The Aussie media's opinion...

"He's had the most dreadful luck of any top golfer in the history of the game"... is how the Channel 9 news tackled the 'he choked' viewpoint. I can't wait for the Olympics...

Pope's in town

It's one of the world's biggest Catholic knees up this week in Sydney. The pope's in town, as are about 500,000 nutters pilgrims, swarming round the city and having whole sections of the gaff shut down so that they can celebrate fairy stories told by paedoes. It's virtually a pincer movement on my gaff, with Centennial Park on one side holding a huge weekend rally and mass, and a load of other religious tosh going on at the racecourse on the other side of me.

Your average punter isn't loving the commuter chaos, the quater of a billion dollars that it's costing the tax payer to host the god-botherers, nor the new laws that have been drafted in to surpress any vocal opposition or protest of any kind. And with the rather large and (quite literally) fruity population of alternative lifestyle types that call the city home, there's been a few rows about them classing homosexuality as an abomanation etc

I work on George Street, the main street in the city centre, and that's the one that's been closed to traffic, there were tens of thousands of them walking past the office today banging drums, strumming guitars, singing, and generally acting like they were on the way to the Municipal Buildings having just beaten Wigan in one of the greatest play-off finals ever. Madness.

In a way, it must be quite cool believing all that pony, 'cause it's off to Sydney for a holiday, getting blessed by the top man, and generally thinking that everything in the world is wonderful and right. Apart from poofs, obviously. They're with you on that one Handa.

That's the end of Big Brother here

That's the axe fallen on Big Brother over here in it's current guise, which as you can imagine is quite a big story in the news and industry circles. Is this the first country to sack it off? The other networks are having a sniff, but it's the first I've heard where someone's gone "nah sod it, we ain't doing it anymore, it ain't worth it."

They paid Pamela Anderson seven figures to go in for a while last week, but that must have been a last roll of the dice, and they've now got 190 hours of air time to fill next year.

Rich or happy?

Inspired by some of the people round here who strive for highly-paid jobs that would make any sane man weep, I'm wondering what you chaps think about money vs. happiness. Now obviously up to a certain point money creates happiness, but would you choose a job you liked doing and paid you enough to live on, go on holiday, have a pint a couple of nights a week etc, or a job you didn't like doing that paid twice as much? Say 45k a year or 90k maybe? It doesn't matter how much you currently like your job or earn - in this scenario you'd be getting twice as much for a job that made you unhappy over a job that made you happy and paid enough to live on. I'm going to pre-empt the "I'd do the crap one for a couple of years then buy a pub" answer by saying you can't, you'd be too far down the career path to switch, you'd have bought a big house and a flash motor on tick so couldn't leave. Bit like real life in that respect maybe...
I was thinking about it because here it's all 'thrust' this and 'achieve' that, and all the jobs above me look worse than the one I've got whilst a couple of weeks ago I was offered a cool job at Universal Music, looking after artist websites, updating the news and info, interviewing the bands, sorting out downloads and merch, all the free gigs and CDs you can carry... which paid pretty much half of what I'm on now. It wasn't a tough decision because half of what I'm on now wouldn't be enough to live on in Africa, never mind anywhere else, and presumably only some recent graduate still living at home can afford to take it (if they were a bit more forward thinking they'd up the cash and attract someone who was shit-hot at this internet caper, but that's anther story), but it got me thinking.

One of those ones / Glasto

It's a sit in the toilet sort of day. I properly can't be arsed. Dunno what it is, I haven't got a hangover, but I'm muchos underwhelmed with this whole work thing today. Still, that means I'm updating this thing, which makes a change.

Is anyone going to Glastonbury this year? The best they can do with the weather report is that 'it won't be as bad as last year' ?! Fook me, they'd have to cancel it if it was looking like it might be, no? Which raises an interesting question – when would it be? Personally it'd be when the Kaiser Chiefs were headlining and The Fratellis were on just before them. The Fratellis are playing here in August and there's a lot of chatter and excitement about said gigs. Yep, they still like their rock very uncomplicated here, mind you when I went to see them at Brixton Academy last year, at the start of a three night sell-out run (free tickets, the worst gig I'd seen in a very long time), the crowd there were going bananas an'all, so there y'are.

I'm much more into the new one from The Music. Took me a couple of listens, and I thought it was a bit straight ahead and electronic to begin with, which it is compared to the old stuff, but it's a grower and there's some cracking tunes on it. My favourite at the moment is 'The Price', which is an extra track on the digipak/special edition. I've only read recently about his drug and booze grief, and his stint in rehab, though with tunes called 'the spike' and 'drugs' it's not too subtle.
You know his problem of course? He's never done a propers days work in his life. A few weeks down ADL makes men of us all. Or stick him in an office for years and let him flirt with the ecstacy that it reading the Metro in the shitter.

Did anyone go to the Isle Of White festival? Apart from the obvious examples (Ian Brown), I thought the line up for that was a total shocker an'all. Are festivals trying to discourage people these days?

Heard the new Verve track? Pish. It's the soundtrack to buying a well designed yet reasonably priced Swedish coffee table.

How're the Euros going?

How's the football going? I'm reading about the results online, and I saw the Holland goals the other night, but apart from that, I've seen nowt. The games are on normal telly here, but they're slap bang in the middle of the night, where a late night or an early rise are no use. In a piece of scheduling genius that I can only put down to some dark commercial pact I'm unaware of, the highlights package on terrestial channel SBS is on at 5.30pm every night, surely the exact time when most normal people are right in the middle of their commute. The swines. It finishes at half six, which is normally when I walk through the door.
I could Sky+ it (Foxtel IQ it) if I had Sky+, but in a move that'll shock you, the fuckers are as bad out here as they are back home and we've been trying to get them to come and install it for weeks. They came wih the wrong stuff the first time, didn't tell us they were coming the second, and trying to book a third that suits all parties is... well, you know the drill.

The big sporting news here tonight is that Queensland pulled their socks up from the first best-of-three State Of Origin clash and murdered NSW in the second. All to play for in the decider on July 2nd.

MF31