Fa-shizzle

A couple of parrot-type birds

Some big monster-thing that likes to chase children (Insert Tom Farmer joke here)

Me, Nick and Phil outside Harold Bishop's house

Melbourne skyline/ some big shiny buildings

The real address of Ramsay Street: probably good pub quiz knowledge

Nick's new home with Harold Bishop

The Neighbours theme tune with guest vocals, i.e. me

You wait ages for a bus and then two come along at once. Or in my case you get two great pieces of news in the space of about 15 minutes. What are these small nuggets of joy? Well, firstly I am starting a bar job on Friday (trial first) in a place called The Espy. It's kind of half large bar, half music venue, so maybe I'll get some free gigs out of it too. There's more about it here http://www.theesplanadehotel.com.au/
Oh yeah, it faces onto the beach too, so if I get any shifts that finish during the day, I just cross the road and play in the sand :-)

My second great bit of news concerns the Good Vibrations festival I'm going to this Saturday. Already headlined by Beastie Boys (doing a greatest hits show, sweeeeet) and Jurassic 5, they've recently announced another headliner: SNOOP DOGG!!! How good is that? Like his music or not (and I've never been much of a fan) he's bound to be great live and then for the rest of my life I can claim to have seen the d-o-double G. And say stuff that ends in 'izzle' and 'izzay' until someone punches me.

I think I saw Darcy from Neighbours the other day. He had grey hair, but I'm certain it was him, more so because someone else reported spotting whom they would have been sure was Darcy if not for the grey hair. Which was nice.

I'm still in a hostel at the moment, I have temporarily given up on finding a flat, although now I may have a job sorted I might continue the quest. This will technically be my second job in Australia though. On Monday, Nick and I started a job in a warehouse, packing envelopes, a job we got through Nick's roomie at the moment, Rhiannon. It started at 9am. By 9.20 I had quit. This beats Nick's record of being an Asda employee for half an hour by a full ten minutes. Basically, if I had spent the whole day there, I would have resembled Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, after they have turned his brain to pulp with electro-shock treatment. Except there would have been no large, silent Native-American to try and smash down a wall and help me escape. To be fair I didn't need to escape, just walking out sufficed.

Our mate Phil from our jobs at The Old Forge this summer has now joined us. When we met him last week at the train station, he looked as pale and slightly bewildered as we must have looked on arrival. Yesterday we went on a covert adventure to Ramsay Street, aka Pin Oak Court. We were there at pretty much the same time as the organised tour people, but just buzzed about excitedly near them. As the real reason we are here in Australia is to discover exactly where Lou from Neighbours was born; Fareham or Chandlers Ford, (For anyone who hasn't had this explained in unnecessary detail, it's a long running personal dispute between us) we thought we could ask their tour guide. This we did, and she said that she was doing a tour the next day where they get to meet one of the "stars" of Neighbours and that if we wrote down our question and email address she would pass it on and hopefully we would get a reply. Soon the whole world will know that I am right and Nick is wrong. That's what's matters here people.

Finally, my blagging skills have been given a work out this week. The other day I had to charm my way into an open air cinema performance of Pink Floyd's The Wall. It was free but you had to reserve tickets by email. Apparently they were sold out and overbooked anyway so there probably wouldn't be enough room. Shortly after I was watching Bob Geldoff go crazy and shave his eyebrows off. That's what happens in the film by the way, I didn't just meet an insane, razor-wielding Geldoff, muttering to himself about saving Africa by removal of body hair.

The second blag saved me a $150 fine as I hadn't paid for a tram ticket and nearly got caught by a plain clothes inspector. But I played it so cool you would be forgiven for thinking my code number was 007 and lived to scam another free tram ride.

Tonight I intend to celebrate my newfound employment with $2 pints (that's about 80p) at a nearby club. Assume the worst and then whatever happens to me will seem like a let-off.

Hope everyone's still coping without me. If it gets hard, just take it one day at a time, that's what I keep telling Waterman.