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Published: June 22nd 2005
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June 14th 2005 - Very early
Bayswater, London, England.
I finally have some news to report after a fairly eventful week. I have been offered two separate jobs, both within twenty-four hours of each other. Unfortunately, I'm not particularly excited about either of them. The first is a waitress position, but on a casual basis, so with no guaranteed hours. They also want me to wear a "full" waitress uniform, which is one bow tie and one black vest more than I own - or wish to, for that matter.
The other job offer is to be a care worker for the elderly and/or disabled. The pay is good but only because the hours are almost 24/7. Sleep is allowed, on the assumption that my charge will not be getting me up throughout the night to help them with toileting, but beyond that I’m only guaranteed two hours a day to myself. And speaking of toileting....this is another issue of contention altogether. It's one thing for infants, but...? Weeell...
On the other hand, the pay is upwards of £300 per week. If I close my eyes and stick with it for a couple of months, I should have
Tina, Me and Mel at Toast Australia
Check out the classy wine glasses, complete with red neck-holder thingie. enough to do a more extensive tour of Europe. I have recently realised, to my complete surprise, that I am almost broke. Well, my estimation of almost broke, which is nowhere near joining the beggars in the streets, but also a far cry from any capacity to swan about Europe in a jovial manner.
So I have accepted the care-work offer but am anxious about the realities of it. Nonetheless, I can now report that I begin a week of training later this morning - it's very early right now. As soon as I finish writing I am off on a train to Godalming in Surrey and will stay until Friday night. Then it's a matter of waiting for an assignment/client, which should not take more than a few days, and I'm on my way to solvency again.
But on to other, more polite, matters. There is the Toast Australia Festival, which I attended yesterday, to dissect and discuss. For those back home, the Toast festivals -- yes, plural, as Sunday's Toast Australia is preceded on Saturday by the Toast New Zealand Festival (I could not afford to go to both) -- are basically where
all the expat Aussies and Kiwis in London all turn up for a major celebration of the fact that they are, well, better than everybody else here. Oi oi oi!
No, seriously, it was a good laugh and quite enjoyable, though in the end I think that it was more an excuse for a piss-up and a barbie than anything else. I was quite disappointed by the lack of 'Australiana'. I had even memorised all the Aussie songs I knew in anticipation. But the only Aussie song sung the entire day was "I Still Call Australia Home" in the opening ceremony. So that's my major gripe. It didn't feelspecifically Australian at all...apart from being surrounded by people sporting Aussie slogans and temporary tattoos of our flag. Oh, and speaking in that lovely, familiar accent. Which was a comfort after staying for so long in Bayswater, which is a predominantly Arabic and Muslim area. But, still, it was just not as Aussie as I'd expected. And laugh all you will, but it's these things, which don't mean a jot to you when you're in Oz, that suddenly make all the difference when you're in for an indefinite stay on the
Toast Australia crowds
This would have been about....a third? of the total of people there that day. other side of the world.
Tina (my expat mate from Brisbane) brought a ‘friend of a friend’ and they both got plastered, which was funny... lots of spilling drinks and stumbling and ridiculous conversations. I got nicely fuzzy and spent that night and next day with a killer headache but did not get rip-roaring drunk. Which was a little surprising, given all the free wine I imbided.
I suspect it was the wine marquees that were the true purpose of the day. No matter which way you stumbled, you were sure to fall into a wine marquee. Their tents outnumbered everything else by about two to one. Which is to say that there was an awful lot of alcohol. Lots of queues, too, as the damned Kiwis had apparently smashed and/or drunk most of the alcohol the day before and the festival had almost run out and was no longer selling wine by the bottle - now you had to queue for every glass. Bloody alcoholic sheep-chasers, haha.
Nonethless, the day was enjoyable and certainly beat sitting in the park or watching telly. There were several performances/appearances by the apparently much-loved 'Kath and Kim' of the same-titled
Possum Nipple Warmers
"Traditional Aussie nipple warmers"!! I had to double-check it was a joke...after all, what did I know, maybe it really was a fad in Aus at some point. Thankfully, no. Aussie television show. They're apparently pretty big over here, just as in Australia. Lord help us. But they were funny, and were fairly free with their time, giving at least three (admittedly brief) performances during the day. The second performance included wine tasting, which had the audience in an uproar as they went on about their 'cardunay' and 'riseling' and so forth. It was pretty funny, and the die-hard telly fans were going nuts with the sheer pleasure of it all.
Their third performance later in the day was alongside "cricket legends Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist" in a culinary challenge where they sort of threw some food about without really creating much. It was a good performance, though. I'm not sure which cricketer was which, but later I happened to pass one of them playing cricket with some fans and have included his photo.
There were polo matches between Australian and English teams, though I had never thought that a particularly Aussie sport - but I could be wrong. Volleyball, as well, which seemed to me to be more in keeping with the theme. The sandbox of the volleyball arena later seemed to turn into a wrestling
arena for drunk mates mucking about. I happened past two separate fights in progress on the sand and could only laugh. Ah, the Aussie male-cum-drongo. Gotta love 'em.
Tim Freedman from the Whitlams also appeared to play some music and that was nice. But, again, I am very disappointed at the lack of Australian songs. I know I'm whinging - must be the Englishman in me -, but it was very badly done for those of us who went to the festival for more than a piss-up and some Aussie grub. I'd spent at least a week imagining a thousand smiling Aussies all spurred on and singing traditional and not-so-traditional Aussie songs. It was a beautiful image and one I was determined to realise. But it was not to be, and without that, I'm sorry to say that the day wasn't really worth the £25 entry fee; after all, that's well over $60AU! My only consolation is that I think I drank the equivalent of that amount in 'free' wine tastings. Hey, gotta make the most of it, right?
So now I’m off to start the training for my new job; a new life chapter, if you will.
Wish me luck.
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Sean
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cheers!
Well, i was looking for pictures on the london eye on google and decided to use yours [showing a friend on MSN what i went on today]..hope you dont mind! Anyway, to get the pictre i had to go into your blog, and i'm afraid i found myself reading about london, coldness and godalming! [sorry - seems a bit voyeuristic but there's a fascination with the perspective of 'the Other' on our little island!] Right - long story short - thanks! Interesting reading. A bit like Michael Palin ;-) Good luck with the rest of your travels ...and the care work! Sean gillensean@hotmail.com