So, that's why that call it Falls.

So we went snowboarding last weekend.

It was fun.

It hurt a lot.

It was cold.

But pretty.

See...

Andrew was a lot better than I was. At least he stayed upright for longer.

Queue and A

It started like this...


And if finished up like this...


And now Q+A is gone for good.

It was fun while it lasted. Actually, it was more than fun. To say the place has been important is a bit of an understatement. I think probably 80% of the people I know in Melbourne I met there or through people I met there. I could blather on but I won't because I am hung over.

Thanks Richard, Pete and Helen. Words cunt express... The 400 strong queue at the door before opening can though.

Oh, and if anyone finds my phone (and isn't it a coincidence that I lost it on the same day that the iPhone is released.)

Prom Country

Andrew and I hit the open road (or as open as it gets in Melbourne) this weekend and headed for Prom country.

It was scenic though a little brooding, which I think is pleasantly euphemistic for bitterly cold and violently windy. Thankfully the rain held out while we were in the park chasing the kangaroos, emus and wombats.




Saturday afternoon we bumped into this funny fellow by the trail on the way back from Squeaky Beach.



Saturday night we stayed in Foster, in a little country house that had been turned into a 10-sleeper backpackers. We took the double room and nobody else was there (or almost nobody) so we got the entire place to ourselves, lounge, heating, kitchen. It was a bit of a bargain at only $60.

The next morning we hit Mount Oberon to catch the view. It was worth it (click through to have a gander).



The plan is to return in summer to have a crack at the overnight hikes, backpacks and all. Can't wait. Who's in?

Round The Bay

It is so nice when friends organise their own going away events. Sue organised a sprightly trip around Port Phillip Bay, which was made decidedly less sprightly after the first night drinking in Portarlington.

The ferry trip across to Sorento did little to quell the stomachs of some of the crew but that was soon remedied with some coffee and Tatos chips.

JT, lying on the beach, chatting to serial killers in Portsea and dancing under the bright lights of the Conti made for a memorable weekend.

Cheers Sue.

Dylan Moran @ Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Dylan was grand. Funny in his acerbic way. I've spent the last few weeks repeating his jokes about Catholics and biscuits so i am going to shut up and show you this photo of a Gremlin I took before the show.



Scary!

Interpret this!

Interpretative dance can happen in the most unlikely places.

Where is Samara when you need her most?

St Patrick's Day @ The Dan O'Connell Hotel

The theme of the day was green.

The other theme was beer.

Oh, another theme was pirate music for some reason. (Frankly, I've heard better tunes from someone's tie.)

The rest of the photos can be reached by clicking on the pic above.

Andrew Is Leaving (on a jet plane...)

He doesn't know when he'll be back again.



He will be sorely missed. Not quite as sorely as his mother's cat would have been if it had stayed but sorely nonetheless.

He's off back to London to make another go of it.

So, it has happened, the Irish have finally taken over Falconer Street.

The farewell was quite touching. The boys got him a collection of Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jonze dvds. It was quite amusing, Andrew was visibly surprised that they'd given such a thoughtful gift. And the boys revelled in it. Those Irish are full of surprises.

Best of luck, Andrew. It has been good catching up again. Even though I am sure you saw more of me than you were expecting to.

Yarra Valley Jaunt

After much searching for accommodation, even resorting to campsites, Andrew and I succumbed to the group mentality and put our trip down to the Prom on hold for a while. Instead we got on a mini-bus with Richard (not my housemate, the tour guide, who had a penchant for hens) and headed off to the Yarra Valley to hit the wineries.

It was a blast. 5 Irish, 1 Geordie and 2 Aussies. Luckily, the mini-bus had a shamrock plastered on it (and it was powered by leprechauns) so we couldn't get lost.

We spent the day tasting wine, looking at art and dodging hen parties. It was tiring but we got some good wine out of it.

That's all... Photos to come later.

Full Moon Party

Okay, so the news is I turned 32.

It happened a few days ago. I am still coming down from the whole affair. (Or perhaps coming up is a better term.)

It was a day of weirdity. Silly arguments. No shows. Extravagance.

That is not to say it wasn't fun. Just odd. Must have been the moon.

Fidel's Cigar-tainted Karaoke

Shamil is no longer 32.

We no longer have any shame.

Three observations:-

i) Never believe Andrew when he says he won't sing - you will have to pry the microphone from his bleeding fingers;

ii) Never let Shamil talk about the wait-staff with a microphone in his hand;

iii) Never sing a song that consists almost wholly of Fred Flintstone's catch cry.

The night was an absolute blast. I couldn't speak the next day, though I, along with everyone else, blame that on the very quiet microphones.

Hmmm.

Thanks again to karaoke-wallah for the impressive frivolities.

Marching Proud

Look how proud he is! That is because he's spent his afternoon watching the gayest of Melbourne's community groups marching through one of Melbourne's gayest precincts.

I jest. But it is true that the Pride March was a heart swelling event. I prefer Melbourne's march to Sydney's parade. It is less flashy, more grounded. There is a real sense of the GBLTI community thanking and praising the movers and shakers that make out community what it is. Of course there is not as much eye candy (even less this year because of the miserable weather) or music but the general warm glow more than makes up for that.



We headed down after saying farewell to Steff. The tram down Nicholson Street was already crammed full of homosexualists of both persuasions and we got to nattering about Friday night. And the rain fell. Heavily.



Luckily, by the time the parade opened with the traditional Dykes on Bykes the clouds were holding their payloads. It didn't rain on the police, or the lesbians parading their bubs for political propaganda. It didn't rain on the gay Greeks or the gay Italians. Hell, it didn't even rain on those butt-fucking koalas that were censored from the Myer Christmas windows this year.

Even though we arrived minutes before the start, there was plenty of room. Attendance was a little disappointing but it didn't hamper the good spirits. It was great to see a few friends marching and, when the parade had finished parading the crowd that followed along revealed itself to be quite sizeable.



Drinks at the POW afterwards, a supper with Shamil and a brief jaunt to see what was happening in the park and then it was all over. Pity about the weather, it would have been a lot more festive without the wind and rain but you get that.

Bring on Carnivale!

Midsumma Opens

Midsumma is here, though they should have changed the name this year. Not much was summery on Friday night. It was warmish but also very muggy. Not that that detracted from the night. Easily one of the most impressive openings I've been to.

Somewhere along the line they decided to jettison all of the crap acts and replace them with artistically credible performers. It was quite unsettling. There was not a rapping Bette Midler impersonator in sight. I was quite disoriented.

Not that we spent all that much time watching the acts. We were too busy watching the bottom of our plastic Becks cups.


Sam came along and she was in fine form. Somehow she managed to plant herself firmly in the centre of every one of my photos. Not that I am complaining because she is dangerously photogenic.

Before the crowds came we managed to catch the skill tester tent set up by Penny Machinations, who brought us last year's Berina of Mystery. Andrew (not that Andrew, the other Andrew) was proclaimed a level 2 psychic even though he couldn't telepathically collect the image of Margaret Pomeranz or any of the numerous penises.



By the time we were ready to move on, we were well-sauced and ready for a tram ride to the Xchange hotel, home of drag shows, go-go boys and a dancefloor of unmixed Nineties classics.

See:



It was a blast of a night and a fitting opening to what promises to be a Midsumma of fabulousness. (Did I just say that?)

Let's Talk About The Weather...

It's been a weird week for weather here in Melbourne. The mercury has been, well, mercurial. Tuesday saw Steff and I sweltering by the pool with half of the Melbourne Storm rugby league team and then, while the temperatures stayed up, the rain came down.

Ondine and I sheltered on the lawn inside Madame Brussels, drinking Pimms and eating toasted ham and cheese sandwiches. It was all very British. It is a great idea and the location (up three flights of stairs inside a dowdy building at the top of Bourke Street) only adds to the atmosphere.



Unfortunately, seeing as we were the only ones there and the bar staff in their tennis kits weren't enough to keep out attention, we ended up picking faults with the decor. I'll definitely be heading back there to see how it works in the evenings.

The weather held out while I caught up with Em at World Wide Wash. Great venue, great company.

So you can see that I have been biding my time waiting for this work to come in. I am getting more and more frustrated as the days go by but it gives me a good excuse to catch up with friends.

Word.

Saturday Night Was A Drag

I admit it. Sitting around Andrews' place eating from Sue's deliciously cooked no-frills barbecue, I was less than impressed when someone mentioned that the plan was to go to the Greyhound afterwards. Less than less than impressed.

But I went. Actually, by the time the time had come I was tippsily up for it.

I am so glad. It was such an enjoyable night.

We dance-staggered to classic pop songs by the likes of Vanessa Amorosi, S Club 7 and the Minogues stagger-danced to the bar to drink some more. As always, Andrew's hat did the rounds.



The drag was hilarious. And sequinny. My personal highlight was the dance rendition of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" performed by singing portraits of the Madonna and Child. Priceless.

Cyrano de Bergerac (or, Make Love AND War, But Mainly Love)

Last week, I think it was Monday or Tuesday, I ate snails.

Don't think I didn't tell you because I was ashamed or anything, it is just that I was waiting to show you the photos. Seeing as I have taken to not carrying my camera around with me as obsessively as I once did, I tend to rely on others to upload theirs to their chosen corner of the web before I can adorn my posts with their prettiness.

So here it is, courtesy of Steff.



It all went down at Bergerac's, a French restaurant on King Street, where we were served by the magnificently French Mathilde. (I think she may have known someone at the table because she was terribly familiar with us and at one point even drank our wine, ZUT ALORS!)

Aaaanyway, as far as long winded introductions go, very few people at our rambunctious table of ten (How do you ask a deaf man if he wants to buy a chicken?) had any idea of why there were numerous portraits of a nasally endowed gentlemen adorning the walls of the establishment.

I took it upon myself to educate at least one of them. I enticed her in with promises of Tuna Surprise and the chance to see me in tears.

I love Cyrano de Bergerac. It is one of the many films I revisit often if I want to give myself a good cry session (though I did manage to refrain this time around). It is one of those films that takes me right back to those introverted days, when I would pine away at the thought of love but never dare to dream of grasping at it.

Deppardieu is resplendent as Cyrano, the self-proclaimed grotesque with a soul full of poetry, a hopeless case of love and a handsome protege/mouthpiece. It is his film. He commands the eyes and ears in every scene. He gets to run around being swashbucklery in countless vistas of beautiful French countryside as well as a chateau or two. He gets to recite his heartfelt poetry to the stirring strings of the magnificently lush score. His plight is plausibly heartbreaking, and made all the more so through the dramatic irony that we know that his love is far from hopeless.

Of course, it is difficult spending a whole movie wanting to slap sense into the main character but the dramatically tragic ending more than makes amends for all that pent up admonishment.

Add Cyrano de Bergerac to my list of films you must see before you go to another French restaurant.

Spain, The Return

Better Beach, Ibiza
Originally uploaded by No-necked Monsters.

Been revisiting my sunny photos to try to get through the English weather.

Just put my photos from last year's trip to Spain into my online photo gallery in case I haven't already bored you with them.

You can see the whole lot here.

Happy Valentine's Day

Neale sent this to me after the discussion that ensued after the Paris post yesterday.

All I can say is, it is not love if it is not said with a dead Frenchman!

X

Love yous all!

Tweet

Tweet, originally uploaded by No-necked Monsters.

I forgot to post this photo too. I love it almost as much as the word pomplemousse.

I found myself taking a lot of photos of street art and linguistically interesting tidbits. This is just one of them.