Misadventures on a Small Island

A very common question I keep getting asked is what Christmas is like in Australia. This means that my creative streak has been given a run. Stories can range from ‘Oh no, we do actually get snow. It’s 40 degrees in the day and then goes down to -10 at night and we usually get a blizzard on Christmas Eve. The Kangaroos hate it!’ to ‘Who’s this guy in red? At Christmas we sacrifice a platypus to appease the sun gods and then give each other a different platypus innard depending on how close the person is to you.’

It’s been fun.

What people seem to not realise is that in Australia, everything about Christmas is practically the same… just hotter. What’s struck me is how similar Christmas is here. Growing up in a country where the temperature regularly gets up to 40 on Christmas Day, yet the pervading imagery around the place is of furs and snow. It has always felt a little wrong.

Being in the cold feels right at Christmas. Especially because this year mother nature put on a show and made it snow a week ago. I’m currently sitting in a room with a real tree, surrounded by traditional Christmas decorations and when I look out the back window there’s a blanket of white across the garden. It’s slightly magical. And the fact that I’ve been accepted into Em’s family like I’m one of them is something that makes it even better (I was just given my first chore. Emptying the bin on to the compost heap. I think that means I’m one of them now.).

One thing is missing, though. The fact that my family and friends from the past 24 odd years are approximately 9000 miles from here. It’s funny though, because I don’t get homesick. Everyone tells me it will hit me soon, but it never has. I think it’s mostly because I’m still slightly in denial that I’m so far away and thanks to technology I am never that far away from family and friends. In fact, Facebook is a great way to say hello to someone, which I’m sure is not what it’s meant for. Since I’ve been in the UK, I’ve rarely used it to stalk and have actually used it to communicate with people! It’s especially fun when I’m sitting at my desk at 9 in the morning talking to my inebriated friends at 8 at night.

I’ve gone off on a tangent. Back to what I was talking about.

The first time I’ve been here and felt slightly homesick (or maybe just nostalgic) was this morning. I was standing on the platform at Twickenham Station, freezing my hands off (we’re polite here. Plus I was wearing thermals so we weren’t worried about that) listening to my ipod. I’d just downloaded Tim Minchin’s ‘White Wine in the Sun’ and it damn near made me tear up. Mostly because it’s true. (cue cheese) I know that wherever I am in the world at Christmas, my dad, my brother, my sisters, my aunts and my uncles, my cousins, my gran(s) and my mum will be waiting for me in the sun.

So here I am, writing a sappy Christmas post to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and to let the people in Australia know that I miss them. All of them. Except for the ones in Doonside. And most of Western Australia. And Tasmania. Nobody misses Tasmania.

Merry Christmas.

Well, I’m assuming it was a rather boring week. Upon skimming over my diary I had, apart from a London outing on Monday, two exciting entries. Sofa being delivered. Interview. Now that’s excitement. That being said, I think I had enough excitement on the Monday to last an entire month.*

I started the week with a rather full London outing. I, very ambitiously, decided that I would visit the “museums” near the London Eye, The Tate Modern, Soho and possibly squeeze in some time at a cafe to finish off a blog post, all by 6 o’clock. Well, I almost succeeded. I visited the “museums” near the London Eye and visited the Tate Modern, and did it all by approximately 6 o’clock. What I hadn’t expected was that the Tate Modern would take up so much of my time. So much, in fact, that I declared that I would be visiting again very soon (to nobody in particular) as soon as I hurried out of the building.

So, first the “museums” near the London Eye. Why do I keep putting quotation marks around “museums,” I hear you ask? Because I strongly believe that if you need to pay to get into a so-called museum in London, then chances are it’s not actually a museum, but a cleverly disguised rouse that will result in you walking through the door and being beaten by two large Albanians. Whilst this wasn’t entirely accurate, it wasn’t far off.

I decided to walk down past the Dali museum, the Movie Museum (affectionately [sic: stupidly] called ‘The Movieum’), the aquarium and a few other tourist traps mostly because it was next to the London Eye. I’m sure that everyone knows what the London Eye is, but for those who don’t, it’s a rather large Ferris Wheel that takes about an hour to go the full way round, and robs you of about three thousand quid when you try and buy a ticket.** I wanted to see what the fuss was about, and I probably will fork out exorbitant amounts of money to stand on an observation deck for an hour seeing the parts of London I already have seen, but not today. Instead, I wandered down towards Westminster to see what I could find before heading up to the Tate Modern. When a rather cheery young lady handed me a flyer and promised me cheaper tickets to the Movie Museum, I couldn’t really resist. What could be better than a museum about movies? Not much.

After forking over a tenner for entry (thanks to another stroke of charity from the lady at the door), I entered into what was promising to be an extremely exciting experience. I was even allowed to photograph the exhibitions! In a nutshell, The Movieum is a collection of props and costumes that nobody particularly wants (or wants to see) anymore. I may be being a little too harsh, but the only thing that mildly interested me was some Harry Potter costumes, along with some original wands from the film, and that was only because I am a very very sad person (pathetic, not depressed). What irked me about the entire exhibition was not that these things were on display, but that they actually charged people to see them. And a lot of the time you weren’t even looking at artefacts from the main characters. Prime example: ‘a head from a zombie from Shaun of the Dead’. Thanks.

I decided to forgo the other prize museums (Dali Experience, London Aquarium, some haunted horror thing) and head off towards the Tate Modern. Along the way I stumbled across the previously mentioned National Theatre Shop. I’ve already commented on the shop, so let me comment on the National Theatre itself. While the National Theatre seems to produce quality show after quality show, the building in which it is contained is a bloody eyesore. It reminds of Macquarie University with all of it’s cement and bad 70s architecture. However, I do have to say that at night the time-honoured stage tradition of making something awful look much better through effective lighting comes into play. It’s kind of like an art installation where the artist is vomiting blue paint: it’s repulsive, but boy, the colours are pretty.

I headed onwards towards the Tate Modern, another slightly unattractive building that at least has history. I had decided to make a trip to the Tate Modern to see the PopLife exhibition, as I fancy myself a pop art liker (it’s not quite love). When glancing over the other exhibition I decided to part with even more money and make a day of the Tate Modern. I’m glad I did at least. The other exhibition is John Baldessari’s ‘Pure Beauty’, and having never heard of the artist, I ventured in unknowingly.

John Baldessari is a cheeky, cheeky man. I felt that he is an absurdist at heart, and has gone through so many changes that to look at three pieces from the 60s, the 80s and now, you wouldn’t recognise it as the same artist. I absolutely love his early work.

Here are some examples of his early work:

Basically, he was taking the piss. I like that.

His later work is a bit meh, and I found myself not really appreciating it. I sped up, out, fed and drank then continued on to PopLife.

PopLife is a celebration of late Pop Art (post late 80s). it includes Jeff Koons, late Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami and Keith Haring, amongst others. There was some absolute gems throughout the exhibition, as well as absolute bollocks. Personally, my favourite of the bollocks variety was a rather tasteful film of a lady artist and a male art dealer having sex for 60 minutes. It was her comment on how art dealers screw the artists. Apparently she paid the art dealer US$10,000 to partake.

After PopLife i stumbled through the rest of the galleries not really noticing anything. The two exhibitions that I had seen made me think and made me want to create something. I promptly emptied my wallet in the shop, buying things that would ‘inspire me’. They have yet to do so, but are doing a grand job of cluttering the study desk.

To end the day I took a stroll across Millennium Bridge. Yes, the Millennium Bridge that is destroyed in Harry Potter 6. I felt like I was walking across a celebrity. Not only were my feet touching someone(thing) famous, but I was treated to the beautiful sight of St Paul’s at night. Unfortunately photos just don’t do it justice, so after about 15 minutes of attempting to take a photo, I aimlessly wandered towards (where I thought there was) a tube station. I think I ended up near Brighton.

The rest of the week was fairly uninteresting. Sofa got delivered, Sofa got assembled. Job interview had, third job interview secured (give or take a week or two).

It’s Christmas in two days. I’ve got a week off so hopefully I can write and (almost) get this blog up to date. Either that or I’ll drink far too much mulled wine, eat too many mince pies and end up passed out on Em’s parents couch. Either way sounds pretty good to me.

*slight exaggeration

**another slight exaggeration

Even if you go to bed and there’s snow everywhere, and you have plans of getting up in the morning and racing around the streets with a camera before work, and you also have plans of renaming your immediate area ‘snowdonia’, and then you find out that apparently there’s already a place in the UK called ‘Snowdonia’ so you’ll have to call it ‘Snowland’ instead… doesn’t mean that when you wake up there will be any snow left.

Weather, you have killed Christmas. [/drama queen]

There has been a lack of updating, I’ve noticed. My getting a job is partly to blame. The other part is probably laziness and a desire to go places and see the UK. Mostly laziness, though. Yes, I am now the proud owner of a great job. I shall get to that at another time (once I’ve waded through the previous month’s goings on). This post is set between the 31st of October and the 9th of November. I’m getting there, I swear.

Thus the story continues. We headed back up to Letchworth on the Saturday for a birthday party. This meant remeeting most of Boo. Once again, this proved to be unproblematic and I didn’t seem to offend anyone at either dinner or drinks afterwards. This seems to be something I do of late. Not offend people. It’s becoming a habit. I must reassess my behaviours.

After a lovely night at home, Emily ventured off to her first day of work. I decided that this was the day to discover the leafy suburb of Twickenham. First thing I noticed was the distinct lack of leaves. there are a few, but not as many as other leafy suburbs like, say, Roseville. Thus, my labelling had failed me. Twickenham, however, is a lovely little place. There is a pub every 50 feet or so, and if you wander down the wrong street, you’ll end up at the Thames. Not a particularly picturesque view of the Thames, but the Thames nonetheless (That picture makes it look a lot better than it is. It’s mostly mud). There’s a lovely little street just off the high street with some nice shops, a few pubs and some restaurants. I imagine it would be even more lovely with people actually on it. However, I have yet to see any. There’s a rugby stadium down the road, Richmond down another and Windsor down yet another (although a bit further away). Twickenham is nice. Challenging it is not. As mentioned before, we live directly behind the police station. However, I’m fairly sure that if we left our front door open, lined up our valuable goods in the foyer and left a sign saying ‘don’t steal our stuff’, we’d be right, regardless of the police station.

I had a job interview the following day. This job interview, after a few weeks, led to a job. Not the job I actually interviewed for, but one that I kind of, sort of, expressed interest in about six months ago. The world works in very mysterious ways. In summary, I am very happy on the job front. More on that later.

After the interview I had a few hours to kill before meeting someone for drinks. I decided that instead of actually planning something to do, I would aimlessly wander around Covent Garden (Theatreland!) and try and find the elusive ‘Dress Circle’ theatre shop. Whilst it took me a mere four hours to actually find it (after giving up and asking someone), I think I managed to pass every single theatre in London. This served two purposes. First, I could see what was currently playing with my own eyes, and two I can now give you directions to anywhere in Central London, as long as I know which theatre it’s closest to. Bugger street names. Say you want to get from Waterloo Bridge to Leicester Square. Simple. Walk towards The Duchess and turn left when you see the Lyceum. Pass the Vaudeville and turn right at the Adelphi. When you see the Arts Theatre turn left. If you’ve hit Leicester Square Theatre, you’ve probably gone too far. Simple, right?

Anyway, I finally found the Dress Circle and fell in love. I also made frantic calls so that people would keep me away from this evil store until I had enough money to support my dirty, filthy habit. To summarise, the Dress Circle has everything to do with theatre. ever. If you can’t find it here, head to the National Theatre shop. If you can’t find it there, give up. It doesn’t really exist.

I made my way to Southwark for drinks late in the afternoon. I foolishly thought that London was a rather small place. I attempted to walk from Covent Garden to Southwark via Waterloo (for some reason). My feet were not happy. However, I did arrive earlier than I needed to and wasn’t going to partake in solo drinking, as I didn’t have any misery to drown. Instead, I decided to have a very quick look in the Tate Modern. Suffice it to say, I was impressed. I was definitely coming back to this rather large and ugly modern art gallery. I did, and therefore will tell you about that in another post. Drinking, food and merriment was had that night. A bit too much of the first, not enough of the second and from what I’m told, enough of the third.

After having the bed delivered (the highlight of the week, really. Not a dull week, just that I’m a bit sad), I decided to finish the week off with some of the more traditional museums. The Natural History Museum was my first call, and so I departed bright and early at midday and head off to see me some dinosaurs.

In a word, the Natural History Museum is… dull. However, in saying that, I couldn’t shut up about everything I learnt for the next week. In a nutshell, seeing stuffed animals and casts of skeletons doesn’t excite me terribly. There were a few interesting tidbits. The giant tree that they have dissected and placed on a wall and a ceiling is quite cool. Some of the precious stones they have in their collection are sparkly and nice. Apart from that, the only thing worth seeing is the building. The building itself is quite amazing. This purpose made building looks more like a giant cathedral than a museum. It is a beautiful building and a pleasure to walk through. However, this was achieved fairly quickly with nothing much else keeping me interested.

I ventured to the Science Museum the following day with a little hesitation. Basically, I was expecting a less cool version of Canberra’s Questacon. I was correct. It’s not that the Science Museum wasn’t interesting, it was the fact that it was entirely aimed towards people about a third of my age. At least I wasn’t too disappointed. I was expecting this, remember? What I wasn’t expecting was The Listening Post.

The Listening Post is an art installation based on real time, uncensored snippets of text from social networking sites, forums and discussion boards across the internet. It doesn’t sound like much, yet this piece had me captivated for almost an hour. It was interesting, yet also quite poignant and a little sad (in a depressing way. Not a pathetic way). It provides a bit of an insight into society and our behaviours by picking on phrases like ‘i want’ and ‘i like’. It’s very hard to explain, but it is, quite simple, brilliant. It’s toured around the place and I urge you to see it if you’re ever near where it’s playing. It’s running in London till February 21st if you’re interested. I’m sure your not. Fine, I’ll keep it all for myself then.

After having my life suitably enriched, I proceeded to watch tv. For an entire weekend (minus a lovely pub lunch). It was bliss. UK TV is, for lack of another word, brilliant (now we have Virgin TV, which is better. Than anything. Ever.). I couldn’t be arsed to actually expand on that point, but I will link to as many examples as possible.

Next Post: Tate Modern and The Movieum!

Supermarkets don’t sell combs. Or anything useful. At all. Except Tesco Extra. They sell everything. Including kitchen sinks.*

*Tesco extra don’t actually sell kitchen sinks. However, they might do online.