each take to hold a mirror while the actors touched up their foundation (female) or squirted extra sheen into their hair (male). But the best thing was the smoke machine – a little old guy wandering about the set scattering incense onto a pan of hot coals. I bet they don’t have that in Hollywood.

It was a long day, and the novelty had worn off by lunchtime, but in true Bollywood tradition, they got us hooked back in with a song and dance number to round things off.

I was pulled out of the synchronised dance routine to be part of two couples doing synchronised ‘making out’ on the sofa as the camera moves past towards the crowd. So you might get to see me after all.

‘Namatey London’. Coming soon to a movie theatre probably nowhere near you.

Lost and found

2006-09-04T17:00:00.000+10:00

Wow, so that was Tokyo. Neon, cartoon characters and diagonal zebra crossings all as expected, but it's not as bewildering as Ms Coppola would have us believe. I had three very different days:

Day one - Orientation. Walked around Shinjuku and Shibuya drinking it all in. I was expecting the visual feast, but not the sonic one - video screens blared, train stations blasted out their individual theme tunes, promotional lorries spewed out J-pop hits and slot machine halls sounded like they'd been hijacked by a gang of psycopathic organists.

Day two - Culture. Meandered through Ueno Park to look at some old stuff in a museum. Then followed the crowds to Senso-ji to see the temple and wander the alleyways.

Day three - SHOPPING!!! From window-shopping at Prada (and you couldn't ask for crazier windows) to actually buying stuff at Banana Republic. From mingling with the goth-French-maid schoolgirls over the soft toys at Kiddyland to marvelling at the delights of Itoya, a very Japanese stationery store.

Plenty of stuff to keep me distracted. Not that I minded being alone. Because I knew I wasn't.

Junk mail

2006-09-02T12:46:00.000+10:00

OK, I know, I've been bad. When your own boyfriend leaves a comment on your blog telling you to post more, you know you haven't been blogging enough. I've written a Tokyo entry on the iBook, but that's in a vet surgery across town right now. (Feel my pain, readers - I've been reduced to typing this on a PC.)I'm currently on my friend's junk in Hong Kong, which is a great place to be. I always find that when I arrive in Asia I seem to get very drunk very quickly and then wake up to a hideous hangover. At first I put this down to the humidity - but then I realised that it's more likely to be because I'm out with my old friend Tony. Still, a quick blast in the speedboat (yesterday) or a kayak trip (today) soon gets rid of the cobwebs.

The other great thing about Hong Kong is that my phone works here, so I get to here my beloved's voice again. I miss him. Tony's got a new girlfriend, so he's loved up too, and we get to sit on the junk and swap mushy stories. So sad. But so not!

Such sweet sorrow

2006-08-27T23:20:00.000+10:00

Early to bed. Feverish dreams. Distant music. Wafts of laughter. Awake at five. Arm round shoulder. Radio alarm. Shower hisses. Kettle shrieks. Folding, packing. Suitcase zipped. Final kiss. Silent streets. Concrete depot. Brief goodbyes. Smile through glass. Empty wait. Bus departs. Raised hand. Glide away. Leaving him behind. But taking him with me.

Q & A & David Jones

2006-08-26T20:54:00.000+10:00

Q&A was a lot of fun, kind of like Popstarz used to be, Londoners. Fellow blogger Jay came over to say hello, which was nice. It's the first time I've met someone in the flesh through the blog, it was kind of strange but cool already knowing fragments of each other's lives, and it was good to put a face to the words. Hopefully he didn't notice me dropping a (thankfully plastic) pot of beer while trying to execute an over-ambitious dance-move.

Towards the end of the night, we headed to the upstairs bit, where a rather formidable lady was DJ'ing. She had that sullen DJ expression that made it look like she'd never smiled in her life, so watching from across the room, I was impressed when after just a few words from Steven, her face transformed into laughter. And he got what he wanted - she stuck on a Kylie record.

Since then, it's just been me, Steven and a bunch of goodies from the David Jones food hall. It's been lovely. I'm off early tomorrow, but for now that's another day.

This one will run and run

2006-08-26T11:51:00.000+10:00

Watching a bit of Saturday morning pop TV, as you do, and just seen the video (UK readers) / film clip (Aussie readers) for 'Here it Goes Again' by OK Go. Fabulous. I'm not much of a gym-goer, but for the first time I can actually see a point to the existence of running machines. Watch it here.

One last blast

2006-08-24T18:44:00.000+10:00

So I've booked the hotels (touch wood-effect laminate), won another Kerri-Anne DVD (luv ya, Kezza!), seen Jamie through a Myer window (though not just in undies as he was when Steven went by) and am getting ready to enjoy my last weekend with my guy. And as he's not working tomorrow, the weekend starts tonight! Roll on Q&A...

Rain

2006-08-22T12:33:00.000+10:00

It rained today, splashing loudly in the grey alleyway. I’m leaving on Sunday. I don’t know what happens next in the book I’m trying to write. I won’t be with my guy for seven weeks. I haven’t booked hotels for my stopovers and the ones I want are full. I won’t feel the warmth of his cheek against mine. I’m still tired from the weekend. I won’t hear him laugh at stupid things. My travel insurance has run out. He won’t fall asleep on my shoulder halfway through a DVD. I need to go out to Coburg to pick up my passport. I won’t see his shining eyes. I haven’t got any work confirmed for when I’m home. We’ll be together tonight, though.

It rained today. But the rain passed.

My eternal gratitude to the good people of Kiev

2006-08-20T19:46:00.000+10:00

Garlic butter. In chicken. In breadcrumbs.

Genius.

Happy weekend

2006-08-18T18:34:00.000+10:00

It's the weekend! OK, so that may not mean quite as much to me as to you lot who work for a living, but Steven's excited and it's infectious. When he gets out the shower, we're off to meet the guys at DT's, possibly even getting there in time for the Friday night barbecue. Tomorrow, maybe another bike ride if the weather's nice, then off to a double birthday celebration at Double Happiness, aptly enough. Sadly, this means we'll have to forgo a lesbian civil union afterparty, but you can't have everything. (No, Australian readers, Howard hasn't had a change of heart - they're British and getting hitched at the Consulate.) And then a Sunday doing absolutely nothing.

Have a happy weekend, wherever you are.

You win some

2006-08-16T19:37:00.000+10:00

I WON SOMETHING! A DVD of Syriana, to be precise. It's the first time I've won a competition since I collared the bottle of Pomagne from the spin-the-arrow stall at my primary school fete, giving me an early introducion to the delights of both gambling and alcohol.

This time was far less depraved - it was a competition on Kerri-Anne, the goddess of Australian mid-morning TV, and I had to fill in the online form answering the question "Why is George Clooney such a distinguished actor?" in 25 words or less. Sadly, neither they or I appear to have kept a record of my brilliantly pithy reply, but it started off talking about his acting and ended up noting that he was quite easy on the eye.

As my name would have given me away as being of the same sex as Mr Clooney, I can confidently conclude that 'Mornings' is a bona fide officially gay-friendly show. (Having slagged off Channel 9's record a few entries ago, it's good to see they're not all bad.) Yay! Cue waving of rainbow flags and playing of disco classics as Kerri-Anne is escorted up to gay heaven by a group of buff scantily-clad angels.

I wouldn't have doubted it for a moment, of course. Kezza's obsession with shoes gives her away instantly as Friend of the Same-Sex-Attracted.

UK terror plot

2006-08-15T21:35:00.000+10:00

Terrorists? In High Wycombe? But they have such a lovely John Lewis there...

Support happiness

2006-08-13T17:50:00.000+10:00

Miffed

2006-08-10T19:54:00.000+10:00

I was a bit of a slow starter at the Melbourne International Film Festival, but I've now reached a steady pace of a movie a day (actually quite restrained in the scheme of things). At events like this, you gotta kiss a few frogs to, er, find the mixed metaphor pearls. I particularly enjoyed:

Bubble (for its stunning simplicity)

Mutual Appreciation (for its almost-too-painful-to-watch humour)

and A Little Trip to Heaven (for Forest Whitaker).

But if you're in Melbourne and fancy giving MIFF a whirl, there's not much point in me telling you about the stuff that's already been on. Luckily there is a film coming up which I have actually seen (as it was out in the UK a good year ago) - and I can confirm that if you're looking for a scary 'Chicks in Caves' movie (and who isn't?)

The Descent (7pm, Friday) is the one to go for.

Oh, Brother

2006-08-09T20:14:00.000+10:00

So there we were wandering down Flinders Lane around 10 last night, when I spotted some guys walking down the other side of the street.

"He's wearing a headband like Jamie" (who just won Big Brother here) was my first thought. Then I realised the headband was that particular ruffled kind that I've only ever seen on Jamie. Further inspection confirmed initial findings - he was wearing the trademark fisherman pants.

It was Jamie.

And I think it's a sign of the maturity I've achieved through the many years I've spent on this planet, that the one thought that flashed through my mind, was:

I'VE SEEN YOU NAKED!!!

Oh so Studley

2006-08-08T18:09:00.000+10:00

It's there. And we can't ignore it any more. In less than three weeks, I'll be heading back to the UK. Not for ever mind, but I'll be gone a good six weeks (so I can earn a bit of cash while I'm there) which seems like for ever right now. It kind of hit us at the weekend, bringing a slight feeling of gloom.

But then there was the bike ride. We set off for Studley Park boathose from the bike hire place next to Riverland. We rode along the river through a strange conglomeration of city and country, motorway and field, factory and farm, sometimes right by the river, sometimes up above it. The weather was glorious. And all the gloom simply evaporated in the winter sunshine.

It was bloody knackering, mind. 'A leisurely 40 minute roll' according to Lonely Planet, but an hour later, we were still huffing and puffing our unfit way along the track. Eventually we made it to the boathouse for a well-earned brunch, after which we just about had enough energy to enjoy the city views on the way back.

It was a fun day out. And it also made me realise that the main thing right now is to get the most out of the next three weeks.

Taxidermy

2006-08-04T15:33:00.000+10:00

On the Today show this morning Dermot Brereton, ex-footballer, ex-Dancing on Ice contestant and ex-Bachelor of the Year, was dragged out to discuss this year's Bachelor competition. Somewhere on a hilltop in Melbourne, he came out with the immortal line (I'm quoting from memory here): "If you don't win it one year, you just go back and enter it the next. If you have to enter it a third year, they're either trying to tell you something or you're a POOF."

It wasn't just the word, it was the venomous way he spat it out, as 'tough' blokes do when they want to emphasise their masculinity. At this point, we cut back to Karl and Jess in the studio. They looked suitably uncomfortable, but the best response they could muster was a slightly disapproving "Oh, Dermy" from each of them, before moving on to another question.

I was a little shocked and a lot disappointed. But if truth be told, I actually expected Australia to be a lot more like that (I guess we all have our prejudices) and have been pleasantly surprised to find that - on the whole - it's not.

Still, maybe it's time to defect to the Channel 7 breakfast show. They don't have Jess, but I do love their satellite link-ups with the Hollywood gossip guy...

The blog entry of the video of the podcast

2006-08-03T21:43:00.000+10:00

To mark Steven's forthcoming journey from blogger to podcaster, we did a little messing around with a video-camera. So here now, for your audio-visual delight, are not one but two fruits of that day. I heart iMovie...

'The Pitch'

'Noise'

Last night

2006-08-02T22:29:00.000+10:00

We did nothing in particular last night. We chatted, ate Twisties, carbonara and ice-cream, watched the two-hour Rove special and tapped away on our Macs.

It was great.

Things you may not know about me

2006-08-01T20:44:00.000+10:00

Not my own title, but that of a 'meme' for which my name has been put forward. My favourite bit of the whole thing was reading about what a meme is. (Though high-falutin' language aside, in this case it's basically the equivalent of one of those chain letter thingies people used to send round on the email.)

A) Four jobs I have had in my life
1. Choirboy (I started on £2 every 3 months)
2. Hospital basement delivery driver
3. Banana picker
4. Advertising copywriter

B) Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Grease
2. Star Wars. IV, V or VI. (Not that I'm dissing I, II and III, but I wouldn't watch them over and over.)
3. Singin' in the rain. Or High Society.
4. Back to the Future

C) Four places I have lived:
1. Bristol
2. Jerusalem
3. London
4. Melbourne

D) Four TV shows you love to watch: (at the moment)
TV here is almost impossible to watch - far too many commercial breaks and over-hysterical trailers. But I do love the following:
1. Rove - very funny chat show - the tiny Australian love-child of Chris Evans and Graham Norton
2. Kath & Kim - part of my education about Aussie suburban life
3. The Wedge - ditto
4. My Name is Earl

E ) Four places you have been on holiday:
1. Cambodia
2. Barcelona
3. Egypt
4. Frenchman's Creek (below)

F) Websites you visit daily:
I don't actually visit all of these daily.
1. Google
2. The Guardian
3. Apple (it came as the homepage and I can't bear to change it)
4. Wil Wheaton (the godfather of blogging)

G ) Four of my favourite foods:
1. Crispy duck pancakes
2. Cheese & tomato sandwich
3. Chocolate mousse
4. Seedless grapes

H) Four places I would rather be right now:
There's nowhere I would rather be right now.

I) Four Blogger friends I think will respond:
Apart from Dan who put me up for this, I don't really know any bloggers. Other than Steven, of course. Luckily, unlike their email counterparts, these things don't come with sub-clauses promising you bad luck, plague and pestilence if you don't pass them on.

Big Brother wins

2006-07-31T18:46:00.000+10:00

I was going to write a proper entry tonight. But the Big Brother "finale" is on in the background. And I'm afraid it's got 99% of my attention. Another 0.95% goes to Steven, who is sitting next to me like an excited child at Christmas, waiting to try out his new podcasting headphones. That leaves 0.05% to blog with, which is why this is going to be as good as it gets. Sorry. You'lll have my full attention tomorrow.

Even more Modern

2006-07-27T14:40:00.000+10:00

You gotta love Tate Modern. And now Herzog and de Meuron, the dudes that did the original conversion, are planning this crazy extension. I love it already. Apparently it can "be interpreted in two ways: as the erosion of a pyramid and, in contrast, as a pyramid in the process of emerging." Er, yeah. And it looks good too. If all goes to plan, it should be ready for the Olympics. London just gets better and better.

Perfect Day

2006-07-26T15:22:00.001+10:00

When I found myself "resting" between jobs last year, I happened to be watching Richard & Judy (the First Couple of British daytime TV), which is of course one of the perks of not working. Their in-house life-smith, Dr Raj Persaud, was doing a segment on Motivation - how to do all those things you never quite get round to doing. It seemed like a good time to be pursuing such matters, so I happily rang the premium line number and forked out the required £1.50 for the accompanying factsheet.

When it arrived, I enthusiastically threw myself into the various exercises it contained. One of them asked you to describe what your perfect day would be like in a completely anything-goes-sky's-the-limit world. In mine, I awoke in a sumptuous lakeside house just outside Barcelona and spent the morning working on my novel. I can't quite remember what I got up to in the afternoon, but it involved going into town and meeting up with friends. Then in the evening, I had dinner with my boyfriend Rufus Wainwright (not quite sure why I picked him, but he seemed like good ideal-world-boyfriend material - as long as he didn't have a relapse and end up back on the crystal meth, of course) after which he got us into some fascinating ubercool club.

Shortly after that, the work started coming in, and the factsheet ended up abandoned half-finished. (A classic vicious circle - I didn't have enough motivation to get through the thing that was supposed to give me motivation.)

But the reason I bring this up is that as I sat in one of my regular caffeine dens this morning tapping away on the trusty iBook, the whole thing drifted back into my mind. And it occurred to me that right now my life is pretty darn close to the real ideal which the exercise is supposed to reveal. The mornings I spend writing my book, and the evenings I spend enjoying the company of my great boyfriend. Melbourne may not be quite as curvaceous as Barcelona, but it's still pretty groovy. Steven may not have released quite as many CDs as Rufus, but I can live with that. And my friends are the other side of the planet, but I'll be seeing them soon.

Of course, it won't be long before I have to do some proper work again to get more of that stuff called money. But today I just thought I'd stop and look around. And the view looks good.

Meryl's choice

2006-07-25T18:17:00.000+10:00

Given the intense rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne, visitors to these shores are repeatedly plagued by the question: "So which do you prefer?" I hate being asked that. It's like asking a doting parent to choose between their two children.

Sydney is the good-looking slightly vacuous child - confident and easy-going. Melbourne is the pale but interesting child looking moody in the corner, dressed mostly in black, head buried in a dog-eared paperback.

I love them both. Don't make me choose.

Scream if you want to go faster

2006-07-24T16:49:00.000+10:00

July's been a roller-coaster ride of a blogging experience. After registering with Best Gay Blogs, this lil ol' site appeared in their 'Newbies of the week' column at the start of the month. Stopping only to install a Stat Counter, I huddled over the laptop watching my hits climb to the giddy (for me) heights of 150 'unique users' a day. The country stats became a bit of an obsession - Look! Three readers from Japan! Two from Norway! One from Uruguay! The next week, it was Steven's turn to be listed (complete with glamorous photo) as a Newbie, described as 'Simply a must-read'. Some really lovely comments and emails followed, which was, well, really lovely. Other bloggers started linking to us, and I even stumbled across a post about one of my posts entitled 'Dan's the man'. One reader has now gone on to start his own blog - I look forward to reading more about his coming-out experiences.

As the days rolled by and we slipped further and further down the BGB front page, the hits dropped back down to a more modest level. Now that we're off the front page completely, the parade has packed up and moved on, thoughtfully taking their litter with them. But to all of you who've decided to stick around - thanks, it's good to have you here.

Anything else?

2006-07-19T18:37:00.000+10:00

So when do you tell someone you love them? When do you know you love them? What's the difference between liking someone and loving someone anyway? What is love? (As even the groovalicious folk at Deee-lite once had to ask.) A guy could go crazy thinking about it too much. All I know is that (for me, anyway) in the first three months, you're too doolally for rational thought, so you're maybe better off waiting. If you don't feel like running in the opposite direction after that, the outlook's good. But when are you sure enough to actually come out and say it?

In this case, the dilemma was neatly solved for me last Thursday morning as the plane took off. The old lore about XX% of crashes occurring during take-off and landing flashed through my head - as it often does on such occasions. But this time, my biggest fear was that if our upward trajectory should flatten out for that split second before becoming an unstoppable descent, then I would never have got to tell Steven how I felt.

So when we got back from Sydney on Sunday, I was determined to get it off my chest that night. A couple of opportunities passed by ungrasped, until finally Steven asked, as is his wont when we've finished a topic of conversation, "Anything else?" I was silent for a second - and then the words just seemed to blurt themselves out of my mouth, much quicker, higher-pitched and generally uncooler than I would have liked.

But at least I'd said it. Air travel's going to be so much less stressful.

Mirror image

2006-07-19T18:01:00.000+10:00

Steven by me

Me by Steven

My five fave things to do in Sydney

2006-07-18T15:15:00.000+10:00

A leisurely late breakfast at Bills. I snapped the ricotta hotcakes and banana with honeycomb butter. But the sweetcorn fritters with roast tomato and bacon are also to die for. (If the queue's too long, Mint is just as fabulous.)

A wander through the leafy streets of Paddington, among the sweet old terraced houses with their finely wrought balconies. Peace and quiet in the city.

The walk from Kings Cross to the Opera House. Down the steps, past Finger Wharf (stopping at Harry's Cafe de Wheels for pie, mash and mushy peas), through the Botanical Gardens, ending up with a well-earned drink at the Opera Bar.

Tea and cake at Gertrude and Alice. Ariel and Berkelouw are both good bookshops, but a little further down Oxford Street lies this second-hand delight. They know what they're doing - you'll almost certainly end up buying whatever you thumb through.

And the fifth thing? Well, that's really none of your business...

The ex and the current

2006-07-17T15:01:00.000+10:00

My very first boyfriend was also Australian (what can I say, they're a good-looking bunch). He now lives in Sydney. so we'd arranged to catch up while I was there. We ended up meeting for a drink when he finished work. At this point Steven called.

HIM: You sound like you're out.
ME: Yes, I'm at the Columbian. With Vaughan.

As I was originally going to meet Vaughan for lunch, this probably surprised Steven a little, but he took it well. After we finished our drink, Vaughan suggested we go out in Newtown, as I hadn't been there before. It sounded like a good plan, so he drove me over there, stopping at his place on the way so he could shower and change. This seemed like an opportune time to call Steven back.

HIM: So are you back at the hotel?
ME: No, I'm at Vaughan's place.

Hmmm. In retrospect, maybe not the best time to call back. He seemed a little more concerned this time, but relaxed when I explained the circumstances. We went for a Thai meal on King Street with one of Vaughan's friends, and then headed down the road to the Newtown Hotel for a few beers. I went outside to make a reassuring call to Steven.

HIM: So are you having a good evening?
ME: (drunkenly) BLA BLA SDFJWE XDFOIJF XDFKJHSAD SHKJDF VBAKDLJFH BLAH.

Hmmm. Probably not that reassuring after all. We went on to the Imperial, spiritual home of 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' to see their interpretation of 'Grease' - the costumes were designed so that when the T-Birds turned round, they magically transformed into Pink Ladies. As Steven was working the next day, he was spared any further calls. Vaughan and his friend dropped me back at the hotel (even though it was completely out of their way). Steven called me bright and early the next morning.

HIM: How was your night. (Subtext: OK, tell me the worst.)
ME: It was good. (Subtext: I came back to the hotel. Alone.)

All in all, he was pretty relaxed about it, seeing as he's only known me for four months and there I was in a different city spending an evening with an ex he's never met. But much as I was glad to see Vaughan and pleased to find out that he's well and happy a decade on, he's still the ex-boyfriend. And Steven's still the boyfriend.

The gay hotel gene

2006-07-14T15:37:00.000+10:00

It's our Sydney weekend this weekend. I flew up yesterday, a day earlier than Steven, and checked into the Kirketon, the hotel we booked using the gay hotel gene. I've washed my hair in the rosemary and mint shampoo under the giant shower head, pumped my music through the iTrip to the stereo while watching the music channel on mute, played with the air conditioning, danced in front of the mirror, hooked up to the wireless internet and borrowed a movie from their VHS library (SO retro). But it's just not as much as fun on your own (well, apart from the dancing bit). So roll on tonight, when Steven gets here to enjoy it with me.

The Great Kylie Dilemma

2006-07-11T15:46:00.000+10:00

As well as being an avid devotee of horror movies, the multi-faceted Steven is also a big Kylie Minogue fan. Kylie is about to complete the previously cancelled Australian leg of her Showgirls tour, finishing in her home-town of Melbourne. Having seen a couple of her concert DVDs (it's part of my re-education programme), I can confirm that she does put on a good show - and this one should be extra-special. Ticketek will be releasing a limited number of tickets next week, but as people who had tickets for the old gigs are guaranteed entry to the new ones, there won't be many available. So when a Ticketek envelope with the code KYLIEM06 on it arrived in our mailbox addressed to a previous tenant, it seemed likely that there were some re-issued tickets inside. And thus Steven was faced with The Great Kylie Dilemma. A short interval of brow-furrowing followed, but I don't think there was ever really any doubt about the outcome - he decided to Do The Right Thing and Return To Sender. I don't know if I would have acted so honestly if some potential Radiohead tickets had landed in my lap, but I was fairly sure all along what Steven would decide. It turns out that they're not actually re-issuing the tickets and it was just a postcard in the envelope, but I love the fact that Steven wasn't going to risk the possibility of someone else losing out. That's just the way he is. I'm sure Kylie would approve.

Life's a beach

2006-07-10T18:36:00.000+10:00

After our Sunday lunch, one of the guys we were with drove us down to the local gay beach to show us around. As it's the middle of winter here, the beach itself was deserted - but not the car park. There was a long line of parked cars, each with a single male occupant. We got out and walked down to the sea, passing a few more lone men wandering along footpaths that meandered through the bushes. I couldn't help but wonder who these guys were. Were they married? In the closet? Or did they just like the thrill of the chase enough to while away the afternoon waiting patiently in their cars? I once read In the Shadow of the American Dream, the diaries of David Wojnarowicz, who dedicated many hours of his short life to cruising. The writing contains long dreary patches, interspersed with flashes of searing intensity - much like the life he describes.

Have Metcard. Will travel.

2006-07-09T20:14:00.000+10:00

We don't leave the CBD (Central Business District, for those not familiar with Aussie parlance) that often, but this weekend we hopped on the trams and trains on all three days. Friday night we went to South Yarra for pizza and a movie (Junebug - I really liked it, Steven wasn't so sure). Saturday we headed over to Richmond for a lovely night with Sarah. And Sunday we had lunch with some guys in South Melbourne and wandered round the market. It's nice to get out. And (maybe I'm geting old) even nicer to come home again, have some quality time with a quality guy and enjoy slobbing out in my ridiculously comfy new Peter Alexander pyjama bottoms. Sadly they didn't have the striped ones I wanted in my size, so I had to make do with the classic travel rug pattern - thankfully, they'll have a very limited audience.

FAQ

2006-07-06T20:48:00.000+10:00

The Question I'm most Frequently Asked is "So what do you do all day?" Good question. The first thing to note is that, as I'm on a tourist visa, "employment is prohibited". They've got quite a nice ring to them, those three little words. Much nicer than "chocolate is prohibited", for instance. I still try and get up before Steven leaves at 8:30ish - and, er, mostly succeed. I have a cup of tea and some muesli and watch a bit of breakfast TV, while checking my email, flicking through The Guardian website and reading updates on other people's blogs. At some point I manage to tear myself away from both screens and go off to feed my other addiction - caffeine. Melbourne's blessed with a host of great cafes that make a mean coffee, and I'll while away the rest of the morning drinking a couple of 'flat whites' while writing my book. (Don't laugh. Yes, it's crap at the moment, but I'm hoping to make it better.) I might meet Steven for lunch or else head back to the flat. In the afternoon, I'll do a bit of blogging, read some of Lynda's manuscript (criticising other people's work is so much easier than doing your own!), though at the moment it's more catching up on Wimbledon. Then there's a bit of last-minute house stuff which might involve supermarket shopping, emptying the dishwasher and tidying up the day's debris. (Steven's a minimalist - I'm a messimalist.) And that takes me to 5:30 when my guy gets home. Hooray.

Glamour shots

2006-07-05T18:09:00.000+10:00

We're not just featured on our own blogs. We were both snapped on a night out with some guys from a workshop that Steven had been on, and the pictures have since been all over the, er, photo page of the venue's website. And we're not just talking any old venue, we're talking DT's, the most glamorous gay pub in, er, Richmond. OK, so it's the only gay pub in Richmond.

Here are the photos, in case you missed the link on Steven's blog. Steven's the good-looking one in the top photo (as I'm almost sure the other two wouldn't mind me saying). And I'm the one on the right in the other photo.

When the photographer was doing the rounds, I desperately wanted him to get a photo of me and Steven. But as I was stuck in a corner, this would have meant butting out of a conversation, upending a table with everybody's drinks on and clambering over a few people to get to him.

So I didn't.

And the award for Best Gay Conspiracy Theory goes to...

2006-07-04T16:50:00.000+10:00

So I finally saw Crash. I liked it a lot. When it beat Brokeback Mountain to Best Film at the Oscars, there was a lot of talk in both gay and not-so-gay media that it was all down to some sort of anti-homo conspiracy. I was on a "three gay men in a Hyundai" road-trip up the east coast at the time, and I rather think I might have got a little indignant myself that "our" film hadn't won. If so, I (rather sheepishly) take it all back. Both fine films. Both worthy of accolades.

Hot and bothered

2006-07-03T21:07:00.000+10:00

There was much chortling on Australian breakfast TV this morning at the news that the UK government is issuing advice on how to deal with dangerous heat levels of 32C.

(Sample piece of advice: "Wear light, loose-fitting clothing, such as cotton, so sweat can evaporate." Wow, I must try that sometime.)

As summer temperatures here regularly reach 35C+ without anybody going into a state of panic, I can see why this would amuse.

To their credit, nobody actually used the words "whinging" or "pom".

Eureka part 2

2006-07-03T18:28:00.000+10:00

Sunday dawned grey and wet. (Well, I assume it did, it was certainly grey and wet by the time we got up.) So we contented ourselves with the excitement of an outing to the local Nando's, followed by a quick detour down to the river to get another snap of Eureka Tower, somewhat different to the one from two days earlier. But that's Melbourne for ya. "Four seasons in a day" as they like to say here. Apparently.

Meeting the parent part 2

2006-07-02T15:45:00.000+10:00

I met my dad and stepmother at their hotel, and we took a tram into town. We got off a stop early to make the most of the view as you enter the city centre. Melbourne (like many of us) looks better at night. We passed the National Gallery's illuminated fountains and the light-studded spire of the Arts Centre before walking across Prince's bridge with the city skyline laid out in front of us (picture by Steven). This brought us neatly to the crazy angles of Federation Square, the city's central landmark and our destination.

The meal went just as seamlessly as the journey. Steven had had the brainwave of suggesting bokchoy tang as the restaurant of choice, and it was just right - great Chinese food in a relaxed atmosphere. The four of us chatted away about this and that, and all in all it was a very pleasant evening.

After we'd left them at the tram stop, me and Steven naturally felt like rewarding ourselves with a drink (or several). We ended up at Horse Bazaar, a 'digital art bar' which was heaving. We propped up the bar and watched the youngsters making merry to a bunch of Brazilian DJ's. A good end to a good night.

[For a view from another side of the table, click here.]

Meeting the parent

2006-07-01T13:48:00.000+10:00

So my Dad and his wife got into town last night. They've come halfway round the world for some conference (all arranged long before I ended up here). Steven's bravely agreed to come out to dinner with them tonight. It'll be the first time my Dad's met a partner of mine since I came out to him by bringing my first boyfriend home for Christmas. (In retrospect that might not have been the best way to do it.) Things should be a little easier this time, as he's had twelve years since then to get used to the idea. Tonight may well be a little nerve-wracking for all of us, but I think that once we get past that, it should be good.

Sunshine

2006-06-30T18:26:00.000+10:00

Still feeling a bit under the weather, so spent the day in the flat. It was a sunny day, but we look out onto a courtyard - as do the seven floors above us - which means the sun never makes it down this far. So I decided to walk a couple of blocks down to the river and feel a bit of winter sun on my face. Eureka Tower was positively glinting in the sunshine. This almost completed skyscraper is the tallest residential building in the world (at least until Trump finishes the one he's building in New York). It's sleek and unusual and really does look like it's scraping the sky. We like.

Noise pollution

2006-06-30T16:47:00.000+10:00

OK, I admit it. I snore. And not in that gentle soothing kind of way, more in a loud intrusive way, like a rickety juggernaut bombing down a dirt track. It's in the genes: my dad snores for England, and when I stayed with my cousin in New Zealand the whole house shook. Luckily for me, Steven's managed to put up with it. But just as he'd started sleeping through it all, I go and get tonsilitis. Suddenly I'm snoring more like the demon in the Exorcist might after a hard day's head-spinning, spewing and cussing people's dead mothers. I know this not just because Steven alerted me to the fact, but because I actually heard myself as I woke up. Sorry, Steven. Normal pneumatic drill sounds will be resumed as soon as possible.

Howard's Way

2006-06-28T16:13:00.000+10:00

The Australian Capital Territory, a small piece of land surrounding the capital Canberra, recently voted to introduce civil unions for same-sex partners throughout their tiny region. All well and good, you might think.

Step up Australian Prime Minister John Howard. He doesn't like it. "The fundamental difficulty I have with the ACT legislation is the clause which says that a civil union is different from marriage but has the same entitlements," he says.

(This puts him firmly to the right of George Bush who, while opposed to gay marriage, supports "leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage.")

Now, I'm a little murky on the mechanics of Australian politics, but apparently because the ACT is a "territory" rather than a "state", the Prime Minister can overrule it. And overrule it he did, by sending the Attorney General to the Governor-General to get his signature on behalf of the Commonwealth.

In another ingenious step, Howard swapped his usual suit for a ridiculous slim-fit Australia tracksuit and invited a breakfast television programme to film him cheering on the Socceroos (the Australian football team) from the comfort of the prime-ministerial living room.

Both moves seem designed purely to increase his popularity.

Both, I trust, will turn out to have backfired.

Birthday boy

2006-06-23T17:58:00.000+10:00

It was my godson Jake's eleventh birthday this week. So last weekend we had a video iChat for him to open the rather uninspiring presents I'd sent, which he received a lot more enthusiastically than I would have at his age. It was good to see him.

It looks extremely unlikely that I'll end up with kids of my own, so it's been great to be able to hang out with Jake over the years, just kicking a football round a park or whatever. However messed up or confusing my life appeared to be, these were moments when everything seemed clear. I'd like to think that I might have contributed in some tiny way to Jake growing into such a great human being, but what's more definite is that he's helped turn me into a better person.

There's no business like snow business

2006-06-20T16:58:00.000+10:00

While getting my regular fix at Astronomy Picture of the Day, I discovered possibly the ultimate in (not so) hot webcam action. Yes, it's North-Pole-Cam, transmitting the latest "snow cover, weather conditions and the status of PMEL's North Pole instrumentation" to all points due south. This was the state of play at the time of posting - I for one will be glued to my screen to see what happens next. But hurry! The webcam is solar powered, and only gets enough light to transmit between April and October.

Weekender

2006-06-19T15:12:00.000+10:00

I had a blissful weekend.

Not because of the fabulous pasta and atmosphere in the Cellar Bar (Londoners: think Amato moving round the corner into Bar Italia) or the fun time at Spleen or the visit to the Traders' Bar (great idea - the price of each drink fluctuates throughout the evening depending on how many people are buying it - sadly, a bit rubbish otherwise).

Not because of the shopping trip where we both bought a pair of Converse (in different colours) and the same jumper (in different colours) [how sad are we!], or the night eating ice-cream in front of 'A Perfect Murder'.

Not because of the afternoon in 'historic' Williamstown (a row of vaguely old buildings sandwiched in between a couple of tower blocks) looking out at the industrial bay view.

But because of the uninterrupted Quality Time I got to spend with Steven through it all.

Aaaaaargh!

2006-06-18T20:55:00.000+10:00

Steven is starting to scare me. He's made me jump, cry out and curl up with fear. Don't worry, i'm no Julia Roberts and this isn't Sleeping with the Enemy - instead, Steven's made it his mission to further my embarrassingly poor education in the field of horror movies. So far he's persuaded me to watch When A Stranger Calls (the remake), Wrong Turn, The Omen (remake), Happy Birthday To Me, The Fog (remake), Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th Part 2. (The syllabus excludes Parts 3 to 11 due to the Horror Law of Diminishing Returns.) It's been fun.

Dazed

2006-06-15T18:57:00.000+10:00

Saturday night was a game of two halves - the En-ger-land match and Winterdaze, a legendary (so I'm told) Melbourne gay dance party.

For the former, I slipped away from the apartment, where we'd been having a few drinks with Alex and Anna (the two ladies who were accompanying us to Winterdaze), to the Irish pub down the road - (almost) just in time for the 11pm kick-off. The upstairs bar had a big(ish) screen, blaring sound and around 15 people sitting around. I ordered a pint, found a spare bar-stool and perched. England scored. I drank my pint. Then it was the half-time toilet break, pint ordering and a scoreless 2nd half slid by. I got talking to a guy wrapped in a St George's flag. I don't think I've ever talked to a guy in an English flag before, but expats can't be choosers. An Aussie guy told him that 1-0 was nothing, that his (Australian football) team won their last match 15-7. Me and Flag Guy had a good old laugh about that.

Then I walked the short distance to Winterdaze to meet the others at 1.15. for an action-packed second half to the evening. It was an impressive event on four floors - and the Melbourne boys had turned out in force to enjoy it. We went from the basement to the roof terrace and back again, enjoying the happy atmosphere on each floor. I even bumped into someone I'd met before - John and Austin's friend from Mardi Gras - which kinda made me feel like a bit of a local. After a few hours, me and Steven slipped away into the morning and left the gals to it.

Post-match analysis: a good game, full of contrasting styles, though the players were obviously tiring towards the end.

You. Are. Gold.

2006-06-13T20:00:00.000+10:00

Last week, we went for a night out with some people from Steven's work, courtesy of one of their printers. It was the first time I've ever been to a works do as someone's partner, so that was nice enough in itself. But to add the cherry to the proverbial cake, we were going to a Gold Class cinema screening. Do they have this in London? I don't remember hearing about it. Basically, it's a smallish cinema screen but instead of the normal rows of seats, you get posh versions of those Chandler 'n Joey style recliner seats, arranged in pairs round small tables. Eight of us went, and we took up an entire row. (And there were only three other rows.) The tables are important, because it is there the waiters place the goodies you ordered beforehand. The ice-cream tubs come on a saucer. With a folded napkin. And a real tea-spoon. The Maltesers come in a proper bowl. (Most commendable as it eliminates rustling.) The beer comes cold and the coffee comes hot. And you get to choose exactly when it arrives. This could actually get a bit annoying, as there's a bit of a stream of waiters bringing stuff, so you wouldn't want to see a good movie there. Luckily, we were seeing The Da Vinci Code. What with the ice-cream, the Maltesers and the rather nice Italian meal we'd had downstairs at one of the Crown Casino's glitzy restaurants, I occasionally felt the need to burp. Thanks to the luxury seats, this wasn't a problem - whenever necessary, I glided up from a horizontal position to a sitting one, belched (silently, I hasten to add) and glided straight back down again. Ancient Rome would definitely have approved.

1 Dalmation

2006-06-07T21:24:00.000+10:00

By popular demand, here's the photo of the dalmation puppy I mentioned earlier. John got him for Austin's 30th. They've christened him Woody - after Vivenne Westwood, natch.

Sweet dreams (are made of this)

2006-06-07T15:38:00.000+10:00

We bought three important items for the flat at the weekend:

1. An Airport Express. As a two iBook household, we can now both go online at the same time. From anywhere in the flat. No more "Have you finished with the internet yet?" Domestic bliss.

2. A cork board. (I don't think you need a link for that one.) We'd both fancied one of these, allowing for the putting up of all sorts of things. Like photos of us. Or maybe of you folks back home. Or the children which you lot seem to be producing in alarming numbers. Or your dalmation puppies.

3. A (second) Malm bedside table from Ikea. The Malm bedside table attaches to the Malm bed. With a Malm bedside table on one side but not the other, it still felt like Steven's place. But with one on each side, it now feels more like our place. A little thing, to be sure. But one that makes sleeping together even nicer.

The other half

2006-06-07T14:05:00.000+10:00

So this is Steven. He's the one at the back. He may look littler, but that's the power of perspective for you. Steven's the reason I'm still in Melbourne, getting interrogated by immigration officers, drinking beer that tastes of the smell of sweaty socks, too far away from En-ger-land for the World Cup, having to get up at 5am for one of the England matches, putting up with winter (well, they call it winter) when it should be summer, watching TV channels with too many commercial breaks and making do with Liptons instead of PG. But trust me. He's worth it.

Alien landing

2006-06-04T18:09:00.000+10:00

Originally, I was only going to spend a month in Australia. Luckily my round-the-world ticket was flexible, so no problems there. And according to the Australian Government website, the conditions of my electronic visa are:

"It is valid for visits to Australia for tourism or to visit friends or relatives
It is valid for multiple visits within 12 months from date of issue
The maximum length of each visit is three months
You may not work while in Australia"

Which all sounded fine and dandy. Wanting to do everything by the book, I flew to New Zealand shortly before my first three months in Oz was up.

Had a lovely time - spent a few days in Auckland with my friend Mark who was, as ever, a most entertaining host. Then nipped down to Wellington to hang out with my cousins and their family for a few more days. After a thoroughly enjoyable time, I boarded the plane back to Melbourne last week.

The guy at the immigration desk called his boss over. "Shall I let him through?" he asked, his stamp poised an inch above the page, his arm muscles taut in readiness to descend. The boss studied my details on the screen and thought about it. "No, I'll just ask him a few questions."

He pulled me out of the queue and started asking. He then suggested that as there were so many people about, we might be better off somewhere a little quieter. We went through a door, down a corridor and into a little room containing a table with a chair on either side. A second door contained a window with mirrored stripes. It looked like something out of The Bill (or Blue Heelers, depending on your hemisphere).

He questioned me for over an hour. We went over the same areas again and again, what I'd been doing in the last three months, what I was going to do for the next three months, when I'd last worked and so on. It was not a pleasant experience. He wasn't exactly rude, but he certainly pushed brusqueness to new levels. I didn't go into my relationship with Steven at first as a) I didn't see it was any of his business and b) I thought it might have a negative impact, but eventually he said, "You must have a really good reason to keep coming back to Melbourne." To which I replied, "Yes, to spend more time with Steven."

Once he was aware of our relationship, he actually became a lot nicer. There were still loads of questions to get through - how I was going to support myself etc. - but the general atmosphere was much more pleasant. I think he must have suspected I was coming back to Melbourne for work, and was relieved to find out I was only coming back for a man.

And I guess I should be thankful that we live in a time when coming back for a man is considered a valid reason. I can't imagine that would have got such a good reception 20 years ago. There's even a special "interdependency" visa for men in relationships. (Though you have to have lived together for a year first - the words "catch" and "twenty-two" spring to mind.)

So still some question-marks for the future, but the main feeling was a huge relief that I'm here for another three months now. When I'd recovered enough to leave the flat, me and Steven went out to the local grotty Irish pub. I'd forgotten how so much draught beer here tastes like the smell of sweaty socks. But that night, the taste was sweet.

First post

2006-06-02T17:02:00.000+10:00

So there I was on my round the world tour, pretty much halfway round in fact. You must get in touch with Steven if you go to Melbourne, Lynda had said, so I did. Went for a drink on the Saturday, woke up at his place on the Sunday, met up again on the Monday and moved in on the Wednesday. Craig David could write a song about it.

The end result being that the second half of my travels is on hold for now. Hence I'm moving from the World Tour blog to the Melbourne blog. The other one was hopelessly behind anyways, so this way you can read about what I'm doing right now instead of what I did four months ago. It's also a good excuse to move from iWeb to Blogger. Much as I love the Apple (more of which later, no doubt) I've been craving a blogspot blog like everyone else has got. And now I have one.