Gentrification

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If my eyes don't deceive me, there's fancy Ikea/Habitat style red blinds on the windows, and that dark shape on the balcony looks suspiciously like a proper barbie, as opposed to a tinfoil disposable effort propped up on a tower of used disposable efforts.

The hot water probably works an'all.

...mind you, those crappy wicker blinds are still up in my old room (with red ones behind) and Mike's window shows no sign of being tarted up, so maybe it's early days, before they settle fully in, get comfy and break out the inflatable basketball hoops and the like. There might even be - god forbid - a bird (or birds!) living in there.

The Villan of the piece

It was a pleasure and an honour to spend the evening with my old championship-winning cricket partner last Thursday night, the tanned and relaxed Mister Jim Smith happy to recall our victory at the south London Dan Brown invitational tournament of 2007. After a bit of dinner and a few beers there were only so many wonderful tales of laid back travelling life I could take, so as a former CIT champ I laid down the gauntlet to the current holder, confident that an old skool purist like myself had what it takes to overcome this new 'pub iron man' pretender.

In the back room of the Green Park Hotel I had what can only be called a very jammy run, with speculative hit-n-hopes generally finding a pocket. Apparently this was something close to the lucky streak that Jim had on that fateful night back in December, though having now seen him wield a cue I think that's more an example of his well-known modesty than anything else. Heard of the Unofficial Football World Championships? I'll say no more other than I'm happy to host recognised CIT entrants in my home town if they fancy taking me on…

Brisvegas - it's a small world

Work's sent me to Brisbane for four days as I'm helping design a new sports site and the sport editorial team are based up here. I've been sent up to talk them through the new ideas and design, take their feedback on board then tell them what we've got planned anyway...

Got here yesterday and the first lad I sit down with is a journo who's got the Villa team photo as his screensaver. We're blethering about the Premiership and Villa's shocker against Stoke. I'm about to mention that Tony Pulis learnt the craft of managing a team and achieving success despite no money in a certain corner of the garden of England (also that Big Mama "he's more a creator than a scorer" also learnt the craft down Priestfield), when the lad asks me who I follow.

Pick this out: I tell him that whilst I grew up in Edinburgh and like Hearts, I moved to Kent when I was a lad and am also a big Gills fan... and then the bloke next to him let's out a cheer and holds up his tea mug, a Gillingham FC mug with "Up The Gills" on it.

He's an Aussie but was travelling and working in the UK for a while. He got mates with a teacher from Leatherhead who grew up in Gillingham and went to the Gills so went along to Priestfield to watch a game with him. Now this is the weird thing that makes people followers for life: It was the 10th of December 2005, a home match against Port Vale and he tells me about the cracking game that the Blues won three nil, with missed penalties, sendings off and "Matty Jarvis getting a brace to seal the victory".

I'm standing their stunned, half because there's an Aussie journo in Brisbane who's been to Priestfield and I end up meeting him, and half because he had the luck (misfortune?! Haha) to go to a cracker of a game and got locked in to supporting Kent's finest.


Harj, Dan and Mick: You went to Brisbane eh? It was a while ago but if there's anywhere particulalry memorable you remember going do let us know. I'm up here on my todd with expenses to be spent.

DS32

I'm building a fireproof ark...

It's been quite mental round these parts of late - monsoon's causing record flooding in Queensland (I read somewhere that half the state was flooded, and as it's seven times bigger than the UK, that's a fairly big chunk of land), and massive bushfires killing hundreds in Victoria (some of the fires were eighty miles long, and I try to imagine putting my boot down in a car and driving for a hour to get from one end to the other).

On top of that, a lass here at work threw herself off the building this morning, and my usual entry door into the office was blocked by a blue tarpaulin with her body under it. Coppers had taped it off and told me to walk round the other side of the building and go in the other door, it was well dark. I work on the ninth floor and if you look out the window there's a open air terrace on the seventh floor that you look out over. The canteen's on the seventh and there's tables and chairs on the terrace for you to eat your lunch at etc. Apparently the lass came in early this morning, got the lift up to the seventh floor and jumped off. When I came in and looked out the window a chair she'd used to climb onto the ledge was pushed up against the wall, with her shoes next to it. Her boyfriend works down the corridor from me and her sister works here an'all. There was bizzies all over the shop, and we've now had talks from psychologists and counselors, quite a few folk on my floor knew her as she used to work in my department, though that was before I joined and I never met her myself. Pretty weird topping yourself at work, and there's been more than one terrible joke crossed my mind about the famously bad grub they dish up in the canteen...

It's been quite an odd few days... take care of yourselves out there!

HH32

We all live in... Townsville

Absolute madness.

Townsville's 800 miles north of Brisbane. There's nothing there except tropical heat and things that'll bite you to death.

An early insight into the behaviour of the gifted landlord can be seen in this press conference video when he visited the middle of nowhere Townsville last month. Fast forward to 03:15 for the good bit...