North Queensland

Wow! What a couple of weeks it’s been. On Monday afternoon I and a couple of other people joined a tour that had been making its way up the east coast. From the hostel we went down to the harbour and got onto a racing Yacht for our sail around the Whitsunday Islands. It was a little strange for me and my fellow travellers, because we were joining a tour that had already been going for over a week. Fortunately the four others who joined with me were really lovely people, so I hung around with them for most of the time. The rest of the group was pretty good too, but it was a little large, so very hard to really get to know everybody.

We started our sailing trip with a sunset sail out to Heyman Island, which was absolutely incredible. The sky was absolutely clear, so we got a beautiful red sunset over the ocean. Once the sun was down we had an absolutely incredible view of the stars. So good, in fact, that I decided to sleep out in deck that evening. Unfortunately it was actually pretty cold at night and very uncomfortable.

The next morning we went for a snorkel just off Heyman Island. There were hundreds of fish and some beautiful reef. I just wish I’d been diving down there, rather than snorkelling. It was a great taster for the diving I was going to be doing a little later in my trip. After snorkelling, we went out to Whitehaven beach, which absolutely deserves the label of the best beach in the world. The water was crystal clear and beautifully warm, the sand was pristine white. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. After leaving paradise, we went for another sunset sail back towards the harbour, which was even more beautiful that the first. We anchored up for the night before sailing into port the next morning.

The weather for the sail was absolutely perfect; warm and sunny, without being unbearable. There wasn’t much wind, which meant we didn’t do too much sailing and were using the motor most of the time. The boat was a world championship winning sailing yacht, so there wasn’t a lot of room or luxury, but it was a really interesting experience and you soon got used to it.

After we got off the boat, we got onto the bus and drove pretty much all day to get to Cairns, with only a short stop for lunch in Townsville and a couple of other little stops.

On Thursday we had a free day in Cairns, with a bunch of optional activities to choose from. I decided to go White Water Rafting on the Tully River, which was great fun. The Tully is supposed to be one of the best places in Australia to go rafting and it really lived up to its reputation. I’d never actually done any white water rafting before then, but having done it, I’d love to do more.

Friday was the last day of the tour and we went up to Kuranda to the Koala sanctuary up there. We got to hold a Koala and have a photo taken with it, and feed some kangaroos. It was a really lovely way to end the tour, especially in the rainforest setting. We came back down to Cairns in the afternoon and said goodbye to the tour guides and all went out for a meal in the evening to say goodbye to everybody. All in all a really good tour and a great way to start my trip.

After a relaxing day in Cairns on Saturday I went up to Cape Tribulation for two days. On the first day we went to a wildlife sanctuary and saw some hundred of birds, and with some crocs and a few other things. Then we went for a boardwalk in the Rainforest, which was really beautiful. We saw some of the local wildlife, like a Southern Cassowary, which is very rare in the wild, as well as some beautiful butterflies. I then actually left that particular tour at lunch time and had the afternoon pretty much to myself in Cape Trib. A had a really relaxing few hours by the pool winding down. I wanted to do a guided night walk around the rainforest, but they were all booked up, unfortunately.

On Monday morning I went ‘Rainforest Surfing’, where you fly through the canopy on zip wires. It was a really interesting way of seeing the rainforest from a completely new angle. It was also a nice little adrenaline rush, especially when I was flying upside down! I was picked up after lunch and rejoined the tour back to Cairns. We went down to Cape Tribulation beach, which is the only place in the world where two World Heritage Listed Areas (The Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest) meet. It wasn’t quite Whitehaven Beach, but it was pretty impressive. We then went Croc spotting up the Daintree River. We saw four crocs, but it wasn’t as good croc spotting in Northern Territory.

Then it was back to Cairns again. Tuesday was another quiet one before my Diving trip.

Early on Wednesday morning I got on a boat to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. After a very turbulent two hours to get out there, we arrived at out first dive site. Because we were doing eleven dives over three days, we got into the water as soon as possible and got diving. The first dive was a little tricky for me, because I’d not been diving in quite a while, so it took some time to get back into it. Fortunately, by the second dive I’d managed to get the hang of it again, so the rest of the diving that day was much more fun! Each dive took between forty minutes and an hour, depending on depth and air consumption, so overall I had eight or nine hours diving! The first day was intense, given that we were doing four dives. Basically we would get out of the water, eat, have a short break, then get back in! In the evening I did my first ever night dive, which was a really interesting and surreal experience.

Thursday was a little less intense, but even so it went a little like this: wake up, dive, breakfast, dive, lunch, dive, dinner, dive. Exhausting! We had a little bit of free time between dives, which was usually spend resting, relaxing, playing cards and generally try to do as little as possible!

Friday was the last day of diving, so we only did three dives before heading back to shore. I then had a relaxing afternoon in which I almost went to sleep, I was that exhausted! That evening we all went out to a local pub for a meal and a drink to celebrate the end of our diving trip.

The diving on the reef was truly incredible! There were simply hundreds of fish, including some very beautiful butterfly fish, some hilariously ugly Parrot fish and some other truly bizarre varieties. Over the three days I swam with turtles and sharks, found Nemo a couple of times and generally had a great time! I hired an underwater camera for the three days and tried to take some photos. It’s very hard to take good photos underwater because the lighting is very different from the surface. Even so I think I got some decent ones. I also took a fair bit of video, which probably came out a little better.

To round of my stay in Cairns I did a 50 meter bungee jump on Saturday, which was incredibly scary, but a lot of fun! I flew back to Sydney yesterday morning at about six. I met with a friend from school who’s also doing a GAP year. He’s been in New Zealand, but came over to Sydney for a holiday. I am meeting with another friend who’s living out here for a couple of months later today as well, so the next couple of days should be good fun. I’m travelling back to Orange on Wednesday, for work to start on Thursday. After such a great couple of weeks, I’m not at all looking forward to going back to work! I’m not sure these two weeks have done anything but tire me out even more, so I expect that these first few weeks will be a little tough!

Back on the Horse

Holy God. A blog! What madness.

The last month of my life has been a crazy one in which I’ve lived out of a suitcase and without a reliable internet connection. I’ve been insanely busy travelling around Australia, either with my family or on my own. The few days in which I stayed in one place passed in a drunken haze while I watched England beat Australia in the cricket. Not terribly productive, but what can you do?

I’m back on the horse now however and thought it would be a good idea to tell you in a little more detail what I did on my extended hiatus.

Soon after my last blog, my parents and brother arrived from the UK (only one day before snow covered the country and closed Heathrow) and travelled up to Orange to see me. We did what little sightseeing there is around this town; hiking around the local hill, wine tasting, that sort of thing, before driving back to Sydney via the Blue Mountains for yet more walking!

From Sydney we flew to Melbourne, where we were staying for Christmas in a hotel in China Town. Christmas Eve was spent on St Kilda beach (I really hate beaches), and I managed to get a sunburn – a great start to our stay in Melbourne. Christmas Day was a bit better – we ate lunch at a really nice restaurant on the dockside before walking the length of the CBD along the river (my parents really like walking). It wasn’t terribly Christmassy, what with it being the middle of summer, but we survived. Actually it’s very strange how Australians have imported Christmas almost entirely unaltered from England, despite the fact that the weather is totally different – Santa still wears a huge red coat and all the cards have snowmen, reindeer and other wintery things on them.

On Boxing Day we took a bus tour around the City, hopping off to do some shopping (I also hate shopping) and some more walking. Stupidly I forgot to take my camera with me, so I didn’t get any photos of Melbourne. The day after Boxing Day we went to the MCG to watch a day of the cricket between England and Australia.

That marked the end of our visit to Melbourne. I found the city to be somewhat quiet, although visiting around Christmas may well have contributed to that. It was also quite unfinished. The area around the docklands was still being built, so it seemed like most of the city was a work in progress. It also felt very planned and soulless – it was built on a rigid grid pattern and seemed to have very little history – none of the city was really all that old.

Sydney was a stark contrast. We flew there on the 28^th and spent the next four days there. We met with some family friends the day after we arrived and walked around Sydney (yes, more walking). We did all the typical touristy stuff, like walking over the bridge, going up to the top of the Sydney Tower and walking through the Botanical Gardens to the Opera House. We were staying out in the Suburbs, a good 15 minute train journey away, which was a bit of a drag, so we spent pretty long days in the city to make the most of it.

The day before New Year’s Eve we took a bus trip around the city and out to Bondi Beach (more bloody beaches). I didn’t get sun burned this time, because a flatly refused to actually go to the beach; I went to an internet café instead. On New Year’s Eve we went to a point almost directly under the Harbour Bridge and staked out from 2 pm for the fireworks, which were absolutely spectacular! In our long day sitting around doing nothing, I started reading Stieg Larsson’s ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’ (having not actually read the first book…) which I might review next week unless something more interesting comes up.

On New Year’s Day (happy new year, by the way), we went to Manly (a suburb or Sydney) to visit some more family friends and then went to the beach (again. This time I read). The day after that was my family’s last day in Aus, so we did some more wandering round Sydney (including going to the Chinese Garden) before saying our farewells. I then travelled to King’s Cross to the hostel in which I was staying for another week or so.

Thus began the part of my trip in which it was just me! Some of you might know that King’s Cross in Sydney’s Red Light District, which I didn’t know when I booked the hostel. Don’t fear; I didn’t hire any hookers during my week there. The reason I was staying in King’s Cross was that it is only a fairly short walk from the SCG, where I was going to watch the cricket that week.

The week passed in a fairly drunken haze, while England won The Ashes and I tried to survive without my parents paying for everything! It ended a rather enjoyable time in Sydney, which I preferred to Melbourne. Sydney was a lot busier (although that may have something to do with the time of year) and seemed more organic as a city – it was built on a grid, but it didn’t always stick to the grid like Melbourne did. Unfortunately it was also a lot harder to get around and there was an awful lot of traffic.

On the Saturday (that’s the 8^th) I flew to Hobart for a tour of Tasmania. My Tassie experience began first thing on Sunday with a trip to Richmond – a small village with an old bridge and some cute ducklings – we didn’t stay long – before continuing onto Port Arthur, the place where all the bad people went. And not just stole-a-loaf-of-bread bad, the repeat offenders got sent to ‘Hell on Earth’ as they called it. In the evening we got the opportunity to go back for a ghost tour, which was actually pretty spooky and very fun – basically the guide just walked us round the site and told us ghost stories relating to the places we visited.

On Monday we jet boat cruise around The Tasman Peninsula, which was great fun – we saw lots of dolphins and seals, as well as some stunning scenery. The sea was a bit choppy, so we got thrown around a bit, but it was all good fun. In the afternoon we drove up to Cole’s Bay on the edge of Freycinet National Park.

The next morning we walked through Freycinet and took in the beautiful Wineglass Bay, then it was up north to the Bay of Fires for more beautiful beaches and scenery.

On Wednesday we went across to Launceston (Australia’s 3^rd oldest city) to look at Cataract Gorge and pick up the 7^th member of our tour group and only the second non-English speaking. I was the only Englishman, there were 4 Aussies, a Dutch woman and a French Swiss (the latter we picked up in Launceston), overall a pretty good group. The Swiss girl’s English was pretty poor, which wasn’t ideal (neither was starting half way through).

After we left Launceston we drove all the way to the top the Cradle Mountain, where it was raining and we had no power… So we went to a local pub with a generator and stayed there for a little while, before huddling in front of the fire playing card and retelling ghost stories that we heard on the ghost tour (to the people who were too scared to go!)

The next day we were supposed to do some hiking around Cradle, but it was very wet and cold, so we walked for a bit, and then retreated into the pub, which was unfortunate. Despite the cold and the wet Cradle was beautiful. In the afternoon we drove down to Strahan, where it was supposed to be warm and dry.

Of course it rained most of the next day. We were supposed to go Quad Biking or Kayaking or some other optional activity, but we ended up just hiring sand boards and getting very wet on the dunes (and sandy). After a shower and a warm cup of tea, we headed out to the Franklin River to sample the fresh waster of the world’s only wild river (it runs without any human interference or usage from start to finish).

Saturday was the final day of our tour and it began with a stroll around part of Lake St Clair (Australia’s deepest freshwater lake), before heading out to Mt Field National Park to see the tallest flowering trees in the world. We staked out for a while to see some Platypus, but it was the middle of the day, so they refused to oblige us. Still we saw some very pretty waterfalls. Before returning to Hobart we stopped off at a wildlife sanctuary to see some of the locals. We met an adorable Wombat; some very misunderstood Tasmanian Devils (much cuter than the cartoon); a sleepy Koala (not actually a local); an Echidna; lots of Kangaroos (we even got to feed them) and even a Tasmanian Tiger! (Just kidding, they were extinct in the 1930s)

Then it was back to Hobart to say farewell and have one last evening of drinking together. Overall a fantastic tour; plenty of sights to see, even despite the weather. Tasmania reminded me of New Zealand in many ways – the North Island certainly (without the volcanism). It was lovely to see a part of Aus that most tourist neglect (some even miss it off the maps!). I’m especially glad that I was wise enough to leave Queensland until a little later on in the year (April), because I don’t think I’d have gotten very far!

I did actually have another day in Hobart. A number of the tour group met up for breakfast and explored the city a little (it didn’t take long) before going out separate ways. I first went to an internet café to catch up on what I’d missed (Tasmania is pretty backwards with regards to internet, so I was somewhat adrift all week. In fact one of the charms of Tassie, as well as one of its downfalls that it is a little like stepping into a time machine and going back somewhere between 5 and 20 years; so much is old fashioned and backwards.)

Anyway, after catching up with the world at large I went for another stroll along with picturesque dockside and followed my ears to a local music festival that happened to be going on (it also happened to be free!). It was an alternative Music Festival and had some very alternative stuff indeed, like an Italian man playing Minimalist music with kitchen utensils and a mixing deck, and a giant ball which made noises when hit that was released into the crowd so that we could make the music ourselves. There was some more conventional music as well, like a string quartet playing rock music (ok, not so conventional, but at least it’s with actually instruments, not pots and pans!)

And that’s why I’ve not had a blog in over 3 weeks.

National Poetry Day

I doubt that you know this, but Thursday was National Poetry Day in the UK. While the necessity of giving poetry its own day is up for debate, I don’t want to pursue that path because frankly I don’t really know nor care about the answer. Instead I thought I’d share some of my own poetry. I’ve not done this before because most of the poetry I’ve written is pretty crap. However of late I’ve started writing some poems that I actually quite like.

The premise is that I start with a photo that I’ve taken on my travels around the world and use that photo as inspiration for a short poem. The theme is Man’s relationship with the natural world, but I’ve only been sticking to that pretty loosely so far. The reason I’ve started doing this is that I keep getting bouts of inspiration and desire to write something, but no idea what to write about. A photo provides a really good focal point for this inspiration and allows me to channel it into something tangible.

Below are three examples, the first of which is about Hiroshima. To get some of the references you might want to check out this Wikipedia article .

Grey Skies and Falling Rain

Across the river from the bombed out husk
Is the bell that will always be rang,
And the flame that will never go out.
Sombre monuments to our destructive
Nature.

Innocent white cherry blossoms bloom,
Stark contrast to the empty concrete.
The solemn grey reminder of the tragedy
Of human progress,
In the hands of the barbarous.

The grey skies and the falling rain
–Nature’s pathetic fallacy–
Punctuate the grim scene.

The rain will not extinguish the flame,
And the bell will keep sounding
For peace.

While bombs rain
And sky’s greyed
By mushroom clouds

The second is inspired by a photo taken when I was skiing in Austria back in 2008.

The Cable Car

Jagged white peaks carve the perfect blue sky,
The shadow of the mountain bathes half of the valley in darkness,
As the sun gleams off the snow.
Sprawling forests dirty the perfect white floor
With snow-speckled dark green carpet.
Defiant, shoulders of rock peak out from the snow,
Breakers of permanence swimming in the sea of white.

Through the valley floor a road carves and curves into the snow,
An earthworm of humanity against the mountain giant.
A car streams along the road, flying towards the town,
Nestled just out of sight,
Surrounded by trees and half shadowed by the mountains.

And the people in the cable car sit and watch,
As they fly over the mountain along cords of ingenuity.
Their glass castles swaying in the cool alpine air,
As they observe man’s wild and untamed
Dominion.

And the third is inspired by my recent trip to the Northern Territory.

To Steal the Soul of Death

In the swamps of North Australia
In the Billabongs and the rivers,
In the shady jungle at the water’s edge,
Floating just below the surface,
Of the serene, wind-rippled water,
Lives Death.

And from the boat we peer into the middle distance,
Straining our eyes to catch a glimpse.
Lifting our cameras to steal the soul of Death.
To capture the moment we were mere meters from him,
To immortalise our close encounter,
In mere pixels.

So we can go back to our homes in the cities
And boast to our friends that we were so close
And show them the pixels to prove it.
And relive our risk filled trip into the outback,
In fictional detail.

While in the swamps and the Billabongs,
The crocs keep ignoring the boats,
And the straining eyes
And the cameras.
And wait for dinner to enter the water.

Two other poems in this embryonic collection have recently been published in Downright Fiction, which I encourage you to check out, not only because it includes some more work by me, but also because there are some truly fantastic pieces of work by others.

Up top!

Some of you might know that I’ve spend the last week and a half travelling around the Northern Territory of Australia, which is why there has been no Project 365 for a while and no blog last week. Well I’m making it up to you by posting last weekend’s blog post today and also posting one on Saturday. I will also update Project 365 at some point in the next few days.

So anyway, I flew up to Alice Springs early Saturday morning (September 25th) and got in about midday, so I had the afternoon to relax by the pool and wind down before the tour started on Sunday. This way fortunate because it was an early start on Sunday – we had to have our bags on the bus at 6:30 in the morning! After a bit of breakfast we started the long trip to Uluru (4 or 5 hours on a bus). We had lunch in our resort before heading out to the Rock for the afternoon.

Uluru was very beautiful. Although some of the group climbed to the top, the Aboriginals request that you don’t, so I decided not to. Instead I did a walk around the bottom and took some very good photos! In the evening we sat and watched the sun set over the Rock, which was a wonderful experience.

Then it was back to our resort and into bed after a bit of supper in preparation for another long day. We woke up for breakfast at 5 am in order to get to Kata Tjuta (some big rocks a few miles away from Uluru) for sunrise and then do a two and a half hour walk around the domes before the heat set in. We retraced our steps in the afternoon on the way to King’s Canyon; our stop off point for that evening. Again it was dinner and an early night in preparation for another early morning the next day.

The early morning was so that we could walk through King’s Canyon before the heat of the day. This walk was probably the highlight of the trip; even better than Ayer’s Rock! The rock formations reminded me a lot of pictures I have seen of Cappadocia in central Turkey; needless to say it was absolutely stunning. That evening we returned to Alice for dinner at a charming pub called Bojangles. I ate an 800 gram steak, which I think was about 2 pounds! I got a certificate for my trouble from the restaurant and $5 from a friend, so it was worth it.

The next morning was a late start (thankfully because we’d stayed at the pub until late the last night). We travelled up to the Western MacDonnell Mountains and explored some of the beautiful rock formations in the morning and then went back to Alice for the afternoon. Some of the group stayed in Alice the afternoon, but about half a dozen of us (me included) went Quad biking, which was absolutely awesome! We then returned to our resort for dinner and entertainment in the form of a live Guitarist and a reptile handler. I got to have a snake wrapped around my neck!

From Alice we spend the next 2 days heading 'up the track' to Katherine. This involved 2 days of solid driving through some of the most desolate and deserted landscape I've ever seen. Apart from the occasional rest stop and a couple of small towns there was almost no sign of civilisation for miles on end. The small patches of civilisation were all pretty quirky as well. Two of the best were probably Daly Waters; a pub in which passers by have left pretty much every kind of memorabilia to adorn the walls. We left a vest signed by the entire tour to add to the extensive collection of crap, and Wycliffe Wells; the self-proclaimed UFO capital of Australia.

Eventually, after many long hours on the bus, we arrived in Katherine; the third largest town in The Territory. We had a bit of time to shop here before heading off to our accommodation for the evening. The next day we went Kayaking down the Katherine River before cooling off in the pools beneath Edith Falls - the first of many swimming stops over the next few days, which were much needed due to the oppressive tropical humidity. In the afternoon we headed into Kakadu; the largest National Park in Australia, and got settled down in our accommodation. Unlike the rest of the tour, this accommodation was in permanent tents, which was an interesting experience, but very humid given that they lacked air con!

The next morning I, along with half a dozen other people from the tour, went on a scenic flight over the national park, which was absolutely stunning. It proved to be a superb way to see the park both because of its vastness and the humidity making it impossible to spend too much time outside the air conditioned bus. The rest of the morning was spent exploring some of the Aboriginal art sites around Kakadu, which was a really interesting experience. It's a bit of a shame that we don't really know what most of the paintings represent. In the afternoon it was back to the camp site for a relaxing time in the pool and at the bar watching the Rugby League Grand Final.

We were up early the next morning so that we could get to Corroboree Billabong to get up close and personal with Australia's deadliest species - the Salt Water Croc! Fortunately no-one was eaten and we got to get a close look at both fresh and salt water Crocodiles as well as a plethora of bird species that inhabit the Billabong. After our close encounter we got back in the bus and drove to Mt Bundy for our final night together! Another tour member and I went on a guided horse ride through the homestead, which was good fun - and I didn't even fall off once! We saw lots of Wallabies and Kangaroos roaming the homestead as well as some huge termite mounds.

We departed Mt Bundy on the last day of our trip and headed to Lichfield National Park, where we spend a relaxing day travelling between waterfalls and swimming in the beautiful pools. Our last stop was Darwin, where we had dinner and hit the pub to say goodbye to everyone! I unfortunately had a plane to catch in the early hours, so I didn't stay for the duration. Even so it was a really good end to a really good trip and I look forward to my next one.

Times, they are a'changing

As of next week (Thursday in fact) I will be a temporary resident of Australia. For the next year I will be living and working Down Under in my Gap Year. I will be working in a School called Kinross Wolaroi, which is in Orange, about 4 hours drive from Sydney. Why am I telling you this? I hear you ask. Well mostly in the name of context because I expect that my entries over the next year will be slightly more personal and related what I’m up to. I feel that I should explain exactly what it is I’m doing first so you don’t all get horribly confused.

Don’t worry however, this will not mean a radical change from what I’ve been doing for the last 2 years (almost). I will still be updating weekly on weekends, although bare in mind that I will be in a wildly different time zone, so update schedules will be odd (not that I have much of a schedule anyway). Most of my entries will still be a selection of rants, reviews, fiction, current affairs and what-not, but there will be a little more about me for the next year or so. I’ll be tweeting my updates anyway so be sure to follow me if you don’t already. I don’t doubt that I’ll be busy, so I may start getting even later than I usually am and there may be the odd no-show, but don’t worry, I will try as hard as I can to post something every week.

If you know me or are particularly quick witted you will note that me going on a Gap Year means that I must have finished school. For those that don’t know, I have been at school at Kind Edward’s in Birmingham for the last 7 years. This era has now come to a close and I am moving onto pastures new. Inevitably this is an interesting time and often emotional time, but it is also a time for reflection and remembering.

I am incredibly lucky that I have had the chance to go to one of the best school’s in the area, if not the country. I am also incredibly lucky that I have met some truly wonderful people, some of whom may even be reading this right now! Although the school has done much for me and given me the opportunity to have some truly memorably experiences, it is the people who have made my last 7 years so fantastic. Indeed it is the people who make the memories so memorable.

I have been asked in the last few days whether I would take another year at school if I could. My answer has always been a very immediate no. I am frankly bored of the regimented days, the institutionalised, petty self-obsession that those who rule the school like their own little kingdoms display, the façade of relevance that is showered over sports results and the general attitude that there is little of importance in the world beyond school itself. As a young boy of 11 with 7 years at the place ahead of me these things mattered, but now it all seems rather false and painfully irrelevant. I feel that I am ready to move on.

However I always add onto my prompt rejection of another year at school that I would gladly have another year with the people, indeed I would gladly and other lifetime with the people because I have made some truly wonderful friends. All my fantastic memories of the last 7 years have been made by the people around me creating those moments that will stay with me forever. Inevitably my mind filters out the mediocre and only holds the best and the worst of times, but I am deeply thankful that there are for more of the best of times than there are of the worst.

So the defining movement of my childhood has come to a climactic and devastatingly enjoyably end. I do not doubt that a unique and memorable interlude is about to begin. Like all great symphonies this movement has gone by far too quickly and I regret that it is over, but I have been swept up in the torrent of time and so I am ready and willing to move on. If these last 7 years have taught me anything (and I should hope that they have given that I’ve been in a bloody school), they have taught me that no matter what you do, no matter how much money you spend, no matter how well you plan something, what makes an experience memorable, what makes your life wonderful is the people you surround yourself with. Happiness is not bought it is reciprocated by people with whom you share a common interest, passion and friendship. As with a great work of art, it is the people, not the piece, who really make life what it is.

On that soppy note I shall finish my final entry from England for 12 months. Next week I shall be in Australia. It is a scary thought, but one that also holds a great opportunity. I cant wait to tell you all about it!

Right to die?

This week in Bournemouth almost 100 people attended a suicide workshop run by an Australian doctor called Philip Nitschke, which is really hard to spell.  Dr Nitschke is the founder of the right-to-die organisation, Exit and is famous for helping four people to die Northern Territory, Australia in 1996. He recently came to the UK to run a series of suicide workshops so that anyone who is particularly bored with life can go along and find out the most efficient way of ridding the world of their depressed existence. Actually the workshops are only open to the seriously ill or elderly, so the Emos will have to work it out for themselves, which is unfortunate because most of them lack the basic initiative to hurl themselves from a suitably high building.

Inevitably the arrival of the doctor with the hard-to-spell name has caused some controversy; he was initially barred from entering the country under the Immigration and Asylum Act until the blundering morons at the Home Office realised that he was neither an immigrant, nor seeking asylum, nor did he pose a serious through to our safety, and allowed him entry into the country. Nonetheless fears still remain over the effect he may have on people who attend his workshops; someone might end up committing suicide, which is exactly the point of the exercise. I guess people like Alex Russell, the vicar of Pennington and chaplain of Oak Haven Hospice in Lymington, Hampshire forgot that the workshops are voluntary, so they’re only going to effect people who would consider suicide anyway and want to know the best way to do it. (By the way Alex Russell, the vicar of Pennington and chaplain of Oak Haven Hospice in Lymington, Hampshire is quoted on the BBC website and I couldn’t be arsed to find someone more noteworthy to quote at you.)

It’s hardly surprising that Doctor Nitschke has caused such controversy given people’s misgivings about assisted suicide. It seems that, although killing yourself is just rather sad, helping someone else kill themselves is some strangely sadistic act of murder. Apparently someone who is able to kill himself has more of a right to die that someone who can’t, simply by virtue of the fact that they don’t need any help. It seems very odd to me that people do not accept that people with a serious and extremely painful illness cannot have any help in ending their lives when they want to, rather than waiting for death to slowly and painfully arrive. Fortunately we seem to be in the middle of a u-turn in public opinion; a few months ago the parents of a man were acquitted of assisted suicide after taking their son, who had been crippled in a rugby accident and was paralyzed from the neck downwards, to Dignitas in Switzerland to commit suicide. Given this and the decision to allow Doctor Nitschke to run his suicide workshops, it seems apparent to me that people are warming to the idea that, just because you are unable to kill yourself, you should be forced to live a life of pain and suffering until you finally snuff it of natural causes.

It is absurd to me that the law essentially forces people to continue living when they just don’t want to, simply because they are unable to kill themselves. The law is there solely to protect our basic human rights, it is not there to dictate what we can and cannot do with our lives. While some restrictions must be placed on our action when they infringe upon other’s rights, what we do with out private lives is not the prerogative of some busy-body government official. Euthanasia is usually committed with the consent of the person who is being killed; they have chosen to end their lives, they just need help doing it. By illegalising Euthanasia the government is essentially infringing on our basic human right to choose; in this case to choose when to die.

It is the case with far too many of our laws that they try to dictate to us what we can and cannot do in our private lives. The role of law is not to set a moral code of society; it is to allow all members of society to live by their own moral code. This necessarily means that the government must protect each individual’s right to live as they will by stopping people from impinging on this right, but this is the extent to which the government should be able to dictate our behaviour. It should not be able to stop people from committing suicide. It should not be able to stop people from helping loved ones to die in dignity. It should not be able to stop people from giving workshops on how to kill oneself and it should not stop people from attending them. 

What double standards?

Recently, well last week, but I only do this once a week (thankfully) so I can get a little behind, there has been a lot of controversy over some comments made by people who work for the BBC. It feels a little like I’m going over the same ground here after my rant about the royal family saying racist things, but this is what’s been getting on my tits recently.

If you live under a rock (or maybe the in United States, or anywhere other than the UK for the matter) you won't know what I’m talking about and probably won't care and I think I used that line or something similar last time, ah well. Last week the news broke that Carol Thatcher (the daughter of Maggie… no comment) had referred to a black tennis player as a golliwog in a private conversation in the ‘green room’ after an episode of ‘the One Show’ for which she is a roving reporter. Ironically Joe Brand, who was part of this conversation, took offense and reported it to her boss. Weird how Joe Brand can be offended by that when she herself says some highly inappropriate things at her comedy shows. In any case some big cheese at the BBC demanded an apology from Carol Thatcher, which she gave, but it wasn’t good enough and she found herself out of a job.

Inevitably I think this is completely absurd; it was a private conversation and all we have is a single word quote with no note of context or tone. I think it’s pretty unlikely that Carol Thatcher was genuinely being racist; if she was she deserves to be sacked purely for being stupid enough to make it so obvious. It was probably little more than a terrible joke in very poor taste that went horrible wrong. I didn’t realise that it was BBC policy to sack people who make poor jokes; actually it might be a good idea to do that, it might mean that we have to suffer fewer horrifically poor sketch shows and sit coms.

The absurd thing is that the comments were in a private conversation and yet she is out of a job when Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross can deeply offend Manuel (Andrew Sachs) and get away with a few months suspension. Ok so the moron who allowed that to be broadcast was sacked for being a fuckwit, but even so I think Thatcher was treated a little harshly. Then again she is hardly a big celebrity who is hugely popular and gets millions of viewers watch her every week, unlike Ross and Brand.

Another example of blatant double standards by our beloved BBC was when Jeremy Clarkson called Gordon Brown ‘a one-eyed, Scottish idiot’ in a live show of Top Gear in Australia recently and got away with nothing more than an apology. Again it seems that the BBC has one policy for people who they consider expendable (like Thatcher) and another for people who they can’t afford to loose (like Clarkson, Ross and Brand). Who needs principles eh? I am not of course saying that Clarkson should be sacked; Gordon Brown is an idiot, although linking that with the ‘one-eyed’ comment was probably a little inappropriate. I’m sure Gordon has better thinks to do than worry about what a big-headed arrogant twat like Clarkson thinks of him; he’s too busy trying to save the world (and failing it must be added).

So the BBC has not come out of the last week or two very well. Sacking Thatcher was the wrong thing to do and their complete lack of consistency was highlighted by the fact that Clarkson got away scot free for something far worse (not that he should have been sacked either; we expect that sort of thing from Clarkson by now). I guess that’s television for you.

I know I probably don’t have many (if any) readers from Australia, but I feel I should extend my sincere condolences to anyone who has lost anyone or anything in the bushfires Down Under. I guess it would be in very poor taste to use this as a spring board to talk about something else, so I think I’d better end it there.

Australia

Happy New Year everyone! It’s now 2009 and doesn’t feel any different from 2008, but there’s still time. Anyway I was thinking of starting this year with a preview of 2009, but I don’t think there’s any room on that particular bandwagon. I was also going to introduce a project that I will be working on in the early part of this year, but I have something much more interesting for you today.

Last night my parent and I went to see the film ‘Australia’, mostly because my mum had read that it had some nice scenery and Hugh Jackman, and I wanted something to review. Anyway I have to say that it is without a doubt, the best film I’ve seen all year… it actually took my dad about a minute and a half to get that joke.

Joking aside (just for a minute) it was a really good film and well worth watching. The story was absolutely fantastic and the characters actually changed during the course of the film, something that is lacking from most films you see around! Character development and plot are things that seem to have been sacrificed at the altar of modern technology and replaced by impressive CGI and high tempo action sequences in recent time. As I said in my James Bond review, CGI and high tempo action sequences are a poor replacement for a good story. Australia proves me right. This film will retain its class long after modern technology becomes obsolete because it doesn’t rely upon it. The story and the themes are timeless.

However, it was not perfect. I know I complain about films being too short and I have said that there is nothing wrong with long films, but Australia was a little too long. While the storyline remained very compelling and my interest was retained right to the end, it still felt like it was dragging on. This was probably not helped by the ‘false ending’ half way through, when everyone seemed to be living happily ever after, but then a plot twist sparked off a whole other storyline. It almost felt like two film in one. The false ending meant that you were expecting the credits to role and when you’re then subjected to a sequel it feels like the film is shamefully delaying. It takes a while to realise that you’re only half way through the film and need to get comfortable again. It might have been better to split the film in two and made each section a little longer, although then the temptation to make a trilogy out of it would probably be too strong and that has been the downfall of far too many films.

Moving seamlessly onto my next complaint: one of the apparent plus points of the film was the sunning scenery and, to be fair, it was truly amazing. You have to watch it in the cinema to fully experience the sheer beauty of it. It was actually a little bizarre; occasionally the film would sort of stop at an appropriate place and panoramic views of random parts of Australia would be shown over soothing music with very little relevance to the actual film. It just felt like they were showing off, or maybe just trying to distract you from the film with the scenery. I suppose, were the film a bit shit, it would be a clever tactic to make the visit to the cinema worthwhile, but since the film was so good in its own right, it just felt unnecessary.

Now onto the acting in a transition as seamless as the last one. Actually there’s not much to say, it was a really good, especially the little Aboriginal boy. He played the part really well and managed to pull off the little bits of narration, which I would normally denounce as poor storytelling. Generally narration only really works in Film Noir and I suppose Australia had some elements of that in it, especially in the beginning, so the narration worked extremely well.

Overall, very good, worth watching in the cinema if only to make the panoramic scenery seem like it serves a purpose.

Before plans to go to the cinema decided what this blog was about, I was going to introduce something that I’ll be working on over the next few week/months. It is something that I’ve inventively named ‘the Youtube Project’. I’ll introduce it next week as well as talking about the new laptop that will be being delivered in the next few day, I hope.