Focus on the trivial

Things you did not know about England, Great Britain and England (or more accurately, things I did not know about England, Great Britain and England).


1) Great Britain and the United Kingdom are not the same thing. Great Britain (which is the same as Britain) is made up of England, Scotland and Wales, whereas the UK is Britain as well as Northern Ireland .

2) In mid-2004 the UK was home to 59.8 million people, of which 50.1 million lived in England.

3) Generally, 85% of the UKs population live in England. That's 50 million.

4) Britain is more than twice as densely populated as France, nine times as densely populated as the USA and 100 times as densely populated as Australia.

See, this site is informative, funny and educational.

The view to the Empire

You would be surpised what makes news here. The passing of Kerry Packer is one such news item. It made page three of The Times (no jokes about page three girls, please, that is The Sun you are thinking of).

I can't imagine that if any billionaire the sane side of Sir Richard Branson should die over here that it would make the papers there.

Of course, one big difference - and this is one that the papers have picked up on - is that Sir Richo did not change the face of cricket. And for many over here that is his legacy - the introduction of the media friendly version of the game know as The One Day.

Thus, a man makes his mark. You have to respect that.

Jack Frost

As you would probably have heard, it has been getting pretty cold over here. -2 mins followed by +2 maximums have been the norm since just after Xmas.

To the left is my rather artsy-fartsy take on my footprint left in the snow.

I can't remember it getting cold the last time I was here. But that was a while ago and my memory is not what it ... not what it ... What was I on about again?

Still, I wonder what effect it will have when I go from the literally (beein taking real-English lessons) freezing London to what I imagine will be 32+ degrees Melbourne, hopefully around mid-Feb. 

And to all, a good night

Hope you had a great celebration of the birth of that man, the world's best known chippie (yes, more so than Tom Williams - aka Tom the Chippie, aka Dancing with the Stars Tom): JC.

Me, I hung out with Shaz's mob for xmas and for that we would like to thanks Shaz, Mart and the mob - who are too numerous to mention. I have only now just digested the last of my 5-ish servings of dessert.

Missed you all.

Brusha Brusha Brusha

I really struggled to find a suitable costume for my work Christmas party. It was a Hollywood themed fancy dress party at the Selfridges Hotel in Central London. Initially a group of us were going to dress up as characters from Austin Powers ... I was assigned the Liz Hurley character BORING! I would have much preferred to be the "Fat B@st@rd."

But being the new girl in the office I didn't want to stand out too much so I opted for the safe (think a little boring) Pink Lady from Grease. Jan to be precise.

I was so pleasantly surpised with how many people dressed up that evening. There were two Audrey's, a Nemo, Charlie Chaplin x 2, two groups went as the cast of Braveheart, there was even a girl who wore Liz Hurley's famous Versace Safety Pin dress. And ... these people can almost daggy dance with the best of them. CF - I did say ALMOST.

But like all good Pink Ladies I was on a train on my way home by 11:30pm and there wasn't a hang over in sight!

A skiing we will go

... or at least the shopping part.

The last time I was here, many a weekend I would walk from home to Fulham - about a 1 hr walk. But this would usually happen in the summer. I say usually because Mel and I did it today and froze.

The upside is that we stopped off at a Mambo outlet store in Putney and bought some ski gear. The result is that we are now bona fide Mambo-poster-people.

I mean, what the hell, we are due to go to the snow this winter. Andorra looks the go. We should look the part, as shown by this artist's impression of us in the snow.

Making news for all the wrong reasons

Every day I take a quick look at the Technorati to see what is hot at the moment on the web. According to them, Cronulla is the most searched web on the web as at 5:45am GMT.

The term 'Un-Australian' is too widely used. People often use it to cover anything people do that is not to their liking.

But racial rioting is Un-Australian. I have never come across a country as racially laid back as Australia. We can take race in a light way that many other nations do not. Things are not perfect, but I have never felt disadvantaged by being a first generation Australian. Nor have I felt less Australian because of it.

The world is watching ...

English in one easy lesson

Australians are erroneously teased for spouting certain catch phrases. 'Crikey', 'Sheila', 'bonza', 'fair-dinkum' and 'strewth' are indeed Australian terms, but who the hell uses them?

Australians are rightly characterised for using certain other catch phrases. 'No worries', 'g'day', 'mate' and - perhaps suprisingly - 'reckon'.

So what are English catch phrases (or catch words, as the case may be)?

• Actually as in ... well, I am struggling to think of one. Suffice it to say that 'Love, Actually' is an English film. Just trust me on this one.
  
• Nightmare, as in 'The tube is an absolute nightmare today'
  
• And the big one ...Literally, as in 'He literally tore his head off'. Which of course could not be literal at all
  

Sprinkle these liberally among you regular words, say every third sentence, and you too will be speaking the English language just like those who invented it.

Blasts from the past

Some of you will appreciate this. A couple of weeks ago I caught up with DR and AH at Camden Market. They are both over here at the moment. DR is on a working holiday visa and is currently working in Central London as an Exec PA and living in a shared house north east of Central London.

AH is also working in Central London after a long stint in Greece with her family. AH has an EU passport so is over here on that but intends on going home at the end of this year (I think she's in love!).

It was great to see them both ... and these beanies that they are wearing ... it was SO cold that night it was the least they could buy to warm their freezing cold heads. Bear in mind that at the time that these photos were taken it was only 5pm!

Griswald's family Christmas ...

Close, but I don't think so.

Although ... still, this is very nice to come home to.

On Sunday as promised Paul went out and bought our Christmas tree, decorations and lights and I have to say ... I couldn't have done better myself.

We both haven't had a Christmas tree in a lot of years so we thought we would go all out this year. And I have to say ... I'm feeling pretty good about it. You can't see from where you are looking, but we even have Christmas presents under the tree.

We even have an Advent Calendar. Oh, which reminds me ... it's my turn to open the door and eat the chocolate!

Earth calling ... us!

Right ... I have been holding off long enough. Skype allows you to use your computer to talk to another computer user anywhere in the world for free.

I have been keeping an eye on Skype for some time. I figured it was no different than MSN messenger. But I want to talk and this product is geared around talking over the internet. And contrary to what I thought, you don't need broadband to use it (or so the Skype site says). So why not download it and see if we can talk. You need three things

1. A computer. Most machines under three years old should be ok. And Skype runs under Windows, Linux and OSX.
2. Microphone and speakers connected to you computer and working. If you already have these you should be able to utilise them ... though this might cause an echo problem. If you don't (pay attention NK) then the easiest option is to get your hands on a USB headset (for ease of use and compatability, this USB bit is imporant ... and it should be what is called 'plug-and-play'). An example is the Logitech® Premium Stereo Headset but I think these are quite expensive at about $50 AUD (have seen them on ebay for $20AUD). I reckon you would some Plantronic or other dodgier brands in the shops for about $20AUD. Email me if you need some advice, but make sure you do your own research before taking the plunge. Why not go into Dick Smith or the like and ask the guys there a couple of questions (not that I am recommending DSE, but some of the guy who work there are still enthusiasts ... if you get lucky).
   
3. The Skype software. Click here to go the site. Download Version 1.4, NOT 2.0(2.0 is still being tested). It is about 7Mb, so on dial-up it will take about 1/2 hour (what the hell are you still doing on dial-up!).
   

The downsides of this are that you re loading yet another bit of software on your computer and I have read that it can take up a bit more of your memory than is ideal. No big issues here.

Follow the instructions during the install (it is straight forward) when it asks you to add new contacts, type in my full name and you will be given the option of adding me to your contact list.

OK then, I hope a couple of you take up the challenge because we want to talk to you more often.

The thing about idioms

When I asked the mob at work whether they had heard of the phrase 'Cowboys and Itchybums' they all looked aat me like I'd just come from amother planet. Nope, never heard of it.

Itchybum is (or at least was) a term (which may now be considered derogatory, no offence meant if so ... it is just a story ...) for an American Indian in the time of the wild west. So instead of Cowboys and Indians you could say Cowboys and Itchybums.

Well, looks like I am not the only person familiar with ths term. Behold, the lotion for your baby's itchybum (you will have to look closely ...).

The Green Part of the Monopoly Board

That would be Regent St. This pic doesn't do it justice (especially with my big fat head in the way), but the lights on Regent St are really beautiful.

This was taken close to the end of a very unproductive day. I dragged Paul out to Camden Market so I could find another coat. Didn't find coat ... took ages to get to Camden Market ... took ages to get back from Camden Market ... we reach Regent St, checked out the Apple store (most productive part of the day so far ... they reformatted my iPod mini for me and Paul got to amuse himself for a while too) and then realised we were starving so grabbed stale, cold donuts to eat on the way home to tide us over before dinner.

It was around 5:30 when this photo was taken, and can I say, I am just loving life in a big city. You would think that around 5:30pm people would be heading home after a long day shopping, well no. Central London was buzzing. I'm very happy to be here.

Paul is out shopping today (Sunday) for our Christmas tree, decorations and lights ... get ready for the Griswalds Christmas!

A geek in a sea of nerds

You know I would like to think that I can geek it up with the best of them. I dig PCs. I love astronomy. Hell, I can name all five series of Star Trek (TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager and - yuck - Enterprise. Did I say that out loud ...). But there are some recesses into which I will not clamber.

Behold, the binary clock. Time represented in binary. I could try explaining it to you but, honestly, to you give a hoot?

If anybody can tell me of a geekier gadget, I will go he.