Your Skimpy Guide

Sonntag

2007-10-07T13:31:00.000+01:00

On a sunny Sunday, drinking coffee in a cafe and watching the sexy Kreuzbergers go by, I am reminded of how much working full-time sucks. Still, there are other advantages, like being able to afford concert tickets. This week: Raster Noton label night on Wednesday and Plaid on Saturday. Hotte!

I have my first tranlation job and I have to do it well, in order to get more. Unfortunately, it's about eastern European Renaissance architecture. Still, no complaints. Life could be a lot worse, I guess.

Herbst

2007-09-04T19:05:00.000+01:00

It got cold, snap, and now suddenly it's autumn before you've had time to turn around. The temperature lies in the single digits much of the day but the trees haven't yet had time to lose their leaves, which remain incongruously thick and verdant on the branches. The sky is dark dark steel grey with only hints of pearl at the horizon, the days are filled with rain and hail and thunder, with pink cheeks (and red noses) and cold fingers and toes. The wind sneaks in around the collars of autumn coats just pulled out of storage and the summer cottons still worn beneath can't stop it reaching bare skin. But it's not so icy just yet.

Arriving home at 7.30pm the light is fading fast and the street-lights splash orange on the wet streets (a seemingly sudden surprise after months of 9-10pm summer sunsets).

At work today one of my co-workers made the wonderful suggestion that we should get hot water bottles to sit on our laps during the winter months. I lovingly retrieved my hot water bottle from its summer holiday home last night, and I can't think of a better bed companion for the winter ahead.

I can't wait for the wonder of the winter months, for fairy lights and Glühwein and dancing against the wind and rain and snow on the streets outside. But I'm not planning to freeze this time around - instead I've been on an eBay and op-shop Kaufrausch, and am now stocked up with boots and coats and lined woollen old-lady skirts.

I am even looking forward to Christmas.

me 'n' Shane

2007-08-17T22:04:00.000+01:00

I never expected to write this, but I'm jealous of Warney.

. . .

D. and I were discussing the end of the honeymoon period when one goes to a new place - at first everything is entirely fabulous, but then after a few weeks the euphoria vanishes and all you can see is the dog poo and the fact that everyone is rude to you all the time.

Berliners really are quite rude, but the rudeness of people in public doesn't bother me (people pushing into queues, or bumping into me and not apologising, or whatever). What I perceive as rudeness in interactions with my (German) friends really does. Australia, being the British colony that it continues to be, is actually full of very polite people. When someone asks you for something, they say please, and when you give it to them/do it for them, they say thank you. People just don't do this here, and even though I know it's a cultural difference, I just can't stop thinking that everyone is being really rude to me all the time. It's a disconcerting feeling to feel that someone is my friend and seems to like my company, but at the same time feel constantly slapped in the face by their rudeness.

The solution of course, as in so many other things, is not to be friends with too many Germans. There are enough fellow foreigners in Berlin to keep me in friends for years. Not so good for my German... but better for the soul.

Vir-abschieden

2007-08-09T17:56:00.000+01:00

My friend Virginia is going back to Spain tomorrow and I am very sad, even though it means I have a bed in Barcelona and good reason to go there often, and she will be back here often too.

But who will teach me Spanish and laugh at my accent now? Who will say, "oh Gigi, joder!" at every piece of news? Who will feed me paella and hot-out-of-the-oven bread and Spanish cheese and insist that we only ever drink rum? Having friends leave is harder when one has only a few of value, and the rest have barbaric gastronomic tastes.

Still, there's one good think about friends leaving and facing an airline luggage allowance: presents. Including towels, clothes, real Spanish chorizo that V's boyfriend brought with him from Spain, 100 pesetas, and a very large collection of medical items.

Ausländer

2007-07-30T17:34:00.000+01:00

This morning I woke up at 6am on a delightful 12 degree C mid-summer morning to go to the immigration office, or Ausländerbehörde (in a charming exhibition of customer service, it opens at 7am on Mondays and Tuesdays. Getting there later than 8am is unwise, unless you want to spend 5 hours in a waiting room). It is located in an industrial zone in the north-west of the city, and on the walk from the train station to the scary-looking grey building, other foreigners, alone or in pairs, joined me from each side street. I imagined that they were as scared as me at having to go and face up to the German authorities about their immigration status.

In the end my visit was a complete non-event, and I was told to come back in a few weeks, and no one seemed to give a shit that my visa expires tomorrow. Having made the journey out there, I took some photos of the industrial pr0n. I don't know what I'd do if I were ever removed from the urban environment.

Messerattacke!

2007-07-19T10:11:00.000+01:00

My current means of earning money, as a "night life tour guide" for tour groups, is generally a fairly painful experience, because it means 4-hour stretches of interacting and being extremely happy with a bunch of 50 idiots. Still, I feel somehow responsible, although I am clearly not, that one of my charges got stabbed about 1 1/2 hours after I left him to his own devices the other night.

Anyone who reads German should read this version of the story instead - because then you get to read the comments submitted by the readership, who discuss whether the famous violent drinking culture of Australians/English-speakers/Anglo-Saxons (according to commentator) would or would not have provided likely or sufficient provocation for the attack.

I think it's entirely possibly, although I would suggest that a punch in the nose is a more just punishment for a drunk south Australian tosser than being stabbed five times in the chest.

Meanwhile, we had 3 days of hot summer in Berlin and went swimming at the Muggelsee to cool off. It reminded me of swimming in the Swan river as a kid. Which, whilst not the ocean, certainly has a charm of its own.

D. is visiting Berlin to learn German, which is altogether super fun. As you can see, he is opting for the absorption method.

For Leigh

2007-06-21T22:20:00.001+01:00

There are lots of really great things about Berlin, but a few bad things too. Like week-long poetry festivals.

Schwul

2007-06-18T22:07:00.000+01:00

It's Pride-time in Berlin, which means suffering through endless appeals to the pink dollar in order to perve on pretty boys with pink hair dressed in Austrian outfits working as waitresses at various street festivals.

Language note: the word "schwul" seems to be much more strongly and exclusively associated with men than the word "gay" in English. My walking around with a "schwul" sticker the other night had everyone confused - only actually not so confused, because they tended to say, "Schwul? So you're looking for a man, then?"

Green trees and fried chicken

2007-06-11T23:19:00.000+01:00

Every morning when I ride over the river on my way to school, I look at the trees on the edge of Treptower Park and think how beautiful the different greens look against each other. I never seem to get over the overwhelming green of the European summer.

Then this evening Louise and I ate the world's best evva fried chicken (and it's not an award I give lightly, not least because I wouldn't normally be persuaded to eat fried chicken for anything) in Görlitzer Park and the trees there, hiding the houses behind, were lovely too, although by this time it was about 9:45pm so the light was fading a bit...

Then a nice dog followed by a funny drunk boy came to talk to us, except that the boy was a bit too drunk to make any sense, and kept asking us if we spoke French. We said no, but he started talking to us in French anyway. It didn't matter, because it made about as much sense as his German. We decided it was time to escape and left as the setting sun was lighting up the sky behind the Fernsehturm and making us feel at home.

Blau

2007-06-09T16:06:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure why, but recently my friends seem to inflict a lot of pain and injury on me. (This bruise is approximately tennis ball sized - or clenched fist sized, more to the point - and has considerably reduced the function of my right arm.) Along with bicycle-related scratches and bruises on my legs and other results of general clumsiness, this leaves me currently looking like either a very active 5 year old or a battered wife.

As you can see, my intended cold, good-for-the-skin northern-ish European life is not really working out to be that at all. With regular 30 degree days, my freckles seem to be here to stay.

bugs

2007-05-21T23:22:00.000+01:00

There are large and annoying bugs flying around my room and buzzing incessantly, and I can't help wondering when exactly Berlin got moved to the tropics.

manchmal munter

2007-05-20T20:07:00.000+01:00

I'm not sure how I missed it until now, but I recently discovered that munter is, in fact, an actual word in German. I don't think I'll be using it though, as I won't be able to escape the feeling that I'm being very rude.

What else is news? I came to the alarming conclusion that when I am forced to work for money, I actually do more with my life, as it motivates me to be more organised about arranging out-of-work activities. This somewhat undermines my life-long aim to never work.

Working a lot, however, means less time learning German, and I'm feeling the effects. I look forward to getting back to the library once the current run of jobs is finished, especially as I have to get serious about studying for the dreaded Test-DAF exam. We did practice exercises in class the other day and it was eine Katastrophe. To say the least.

Still, I don't want to spend the whole summer studying and working. I have to arrange some short trips. Weekends at the Ostsee or something, Polish beaches, I don't know what.

I had my faith in lefty parties renewed after going to one that didn't play exclusively punk or indie-disko, and the whole dirty warehouse full of costumed queers aesthetic was something that, I realised, I'd rather missed. Still, if the lefty DJanes and DJs of Berlin return to their former bad habits, I will embrace the world of commercial going out options again, because I can handle the bad clothes of my fellow patrons there bettter than I can bear punk or depressing whiny indie music.

Berlin building of the week is the Pei Bau: the extension wing of the Deutsches Historisches Museum. Sorry about the annoying red van. It is still stunningly beautiful.

Grün

2007-04-29T18:24:00.000+01:00

Expecting a few hours of office work last Tuesday, I was instead sent out to take photos of touristy things in Berlin for our advertising brochures. This photo doesn't fit the description of what I was told to do, but I like it very much, because somehow I'd never noticed before that the statue at the front of the Altes Museum is of a woman spearing a lion whilst riding a horse bareback with her tits out.

The streets are super green and the days are getting longer. I was going to write that the nights are getting shorter, but that's not true - the nights are getting much, much longer. It's warm enough to take our bikes out at night now, which makes it much easier to go from party to party, and there's never an excuse to go home until at least lunchtime the next day. Well, there are excuses like work and study, but it's not too hard to convince oneself that staying at a party and talking German is at least as good as doing one's German homework (and no one really works in Berlin).

A ginger gym-bunny arrives on Thursday and, oh!, we are going to have so much fun.

to go = to die

2007-04-27T16:31:00.000+01:00

I applied for a job as a proofreader with an English-language publishing house. If it comes through, I may have found my Berlin calling. The whole tour-guide thing really isn't me (aber ich lasse es über mich ergehen).

In class yesterday and today we did a super-fun (note: it wasn't actually much fun at all) exercise with the verb 'gehen' (to go) and all the separable (•) and inseparable prefixes that it can take. All together there are 26 verbs with perhaps 100+ different meanings. A lot of which involve dying. We felt like we were dying too.

ab•gehen, an•gehen, auf•gehen, aus•gehen, begehen, ein•gehen, ergehen, entgehen, hin•gehen, hoch•gehen, her•gehen, einher•gehen, los•gehen, mit•gehen, nach•gehen, unter•gehen, übergehen, über•gehen, umgehen, um•gehen, vergehen, vorbei•gehen, weiter•gehen, zurück•gehen, zergehen, zu•gehen

Example: ab•gehen (separable verb)
- to fall/come off (a button, wallpaper, colour from a painting - must have the sense of "to fall down")
- to leave school/university (with or without graduating)
- to change one's mind/opinion (usually to soften one's stance)
- to depart (a bus/train)
- to turn off/branch off (a street)
- to walk along (a stretch of some sort); to patrol (military)
- to leave the stage (in the theatre)
- to quit a profession
- to have a good atmosphere ("hier geht nichts ab" - it's really boring here)
- to be missing something ("das ist mir etwas abgegangen")

Finally, more youtube abuse, here is a snippet of the party I am going to tomorrow:

¡Es un vídeo, gilipollas!

2007-04-15T12:59:00.000+01:00

I don't actually know most of the people in this; they are random Spanish tourists that my friends found somewhere and dragged along to this Russian disco. The girl filming, swearing like a trooper and later featured gyrating drunkenly in a stripey top is, however, one of my friends. My Spanish, rude words at least, is coming along in leaps and bounds.

Potsdam Conference II

2007-04-10T22:27:00.000+01:00

Over Easter I got as far out of Berlin as Potsdam. It was good, in the sort of way that places full of palaces are. The cherubs were evil (this one looked like it had suffered Hydrocephalus), the ladies were reassuringly full-thighed, there were various styles of bottom on display.

Better that the various palaces were the enormous parks and gardens, which are now decked out in some of their coming shades of green and delicate white and pink petals.

We rode around on our bikes, questioned the architectural tastes of the later Hohenzollers and ate icecream.

New Love

2007-03-11T20:10:00.000+01:00

Animal, I tell you.

I was also in love with the new JT for about a week. Then I got bored. When it comes to love(r)s other than my bike, one week seems to be my attention span right now.

To compare: some German pop music that I was recently subjected to in class. I'm with the USA on this one.

Spanish in the springtime

2007-03-08T00:43:00.000+01:00

My suspicions about Spring weren't misplaced - it is indeed fast approaching. In the last few days green grass has started to grow everywhere; yesterday it was 15 degrees; and this evening the sunset was pink and orange and lit all the west-facing windows in the city with golden flames. Oh, Berlin in the summer is so beautiful! Everything so green! Long days (oh, those summer nights!), and going swimming in the lakes and rivers, and doing my German homework in the park rather than the library. For the first time ever, I think, I am looking forward to summer.

I started a new German course, the books for which are disturbingly titled "Abschlusskurs" (concluding course). After this it's just a big wide world of various exams and then being an official proficient German speaker who still feels very much the opposite. I always wondered how the international students at university who had passed English exams but who didn't yet have very good English coped with their studies. From September, I hope, I'll find out.

At the risk of over-stretching my brain, which some days staggers under the German load already, I have started to learn Spanish and developed a love of all things Spanish-speaking. I'm not sure which came first: the desire for Spanish or that for Spaniards/Latinos. I'm on the hunt for a Spanish-speaking lover, but the Chilean boy I met the other night had skin like mine and orange hair, so he's out, and all the hotters seems to be Brazilian - and Portuguese really isn't going to cut it.

Pergamon

2007-03-01T23:52:00.000+01:00

Tonight I went to the Pergamon Museum (which is actually three museums together) because it is free from 6pm 'til 10pm on the first Thursday of the month (if you're thinking, "that's not really a lot of free time," well, you'd be right, but it's normally €16, so I take what I can get).

I previously thought that the British had really cornered the antiquities stealing and displaying market, but it seems that the Germans had the guts to go for whole buildings, rather than just making off with cartloads of statues from the buildings. Then, very sensibly, they purpose built a museum with appropriately stadium sized halls to house their loot.

It was stupendously exciting, and you should immediately gorge yourself on pictures of it taken by others. Somehow I missed the reproduction of the Tower of Babel which is apparently there, so I shall have to go back next month. Looking at large rocks covered in cuneiform also makes me feel better about German.

Unregelmäßig

2007-02-26T23:48:00.000+01:00

Some days my life is so exciting that it shocks me.

(I decided that my former hit-and-miss approach to the past tense forms of irregular verbs wasn't quite cutting it any more, and that hard slog mass memorisation was the only option.)

Krieg, etc.

2007-02-25T17:57:00.000+01:00

Maybe it's just me freaking out, but it feels like war is just around the corner (again). I always suspected that Australians were insouciant about waging wars in far-off lands because they were, indeed, so very far off, but now I feel it in a visceral sense. Iran now feels to me like perhaps not quite a neighbour but, say, the corner shop.

On the upside, whenever I see a picture of an aircraft carrier I am filled with wonder at how it seems to sail along with such a thin bottom in the water for its big top.

I had to look up the first word of this headline, but then I realised that I should have just used my brain instead: it says, "Sabre-rattling in the Gulf".

Unless I'm much mistaken, the first buds of spring are appearing on the trees, and today's gentle rain felt much more like a summer shower than the cold miserable wet of winter.

Flat Stanley

2007-02-18T23:18:00.000+01:00

Does anyone remember the story Flat Stanley? This weekend, Flat Stanley has been visiting me in Berlin. Fresh from his owner Jeffrey in California, via a visit to Denmark, in a medium sized envelope accompanied by the requisite sandwich made with thin bread...

Flat Stanley coming to me is a longish, windy story, but the point is that it made me get out and take photos of some touristy things in Berlin, which I'm now sharing with you.

This is Flat Stanley visiting the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche. I'd seen the remaining shard of the Church before, but only once (I don't go to West Berlin very often), and not up close. S. pointed out that the top of the bell tower looks like big pixels have been cut out of it.

Flat Stanley and I did some other touristy stuff, and finished up at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. I don't know how old Jeffery is, so I haven't decided whether the photo of Flat Stanley at the memorial is appropriate to include or not.

Tomorrow Flat Stanley is coming with me to class, so that we can take a couple more photos around the place, and then he's back in his envelope and off to the Netherlands. Ah, to travel so easily...

(The memorial is kinda hard to photograph, sorry. But here's an idea - come and visit!)

Snow / Sex / Stories

2007-02-08T14:45:00.000+01:00

Snow is inherently exciting, and it's not just me who thinks so - everyone on the street looks happy when we have an occasional day of the white stuff. In Britain it seems to be a different story, however - there "up to 4 inches" (therefore presumably less in a lot of places) of snow seems to have brought the country to a stop. If you can't be bothered following the link, the article notes that,
Hundreds of schools are shut and motorists are being urged to travel only if necessary. Some households are also without power.
Lucky for me that I don't live in the land of the freakishly incompetent anymore.

I finally got around to going to Berghain / Panorama Bar, and it easily lived up to the hype for excellent music and booty shaking, rather less so for offering an experience similar to being on the set of Caligula. Unless I missed it (which isn't impossible, as I have an disturbing habit of going to parties and missing the fun stuff), there was no sex on the dance floor or anywhere else, or any other evidence of the promised "decadent, bacchanalian" behaviour. And it was really straight, too. Still, sehr sehr sehr gut, so I'll be going to all of Berlin's other famous techno clubs soon to compare.

I wrote a fairy story (in German) for my class and felt rather proud of myself, especially as it was the first time ever, as far as I can remember, that I've completed a creative writing assignment without chucking a tantrum and getting my mum to do it for me. Other than that my language learning goes in fits and starts: all right in my head and decent on paper, completely bloody hopeless when I open my mouth. A boy in my class from Yemen wants to improve his English, so I'm considering taking up Arabic and swapping lessons with him.

And yes, I am hoping for many more random google hits with that subject line.

Spot the difference / Call for contributions

2007-01-18T20:15:00.000+01:00

Favourite newspaper headline of the day: 'Das ist der Beweis: Die EU ist die Hure Babylon '(This is the clincher: the EU is the whore of Babylon). More here.

In other important news, my flatmates and I have started a nerdy household learning activity (actually, two): word of the day and topic of the week. Every day I have to provide them with a English word that I think they should know, and they teach me a German word.

This is where you, my reader/s, come in. I need you to give me your favourite words to teach to my flatmates.

I'm appealing for help because I fear that, on my own, I'm mainly teaching them words with which to be mean about other people. Like sycophant and fawning and unctuous (those three led on from each other, obviously - they weren't separate words of the day). Either that or we just swap words for sex and drunkenness (like my favourite, dissolute, and today lascivious, which is almost the same in German: lasziv). In fact, we were doing that so much that we decided to make them permanent topics of the week.

Nerd Chronicles

2007-01-16T23:41:00.000+01:00

New favourite activity: going to the library after German class with a couple of my classmates to do our homework, drink coffee and talk German. The library is huge, and full of hot people reading German journals and The Guardian and Le Monde diplomatique and also quite a lot of people like us, poring over the library's giant dictionaries and speaking gingerly in German.

The library's dictionaries are so vastly superior to my piddly Collins D-E E-D (which is also full of mistakes, somewhat disturbingly) that I feel overwhelmed and excited in successive waves as I flip through them. Truth be told, I don't really need a giant dictionary most of the time, but it is most exciting to follow a trail from reden (to talk) to die Redeschlect (battle of words), der Redeschwall (torrent or flood of words) and die Redeschwulst (bombast).

Also found on today's trips through Langenscheidt's pages: der Atombusen (big boobs - literally 'atomic breast'), der Kommers (student fraternity's evening drinking session) and das Tohuwabohu (complete and utter chaos, bedlam).

Ostkreuz

2007-01-15T00:19:00.000+01:00

OK, back to normal transmission: talk about me, photos of me, talk about Berlin, photos of Berlin.

This is Ostkreuz station, one stop from my house. I like it because it is called Ostkreuz, and because it provides me with with delightful and rather old fashioned train p•rn.

Ego break

2007-01-09T22:31:00.000+01:00

In keeping with the founding tradition of this blog, I interrupt the ceaseless stream of inanities about myself to bring you some typographic titillation instead.

Präpositional-Ergänzungen, and other adventures

2007-01-08T18:37:00.000+01:00

Writing my homework for tomorrow's class, I thought that I must seem to my teacher almost sickenly enthusiastic about everything. Certainly I am very happy with my life in Berlin, but writing (in German and possibly in English as well) seems to amplify this to ridiculous proportions.

The concluding passage of my homework (we were told to write a piece about our 'first days in Berlin' - I tell the story of coming here 10 years ago and hating it, compared to how I feel now) reads approximately thus:

'Now I think that I am very well suited to Berlin, and that Berlin is perfectly suited to me. I often think of how different my first impression was compared to my current opinion of Berlin. I am so glad that I gave Berlin another chance!'*

Sickening, non? I pondered the fact that I must often sound like a sappy twit; then suddenly I realised, with a mixture of relief and further concern, that my writing has obviously had little effect of others' perception of me: in a role play in class today ('old rich lady is making her will and her friends and relatives are making appeals for/fighting over what they want') I was unanimously assigned the only explicitly nasty part.

* You may not realise it from the English version, but this latest piece of homework extensively employs our latest grammatical acquisition: the prepositional pronoun with subjunctive clause complement (or something like that). I don't know how I've coped without it until now. Quite badly, I'd say.

Mood swings

2007-01-06T15:47:00.000+01:00

On Wednesday I went back to school and, unable to speak or think any German because I'd been speaking English non-stop over the break, I decided that this language learning caper was obviously hopeless and a complete waste of time and effort and that, anyway, I hated German, Germany and Germans.

Then I came home and discovered 'Gigi: the magazine for sexual emancipation'! I decided that it was worth it after all.

That afternoon my flatmates and I took Teddy for a walk to Treptower Park and visited the Soviet War Memorial. It was, as one would expect, massive and imposingly Soviet. Carved blocks along each side feature various characters - farmers, factory workers, women, as well as soldiers - supporting the war effort or suffering under attack from the Germany army, and on the end of each block was a quote from Stalin about the war.

It was interesting that the language used by Stalin was often similar to or identical to common Nazi phrases about 'the people' or 'the homeland' or whatever... Not particularly surprising, I guess, but at the same time it's impossible to know what role translation has played in that similarity - whether perhaps the translator deliberately or unknowingly used the language of National Socialism to translate Stalin's speeches.

Underneath the giant statue at the end, in which the Soviet peoples just rescued from the Hitlerite villains are seemingly represented by a small girl, was a small room that could only be described as a very religious-looking shrine. In the Orthodox-style (lots of gold leaf) mosaic around the inside walls, a Soviet soldier was buried whilst his mother (looking very like Mary) and other Communist characters wept. There was also a red star in stained glass. This seemed a bit odd for a memorial built by the atheist USSR government.

While we were there one of my flatmates told a hilarious story about a recent bust up in a queer lefty activist group that he's involved with. A member of the group, whilst DJing at a party, played an old song by a German band who have more recently released very nationalistic songs. Another activist complained that songs by this band (whether the nationalistic ones or not) should never be played - that it was evidence of the 'new nationalism' creeping into the heart of their left-wing activist circles. Everyone else thought this was a bit of an over-reaction until the DJ announced that he did love the Heimat and didn't see any problem with that. This has caused a complete identity crisis amongst the group (our other flatmate pointed out that, as a queer group, identity crises are exactly what they should be having) and a meeting is being held today to sort (/fight) it out.

Somehow hearing this story (and understanding it all) made me feel better... even though it just went to show that left-wing politics is as hopeless here as just about everywhere else.

New re-energised about my German learning, I attempted on Friday to have a conversation with the Korean Kant-ophile in my class about Critique of Pure Reason. I think the rather limited nature of this conversation was more due to my Kantian shortcomings than my German ones.

Silvester

2007-01-02T00:01:00.000+01:00

Happy New Year, &c.

I may look like Mary Poppins here, but this prim properness was soon undone by getting shit-faced drunk, in true teenage style.

First snow!

2006-12-29T16:25:00.000+01:00

It only lasted a day, and for the most part just turned the steps down to the U-bahn station into a slippery hazard course. (Still, I was excited.)

More and more Berlin

2006-12-21T22:06:00.000+01:00

I like having visitors in Berlin: everyone should plan trips.

As I and my friends from German class are unable to talk about anything very complex, our conversations are a bit under-evolved. The solution is obviously to go to the pub, where all conversations tend that way. I have discovered that drinking games are more fun in a foreign language. As is being drunk. Actually, most things are pretty funny in German for me right now.

I got my first Weinachtsgeschenk today: a new street map of Berlin. This time a post-Mauer one, with the correct street names for East Berlin. While this will undoubtedly prove very useful, I will rather miss the guessing game that my old one sometimes demanded.

Domestic diptych

2006-12-06T21:18:00.000+01:00

Did I mention that our flat is heated by coal-fired ovens? Last night I went on a journey to our cellar, through a labyrinth of other people's cellars, and discovered not only the big blocks of coal, but also the fact that to light a coal stove, you need a wood fire: that means woodchopping. You may not have known this about me, but I am an expert kindling chopper. Mispent pyromaniacal youth. I plan to chop lots of kindling now, while the weather is still ok, as I suspect it will be less fun when it is freezing and my hands are numb.

After the cellar expedition, I was taught how to use my coal oven, and what not to do unless I want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Also, here is our kitchen. Isn't it pretty?

Wohngemeinschaft

2006-12-04T21:50:00.000+01:00

Today I moved into my new flat. It is in Lichtenberg, just south of Friedrichshain. Here, you can see it on Googlemaps. My house should be in about the centre: the second brown house to the right of the two yellow ones.

We have a three bedroom flat on the third floor for three hot Berliners: Scout, Martin and me. And Teddy, our dog. He is sort of a scruffy and ugly, but lovely and soon adorable Berliner - i.e. archetypal. Our flat has Ofenheizung: coal burning ovens in each room for heating. Hopefully the ridiculous romance of this idea will sustain me through a long winter of lugging coal up from the cellar. I have absolutely no idea how to work my oven, so I'll have to get someone to show me soon, as it's forecast to snow in a week.

My rent is 150 euros per month, inclusive of all bills.

Nur Deutsch

2006-11-30T16:38:00.000+01:00

Today I spoke only German. I didn't speak much... but when I did it was nur auf Deutsch. Including a conversation at a language school, in which I discussed how much German I knew, and agreed to turn up at 9am tomorrow for testing, then to start classes properly on Monday. After I left the language school I walked down Kotbusser Damm with a huge grin on my face, because I was so proud of myself (obviously it doesn't take much for me to be proud of myself). The thought of using my brain again, and for the very motivational purpose of soon being able to chat up hot Berliners, is very exciting.

Also today: wandering, coffee, reading the programme for the queer film festival which starts tonight. And I bought a pair of red gloves: children's size, because the adults' were far too big.

Ich bin Berliner

2006-11-29T16:22:00.000+01:00

I'm in Berlin, suckers. I live here now. Today I tried to read about the Litvinenko poisoning scandal update in German. I didn't really get it. But soon I will.

Lessons learnt upon leaving London

2006-11-25T12:36:00.001+01:00

I am packing up my room, folding my clothes and putting them, yet again, into my now very decrepit backpack. It feels a bit sad, and a bit strange. My last day at work yesterday made my departure from London finally feel real, and imminent.

With a sense of shock, I realised that I will actually miss my job. Mostly the people, but the job itself too. I've never felt that before. Although it was not exactly brain-stretching (what job is?), it was so bearable that I turned up there everyday, worked late, worked overtime, learnt all about building sites, wandered around in a hard hat, steel toe capped boots and a hi-vis vest, made cups of tea, wrote emails about 'aluminium jamb flashings' and 'rodding-eye sockets' and made everyone love me, despite being odd, and outspoken, and intractable at times. My workmates wrote lovely things in my card, like, "keep up the small arms practice (and the Proust)," and they gave me £60 in book vouchers, which is sort of a perfect present (except that I can't possible carry that weight in books with me to Berlin). Ah, builders. Who'd have thought? Six months ago I didn't even know what a soffit was.

Until recently I was more nervous than excited about Berlin, but now that seems to have fallen away and I'm starting to jump around with anticipation. I suddenly remembered that Berlin isn't just another place to go, or a place to learn German, or anything like that - but the most incredibly wonderful city of all time. Why are you all not there?

But I will miss London very much too. I never expected to like London - I just thought it would be more bearable to work here because it would be not Australia, and anything seemed better that the suicide of being there any longer. Instead I have found a sprawling place of endless wonder, where I have felt happier and happier every day that I have been here, where every week makes me smile more than the last, and where I have remembered what it means to feel alive. The big tree outside my window was covered in bright gold leaves until yesterday, when they all blew off at once, and now only a black skeleton waves in the wind and rain. Even the turn of the seasons fills me with delight. I love the grey skies, I love the wet streets, I love the sun when it shines, and I love seeing the winking red lights at the top of the gherkin, because it means I'm heading towards the city from the east or the north, and it makes me feel at home. Yes. I will come back here.

Winter! Well, Autumn.

2006-10-27T17:43:00.000+01:00

It's finally got just a little bit cold - not just chilly in the morning, but with a definite 'ping!' in the air at lunch time too, so that I came back from a midday walk today with pretty pink cheeks and a not so pretty red nose. Every woman in London is showing off her new winter coat/s, even if the weather doesn't quite warrant it yet. (I don't have a proper winter coat yet, but I do have a fetching black bomber jacket, which makes me look a bit like the bogan nymphettes of my hood, only without the peroxided hair.)

There is a dodgy shop down the road from my house advertising a two-for-one sale of fireworks. Risking blindness and finger-loss, I intend to annoy several neighbours this Halloween weekend.

Gratuitous G

2006-10-25T17:32:00.000+01:00

Although I have moved to the other side of the world, some things haven't changed, like my habit of dressing like a lesbian. Because of my somewhat depressingly persistent heterosexuality, my clothing's deleterious effects on my love life also remain in place.

What has changed, however, is my delight in photos of myself. Perhaps because I feel that my youth - if not already gone - is fast fleeting, I've suddenly developed a great urge to collect photographs of myself looking still reasonably unravaged by time. Luckily for me, this desire comes at a time when everyone (except me) has a camera in their phone, if not another in their bag as well, so it's quite fulfillable. This specimen was taken at a very, very bad activist party, where we sat through 2 hours of "cabaret" accompanied by some sort of grind-core electronica, only to discover that our reward was to be a reggae party. Obviously, we left.

The hat is the one I pashed the midget for.

more news of the month

2006-10-19T18:17:00.000+01:00

I went to a gay wedding. It was a bit weird. Everyone got really emotional during the ceremony, even though it was a visa wedding, and during lunch afterwards people hissed at me to shut up and to "not say that" when I followed up someone else's toast of, "to love!" with, "yeah, to love and visas".

I booked my ticket to Berlin, then panicked a bit. Then I calmed down enough to say no thanks when my job offered me a 30% pay rise and a working visa application to stay. I politely pointed out to them that if I stayed I would still be a secretary at a construction site, and, well, Berlin is calling. I leave November 28. You're all invited.

g'update

2006-09-20T15:19:00.000+01:00

The other while ago I had my first London celebrity sighting when I saw Sophie Ellis-Bextor at Spitalfields Market. She looked a bit like a preying mantis with an oversized jaw, and she had two hangers-on (almost literally) - boys at least a head shorter, almost jogging to keep up, who'd spent several hours too many that morning trying to look cool, in a velvet jacket and untied paisley tie kind of way (if that is, in fact, ever a kind of cool).

A few days later I had a second celebrity sighting in the form of a definitely genuine* Banksy stencil, on the wall running along the Thames near Temple station. There isn't nearly as much stencil-sighting action to be had as I'd expected, actually. I don't know whether the graffiti-cleaning teams have been sent into overdrive or whether I just haven't been hanging out in the right back streets.

***

Sainsbury's bags have little holes in them, which makes them inherently redundant for re-use (because most things one wants to use a plastic bag for involve its waterproof properties). Other supermarkets don't put little holes in their bags. Why does Sainsbury's? On the other hand, it means that these bags are ready made for use as a DIY salad spinner (put wet lettuce leaves in bag with holes, go outside and windmill arm vigourously!).

***

Since July I've lived with four other people, two of whose flatmate-behaviour (tactics?) take the proverbial cake for passive-aggressive flattie-fascism. This was actually OK though - the woman in particular seemed to clean for pleasure, and didn't get mad if other people did less than her. She was partly just a clean-freak, partly a bit of a martyr about it - but what did I care if it meant the house got cleaned and not by me? What were really starting to get to me though were the little notes, in teenage girl printing on bright yellow paper, that would be posted around the house to remind us of how to behave. Posted above our plastic bag holder a little while ago was, "Don't keep adding more bags - RECYCLE - by using them again!!!". So even though I knew it meant more cleaning for me, I was a bit relieved when they decided to move out. They moved on Saturday, but I got home from work on Monday to find a new note - a cleaning roster made up for the next five weeks with the new people's names on it. I'm sure it wasn't there on Saturday when they left, nor on Sunday either. Did they come back on Monday, perhaps to get something that they forgot, and just have to make sure they we kept cleaning in the manner that they had long dictated? Perhaps they came back just for that. Is this going to continue?

* proof of authenticity: it was of a rat.

Boring news

2006-08-13T13:15:00.000+01:00

I have been requested to update my blog more often. This means that you will all be lumped with details of my personal life.

I recently became a fully fledged cyber citizen, acquiring a wireless card for my laptop, and in the progress making my first eBay purchase and acquiring a Paypal account. As a result I'd like to complain about the abysmal lack of free wireless in London. Right now I'm at a cafe which advertises "free wireless" (just with a small fee of £20 per month, and that's if you sign up for a year), except that I've happily hopped onto a nearby unsecured network instead. Sadly, there aren't many of these.

I continue to work as a secretary at a building site, and enjoy it most of the time. Whilst being widely assumed to be an idiot I read academic essays under my desk and enforce minor anti-homophobic and feminist points with a sweet smile on my face. I have gained some suitably secretarial clothes, my typing grows ever better, but I have no desire to be spanked by my boss. In office romance news I got asked out recently by a electrician named Dennis (who also seemed to want to invite me to church), but my carpenter crush remains frustratingly flirtatious but elusive (and I'm too gutless to ask him out).

I went to Brighton on Pride weekend and saw Ryan Heath, who looked exactly the same as the last time I saw him several years ago... I wonder how often he googles his own name, and therefore how long it will be until he finds this page (I suspect not long). Hello Ryan.

Whilst at Pride I pashed a midget (truly) in exchange for his hat. Now that I'm sober, I don't think I'll ever wear the hat again, but I suppose it will be something of a trophy anyway. I also met a Berliner called Scout who invited me to live with her in Berlin and referred to me later (to Damon) as a "rare beauty". I love flattery, however undeserved.

British television is awful, and Radio Four is sadly not the equivalent of Radio National. Instead it's full of bad radio drama. Standing up for three hours to watch Anthony and Cleopatra is very painful, and I don't know how the Elizabethan plebs did it. Still, for £5 tickets one can't complain, I suppose. This afternoon I am off to see some old films in the wild north of London. In fact, I'd better be off to trek across Hampstead Heath in order to make it in time.

Bogan news

2006-08-13T13:07:00.000+01:00

Britain is just as full of bogans as everywhere else, just with different accents and softer fat. Britons are so soft. Even the thin ones. When undressed they look like blancmange slugs (Australians, I would argue, are of a slightly firmer jelly-to-stale-jelly consistency, on average).

Whilst at a suitably nasty clothes shop some time ago, looking for cheap clothes that could be made to look all right for work, I was waiting in the queue for the change room. Another woman in the queue had two little boys with her - one her son, the other his friend - who were about 7 or 8, I would guess. They were bored, as you would be (as I was) and were amusing themselves by lying on the floor and trying to look under the changing room doors. When the blancmange bulk of a mother figure finally noticed, she said to her son (and I noticed the cut across his eyebrow for the first time), "SIT DOWN! DON'T MOVE! DO YOU WANT ANOTHER BLACK EYE?"

News of the month

2006-07-15T10:59:00.000+01:00

1. I bought a bike
2. I moved to the East End
3. I have a crush on a carpenter

Things you should know about England

2006-06-06T13:44:00.000+01:00

1. English men have fat bums.

2. The number of ginges is quite unreasonable.

3. Here it's pronounced with a hard 'g', as in 'pinger'.

4. Swimming in the freezing cold ponds at Hampstead Heath on a hot summer's day is the best thing ever.

And then there were 11

2006-05-26T21:51:00.000+01:00

In banal personal news, I got a job, and a suit, and I lost a piercing. Not in that order. In fact, in the reverse order. I think the job resulted from the suit and the lack of piercings.

For those who wish to keep track, I made the momentous decision to take out my labret piercing. My lip ring is also spending quite a lot of time away from my lip at the moment, but I'm planning to hang on to that hole. So I am effectively a visible piercing-free zone. My dentist will thank me.

(At first the empty hole was black and deeply indented, but slowly it is closing and the skin filling out. Occasionally I panic and consider putting it back, but I resist.)

It's a double-edged sword, of course: if I don't get invited to meet people's parents now, I know it's really because of me.

London continues to swing, albeit somewhat soggily. Apparently it's the wettest May since, I don't know, last May or something.

New girl in town

2006-05-14T17:13:00.000+01:00

I am in London.

Like every dutiful new arrival, I have been perusing guidebooks. (I would like to note, just for the record, that I have not yet stooped as low as to buy a guidebook.) Guidebooks generally cause me pain (though some are great), yet I keep reading.

London, by the way, is good. Not Sydney, if nothing else. Everyone should come to visit me (or to live!), as I may have mentioned already.

I'm off to see the Queen

2006-04-28T11:43:00.000+01:00

The Brits gave me a visa, suckers. I think it was the passport photo sans piercings that I sent them that did it.

In the interest of keeping up with trends in interwebbing, I tried the photo out to see which celebrity I most resemble, and got Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. Never heard of such a person? No, neither had I, and I don't particularly appreciate being told that I look like him. I would try a photo without glasses now, but I'm using a computer which only has Safari, and that means I can't. Technology can be so cruel.

For anyone who doesn't know (and yet reads this blog, which would seem strange) I will be back in Sydney for a week from tomorrow. Drinks tomorrow - Sat 29th - from 8pm at the Courthouse in Newtown.

skimpy gnus

2006-04-12T13:51:00.000+01:00

This article appeared in the Kalgoorlie Miner a little while ago. I thought you'd all like to read it. It has been (painfully) reproduced with grinding syntax and possibly illegal grammar and punctuation intact.

Other side of the image

Gold and sex. Kalgoorlie-Boulder is renowned for these but some people have been keen to soften the image. But some argue if they ever disappeared so would the city’s edge, which includes the famed skimpy barmaids. Christien de Garis set out to explore another side these hard working girls would like to see portrayed.

The great thing about Kalgoorlie-Boulder is you don’t have to go to some seedy pub to experience the skimpies like you do in other areas. So instilled in the pub culture tas they are, it almost seems strange to go to a pub without the scantily clad barmaids happily inquiring about your day and what beverage would quench your hard-earned thirst.

Opposition leader and WA lad Kim Beazley made sure he had a beer served to him by one of the local lasses in a sexy outfit, so did his predecessor Mark Latham and true career criminal Mark Chopper Read, footy stars Mark Jacko Jackson and tights man Warwick Cooper.

It’s this diverse mix of customers [I love it when ‘diverse’ comes to mean ‘both fit and overweight white Australian men’] who have all had a beer with a skimpy that makes the Kalgoorlie skimpy scene so unique, according to Wild West Saloon Bar manager and former skimpy Nicky who first came to Kalgoorlie to work five years ago during her university holidays.

“It’s such an eclectic mix of social scenes and the pub is the melting pot where it all comes together,” Nicky says over a cup of coffee.

Regular Kalgoorlie skimpy Storm tells of when she went up to Latham to show him the dedication of the local lads in the city towards the skimpies.

“There are two young guys in Kal who have my name tattooed on their arms, they did it the day Mark Latham was in town. I showed him what the guys had done, then ran off and rang my mum to tell her!

The girls are keen to explain why they strip down to their bare essentials and serve beer and bourbon to salivating guys and to dispel a few myths of how they are perceived.

Nicky is currently doing her honours externally in Bio-medical science where she is researching, put simply, if good bacteria can help prevent bad bacteria which causes disease. She hope to explore the thesis further in a Masters degree down the track.

“I’ve got about eight more weeks in the laboratory where I’ll have to collaborate my research and then hopefully I can just work on my thesis,” she said.

“I used to fly over from Queensland and skimpy during my holidays from university, it would give me the luxury of not having to work during my semesters, so I can purely concentrate on my studies.”

Nicky said she saw other students struggle trying to handle a heavy university workload while juggling casual employment during the study semester.

Another Kalgoorlie regular on the skimpy circuit is Jordan who is 20 years old and like many young girls in the industry is trying to get a financial head-start to enable her to get into the increasingly unattainable Perth housing market.

“I have my car paid off and am saving for a deposit for a house in Perth and am also studying business,” Jordan explains.

Nicky said more and more girls were coming to her with a short term plan and skimpy was a means to an end, a way to give them that boost towards achieving goals in business, education or lifestyle needs.

“It’s a reflection that we’re young independent women [is ‘Christien de Garis’ a pseudonym for Rachel Hills?]. I mean our shelf life isn’t that long – you have to hang up the bra and undies heading into the 30s,” she said.

Storm says she has been coming to Kalgoorlie for nearly four years and she has built up a very successful self-managed business out of skimping and her diary is booked out with gigs across Australia until the end of the year.

“I got to travel around a lot of Australia and make a lot of money. I work for myself which is unusual but I get a lot more control,” she said.

Outside of the bar Storm’s ambitions are in music which she has always enjoyed.

“I’ve loved music since the day I was born, there was music playing from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep,” she said.

Both Jordan and Nicky ride horses competitively and have represented their State and country in competitions.

Like the other girls, and in fact the majority of the working world, Storm has ambitions and interests outside of work and hopes to also look into the property market in the booming South West.

But the girls do have their fun behind the bar and point out it’s important to have a good dynamic behind the bar to have a good night and they’ve got used to guys offering them the world.

“Offers to buy you a car, a trip to Fiji – all until the next skimpy goes up and asks them what drink they want,” Nicky laughs.

Jordan points out that although it may disappoint a few of the customers many of the girls were involved in strong and successful relationships: “It’s good, we earn our own money within the relationship and you’ll find a lot of skimpies earn more than their partners.” She said the girls helped buck the trend of the traditional male bread-winner.

The girls say like any other relationship as long as skimpies are open and honest it leads to success and Storm says the same goes for her family.

“My mum has every time I’ve been Skimpy of the Week laminated and up on the wall!” she said.

Skimpy of the Week will return to the Kalgoorlie Miner soon.

oh no, not a mo

2006-03-31T05:38:00.000+01:00

I've been going through all the family photos, putting them into various albums for my mum and for each child. I was doing my brother's album of baby and childhood photos when this turned up - ordinary enough, except that on the back was written "6-6-80 at May's". I'd read this about five times without incident, but when I looked at it again my brain somersaulted. May's? My mum once told me that my father's name was Andrew May. And June 1980 is about 10.5 months before I was born.

I figure it's not the guy holding my brother (although a woman I worked with once did ask me if I was Asian), so that leaves the other guy. He looks about 3 ft high, so I guess that explains my giant stature. And he has a nasty moustache. And - I must admit - there is a hint of ginge. It's not overwhelming, but it's definitely (semi-)hidden in the DNA somewhere. I am definitely never having children. Can one have one's foetus tested for ginge, do you think?

Anyway, I don't know when this blog started being personal; perhaps all internet writings are inexorably bound to end up that way. No more talk about my mother's questionable taste in men - here's a sexy lass to goggle at instead:

Jordan is actually last week's skimpy of the week, it just took me a while to get around to taking a photo of her. I have the strange sensation of being sure that I've seen Jordan somewhere before: any suggestions? Also, is it just me, or does she have extremely mismatched breasts, á là Jessica Simpson?

Eavesdroppin'

2006-03-28T06:29:00.000+01:00

Overheard conversation between two high school students today:
G: I gotta go at 2.30 tuhday
B: Wha? Why?
G: I gotta pick the kids up
B: Where from?
G: School.

Don't go thinking they're her primary-school-aged siblings she's talking about, neither.

"Stevie" and "Sharon"

2006-03-27T05:36:00.000+01:00

Because I am nothing if not dedicated to you, my readers (note: possible erroneous plural), I have been working hard to bring you more skimpies. I noticed that an empty house on my street had been gathering a small collection of newspapers, as the newspaper distributors seemed not to have noticed that the "house" was, in fact, an abandoned shell. I collected some of these old newspapers and thus garnered some old skimpies of the week. Back in December the section was called "Your 7 day Skimpy Guide", which would have made for a much more cumbersome blog title, so thank goodness they changed it.

Anyway, here is "Stevie". Not much of her, which may be a good or bad thing: as usual, I'm not sure.

Also, here is "Sharon". Sharon appears to work as a skimpy in a tin shed.

"Storm"

2006-03-26T06:22:00.000+01:00

Wow, witty and pretty!

"Crystal"

2006-03-22T03:09:00.000+01:00

Crystal is this week's skimpy of the week. Her superior status as a skimpy at the Wild West Saloon/Exchange Hotel is clearly indicated by her cute French maid's outfit, rather than the usual Kmart underwear (or raiding of my sister's collection, perhaps).

Unfortunately, however, despite Crystal's superior clothes, we are still left bereft of an short interview to let us in on the secret of Crytal's passions in life and hopes for the future. Not like the good old days (a few weeks ago) when another Crytal featured:

B-b-b-Boulder!

2006-03-14T08:30:00.000+01:00

I'm still in Perth... But here's an entry I prepared earlier.

Boulder is the even shitty sister town to Kalgoorlie. Some people are proud to say that they live in Boulder (I don't know anyone like this, but I believe they do exist), but most lie and say Kalgoorlie. That's right: if you live in Boulder, you're glad to have people believe that you're from Kalgoorlie. The only thing Boulder has going for it is that the superpit is at the end of the main road.

This is the superpit (this is an old photo: it's even bigger now). I believe it's the largest open-cut mine in the world. Or it will be soon, or something. Supposedly it can also be seen if one happens to be in orbit around the earth. Despite the endless resources of the interweb at my disposal, I haven't bothered to check either of these claims. I did, however, find out that Superpit is also a Dutch band. I think they say that the gold mine has become the symbol for the band's philosophy. I dread to think of the music they make.

Actually I really like the superpit. Everytime I come back to Kalgoorlie I go to the lookout to see how much bigger the hole has become. Sometimes I have to find the new lookout, because the old one has been swallowed up by the mine. At night, it is all lit up by huge floodlights, and the giant drills and shovels and trucks keep going 24/7. I found out recently that there are now free tours of the superpit once a month. March 19 - if I'm back in Kal - I am there.

Tod's back and he's HAVING A GO!

2006-03-04T19:01:00.000+01:00

I should have been posting about Perth, I suppose, as it is equally as worth of mockery as Kalgoorlie, but I just haven't been bothered. Also, I've been complaining about Perth for so long that I'm almost tired of it.

The other day, however, during a brief visit to the Coles at the Fremantle Woolstores shopping centre, I found my favourite community newspaper ever. Have a Go News! I don't think life gets any better.

Case study of one Kalgoorlie family: my own.

2006-03-04T05:10:00.000+01:00

I've been in Perth for the past week and a half, so sadly I haven't been able to provide you with the most recent skimpies of the week. Instead I've had to hang out with my family. Thankfully my sister went to stay with some of her shady Perth associates last night, so I took the opportunity to go through her suitcase.

My sister came to Perth for 4 days and brought 7 bras (presumably she was wearing one). I'll be here 3 weeks and brought 2, neither of which are half as lacy as these. In fact, between them they have precisely no lace.

My sister and I have markedly different taste in underwear.

And pyjamas.

I consider my sister to be an annoying, dumb bogan. She considers me to be many not particularly complimentary things, to which list she would no doubt add the items "immature," "unstylish" and "career spinster" if she could see these photos. Some days, especially after spending too long in Kalgoorlie, I think she may be right.

"Kalgoorlie Gourmet"

2006-03-04T02:53:00.000+01:00

No kidding; that was the title of the section that this appeared in.

Social pages I

2006-02-25T17:00:00.000+01:00

There are two reasons why I feel it is unlikely that my time in Kalgoorlie will involve any loving:

Firstly, the scorching competition.

Secondly (and this is the important one), there are just so many hot men that I have trouble choosing between them.

2006-02-20T05:32:00.000+01:00

Nothing says OZ like owning three utes.

"Anna"

2006-02-19T08:30:00.000+01:00

Anna is this week's "Skimpy of the week". This woman moderately terrifies me, but I'm not entirely sure why. I can't decide whether it's because she has an old face on a child's body (made even more childlike by the bad lacy underwear), or a child's face and child's body (with too much makeup, Jon-Benet Ramsey style), or because she reminds me of another chinless blonde of blog-world fame.

Also please note that the Rock Inn, Anna's current employer, is currently offering the "Summer Early Opener". I know that what I want at 6am is a BBQ breakfast, cold beer and an eyeful of Anna.

No interview to accompany this week's picture, sadly, so we don't know what Anna wants to be when she grows up, but hopefully this will be rectified next time.

Skimpy Bar Number 1

2006-02-18T09:08:00.000+01:00

I have never been into the Exchange hotel. I think one has to be a Real Man to go in. It is the place to go for skimpies - they have multiple scantily clad ladies, not just one drugged out, bored, tired girl. It is also the bikey pub, when they roll into town. Also please note the offices of the Kalgoorlie Miner in the background, the first of several companies in this town to turn down their opportunity to employ me. Fuckers.

The skimpies aren't in the box or anything, by the way. It's just that this photo features some fine Kalgoorlie Lads in the background, apparently looking at the box to decide whether to go into the Exchange or not. I didn't wait to see what their decision was.

Drinkin' town

2006-02-18T06:19:00.000+01:00

If you love your country and love your beer, you'll be all right in Kalgoorlie. (Also, if you are a Real Man, who drives a ute, or a Real Woman, who likes Real Men, and their utes. But more on this later.) All there is to do in Kalgoorlie is drink, and if you're white, you do it in pubs. Here are some Kalgoorlie pubs. Actually I like the pub buildings. It's the people inside who are the problem.

The Australia hotel isn't actually a pub anymore. But a good building nonetheless.

Paddy's: it might not look like much, but this place is packed to bursting every Friday and Saturday night. There is often a line out the door. It is the meat market to end all meat markets: I think that's what people like about it, but I can't be sure. It might be the neverending Proclaimers soundtrack.

What's on at the Grand

2006-02-18T06:14:00.000+01:00

What's on at the Grand is the same as what's on in Kalgoorlie: nothing at all. Every so often some entrepreneurial type starts something up, but it inevitably fails. Yesterday I noticed two new failed ventures: indoor beach volleyball and indoor go-kart racing. Then again, I suspect that indoor beach volleyball might not be a winning formula anywhere.

Dylan S. is getting made piss

2006-02-16T14:48:00.000+01:00

Kalgoorlie. The idea was to live here for a few months to save money. So far that's not really working out, because no one wants to employ me. Possibly because the locals think I'm some kind of alien. Anyway, to pass the time I have decided to take photos of Kalgoorlie and the Goorlians and make fun of them. This graffiti is just outside my mum's office. If I were Dylan S., I'd be scared.