It?s still No. 1. It?s Top of the Pops? although not for much longer.
Topic: Pop
There was something very strange going on with Top of the Pops last Sunday (04/07/06). Admittedly I can’t say I’ve actually been watching the show that closely for the past few years, especially since it became relegated to BBC Two, although I’d be a bit of a fibber if I claimed to have been more than the most casual of viewers when it was propping up the Friday night schedule on BBC One. But now that the great pop panaethon is finally coming to an end, I thought I’d drop in on the show just one more time.

Okay, I admit it. The only reason I was watching was to see the Lilly Allen performance of ‘Smile’. For Lilly Allen, read possibly the next big thing and Keith Allen’s daughter. She has also been described in some quarters as the female equivalent of The Streets. Fusing witty lyrics and a hilarious video with a reggae beat, ‘Smile’ tells the story of a vengeful Allen paying a couple of yobbos to go round a beat up her ex-boyfriend, trash his flat, and scratch all his records, while the poor fool goes looking for Allen just get some sympathy, causing Allen to piss herself with laughter.

Lilly Allen, was first spied on the debut edition of Transmission, Channel 4’s latest 21st Century answer to the Word, only this time without the forever irritating Terry Christian. Hosted by Lauren Laverne (no stranger herself to axed pop shows – CD-UK on ITV last year, and the aptly titled Pop on five) and the Welsh one off T4 (still, could’ve been worse, could’ve been Vernon Kay). Because this is late night Channel 4, they can get away with the odd bout of swearing, Lilly Allen could use the original sweary lyrics from her song, and Steve Jones could compare the band Feeder to the sexually perverse act of feeding women food until they burst. And it’s all highly entertaining, save for the strange habit of having the vocalist on some kind of revolving platform while the rest of the band try an perform in the background. I didn’t notice this in the second programme, so I’m assuming that the director saw sense and decided to drop this ‘quirky’ (read ‘unsettling’) element of the show.

But, anyway I digress. As it appeared from last Sunday’s showing of the Pops (forgotten them already), they’ve suddenly decided to go all trendy and book mostly the types of bands you’d normally only see on a programme like Transmission, or hear on Radio 1 after 7pm, perhaps in a “well we’re axed anyone, so f### it, lets do out own thing and stop peddling to the Sam & Mark teeny-bopper audience” type outlook. And who can blame them

First up were The Kooks, not a band I’m overly familiar with, but I believe that they may fall into that category of might be appearing on an edition of Transmission in the near future, followed by the aforementioned Lilly Allen, and then old indie starlets Belle and Sebastian. This was then followed by some archive footage of trendy indie dance band Moloko, and then back in the studio for a live performance by Muse – a band once heralded (by me) as the New ‘Old’ Radiohead.

Unfortunately they then went and ruined it all by playing the new Christina Aguleria video. As worbbley and unlistenable as all her other pop records, I’m afraid. And then things went very strange, as they brought on some Spanish bloke called Paola Nunn. Didn’t have a clue what he was singing about.

You could tell that the director must’ve been panicking at this point, so they hastily cut to a performance by Ace of Bass from 1993, when it appeared that the overuse of the smoke machine was still very much in fashion.

Then, phew! Back to the present day, and a performance of Indie Cool from Razorlight, a band who well be most fondly remembered for having a drummer who was the second cousin’s, sister’s husband’s nephew of my ex-housemate Tom.

And then the Top 10, and oh no, they’ve gone and ruined it all by having Shakira and Wycliffe (of whom, I am reliably informed is not the ITV detective of the same name) at No. 1.

I myself am no stranger to the hallowed halls of the Top of the Pops studios, having attended the recording of an edition back in 2001. Back when it was filmed at the Riverside Studios (late of Chris Evans ego-a-phon TFI Friday). Unfortunately, this was a slow week and as a result they had only booked two guests. One being Oxide and Nutrino, part of the So Solid Crew collective, and so probably now behind bars. The other being Jamiroquai, who I managed to insult once filming had wrapped and we were having a few Tequila Slammers and Scotch Eggs outside. Well when I say insult, it was more along the lines of saying rather sarcastically how great going to the Top of the Pops recording had been, and how absolutely thrilled I was to have been within spitting distance of the mighty Jay Kay.

Didn’t realise he’d been sat behind me the whole time, smoking a fag.

Wayne may be fit, but Billie's quit
In the run-up to tonight's match against Trinidad and Tobaigo, it's my sad duty to report that Billie's leaving Dr Who.

May the worldwide mourning of Rose Tyler start now.

Not quite up for the cup, as of yet
Topic: Football
Dunno what it is about the World Cup this time around, but as of yet I wouldn't say I'm full of the joys of International fever as of yet. Maybe its because I've been mostly sheltered from the mass hysteria thats been going on in the country for the last month. The only World Cup references I had while abroad being the run-in with the Socceroos in Melbourne, and a couple of posters in the New York underground, trying to sell the idea of a round spherical object that you can neither pick up nor hit with a bat, to a populance of mostly oblivious Americans.

Still, England's rather drab performance against Paraguay hardly helped, but then whats new? England go a goal up in the opening couple of minutes, and then have to sit on their lead for the remaining 87? And 9 times out of 10, its the old scenario, with 10 minutes to go, the opposition go and bloody well equalise. Well, okay it didn't happen this time, but....

So as this the way with these things, I managed to see the best bit (i.e. the goal) on the Radio, as at the tine we were stuck driving round the streets of London trying to get to the pub, bumper to bumper with around four dozen other cars with probably the same intention of trying to meet friends half way across the Capital, when it would have probably been easier just to watch it in the comfort of your own home.

On the other hand, the pub we ended up in was rather sweet and overly polite for such a sporting occassion. Though it was indeed packed to the rafters, it still fell to me of all people to start the cheering when the final whistle went. Somehow, that's just not right.

And is it just me, or are there even more atrocious football related pops songs dominating the shelves of HMV, than in previous World Cups? Stan Boardman, with no doubt some 'hilarious' references to Germans bombing his chipie. Tony 'keep milking it' Christie with "Do You Know The Way To The World Cup" which vocally doesn't even fit, and should therefore be banned from the charts forthwith. And not to mention "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding Jurgan Klinsman" featuring Frank Bruno on vocals. If anything's gonna send him back into rehab, it's that.

Of course, apart from the obligatory Skinner and Baddiel "3 Lions" re-release, the exception that proves the rule is most likely to be Sham 69's reworking of "Hurry Up Harry", "Hurry Up England". Go buy a copy. Anything to stop Embrace getting to Number 1. Actually, that's a mite unfair, as I haven't actually heard the Embrace track yet, but if their previous works anything to go buy, then it'll be the same, dull, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............

Still, its good to see Arsenal's new boy Tomas Rosicky tearing lumps out of the USA whilst playing for the Czechs today, beating them 3-0 with Rosicky getting a couple.

So, whilst I'm not quite getting into the spirit of the World Cup as of yet, no doubt I'll be as rabid as the rest of England's lagered-up population, even going so far as to start thinking we can actually "go all the way" (TM) and "win the cup" (Copyright). Which of course at that point we'll find ourselves instantly knocked out of the tournament.

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As you might have realised, my trip round the world has indeed come to an end, having returned to these shores just over a week ago, and I've also run out of increasingly elaborate ways to milk it any further. Snif.

Meanwhile, back in Erinsborough..........
Topic: Travel
There you go, I wasn't making it up. I was seriously getting it on with Steph out of Neighbours

Many thanks to Jo "The Nurse from Sheffield" Exley, for sending that through.

If you can cast your minds back, this was from the Neighbours night, when horror of horrors, the batteries in my camera ran out, and as a result had no pictures of me with Steph (alas, only with Paul and Toadie). But, as promised, Jo came through with the goods.

Zounds.

New York Photos Now Online!
Topic: Travel
Photos from the New York leg of the trip are now online at New York Photos.

A few photos from Melbourne that slipped through the net the first time around have now been added here.

The Rain in New York was of Biblical proportions
Topic: Travel
And on the final day, the heavens did open, and the rain did fall upon thee. And thee got pissing wet whilst on Time Square, attempting to buy an Ipod Nano for $39, but yet it cometh that they only did such deals after the hour of 5 o'clock, and thou could not hang around as thou had to return to thine accomodation to fetch a chariot to the place whence the winged beasts did arise from the earth and take flight to mystical lands many oceans away. And thou had been foolish on the day preceedith the current day, when thou had been offered an Ipod Nano for such a knock-down price, but had been taken aback, as thine deal had smelt of skullduggery.

And so whilst thou seeked shelter, he didth overhear one New Yorker speak the utterance

"Oh my God. It's like that film, y'know the one, where the guy like, parts the sea. What's it called? That's it. The Seven Commandments"

And thou felt inclined to reply that it was infact the Ten Commandments, and that there hadeth been a book as well, but perhaps The Seven Commandments had been a prequel.

And so, thine mad dash began in ernest, to return to thine accomodation on 103rd Street. But thou hadeth been on 42nd Street, and the rains were so great and mighty that thou underground tube system broke down at 72nd. And thus, thou did maketh mad dash to the Central Park Line that had not-th been buggered up by heavy rain storms.

And as One emerged from the tube, the rains fell greater, and Thou became sopping wet, and had to lock ones self in the toilets to dryth off, and changeth of the clothes, which had becometh drenched through even downth to the kecks.

And then One did enter thine chariot to travel to the land of the winged beasts on the other side of the magical city. And yet, it was Friday, and thine highway was chock-a-block with other chariots also travelling across the land. And we rode for fourty two and a half hours in the wilderness to reach thine destination, and my travelling companions probably all did miss their winged beasts to far away lands. But thou had been clever in leaving ample time of five whole turns of thine clock, before the time of mounting thine winged beast.*

*Roughly translated as, it rained an epic amount on Friday, and I was on Time Square trying to buy an Ipod Nano for $39 as some bloke had offered one to me for that price the day before, but it turned out they only did such deals after 5pm, and I had to get back to the hostel to pick up my stuff and get the airport bus, and the tube broke down, so I had to run 5 blocks to get the Central Park Tube, and by the time I got the hostel I was soaked through to the kecks, and so had to lock myself in the toilet to dry off, and then it took 2 and half hours to get to the airport because it was Friday, and everyone else in the shuttle bus either definately or probably missed their flights, but I'd left five hours before my plane was due to depart. Phew!

Liberty.... Freedom.... And Curry
Topic: Travel
Finally I feel I may be getting somewhere in this Galactus they call NY, as yesterday I succeeded in taking in both the Liberty Island and Ellis Island Tour, and also the Enpire State Building.

Unlike Monday, the queue for the Liberty Island was non-existant, so it kinda felt like cheating to find I could just stroll straight onto the ferry. The ferry ride took around 10 minutes, and once at port I was free to stroll round the grounds of the Island. But, unfortunately unable to actually go round the statue itself. In the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Island itself had been completely shut off from the public until December that year, and the Statue itself didn't reopen until 2004, where only a select few are allowed to roam around it per day.

And so it came as no surprise security was enroute to the ferry. And so, watch, walet, belt, change, boots, and polos all had to be placed through the x-ray machine. And Regardless of how many layers of clothing I took off, the metal detector still produced its persistant electronic whine as I stepped through. At one point it got to the stage where I thought I was going to end up in little more than my underwear (and long term readers may well remember the problems I'd had with my underwear earlier on in the trip).

The Statue of Liberty was produced by the French as a gift to the American people, to symbolise the freedom and liberty the USA had gained after the victories from the War of 1812, and to also emphasis the Independence the French people themselves sought from their ruler Napoleon. The interiors designed by Gustave Eiffel, was based on a bridge structure rising horizontally as opposed to vertically.

The only end of the bargain the American people had to keep was to find somewhere to place it and to build a supporting structure for it to stand on top of. With no Government support, a charity had to be set up, and it was newspaper owner Joseph Pulitzer who had the brain wave of printing the names of each donor within the pages of his newspaper. From this point on donations flooded in, and the canny old Pulitzer saw his paper sales increase rapidly as the donors bought copies of his paper to see their names printed within. Only, he didn't tell them which issue their names would actually appear, and so they were forced to keep buying it, or risk missing that their name might actually appear in.

And so the Statue was placed on Liberty Island which was at the time a military base guarding against oncoming invadors (i.e. British fleets), and was known as Bedloe's Island. The very base of the statue originally being a military fortress itself.

Another interesting fact was that the reason the statue was fashioned in the image of a woman, was because it was based on the French Godess of Liberty, 'Libertos', and not because the French people were right-on, forward-thinking, equal opportunities kinda guys. You Go Girl!

Next, on to Ellis Island which was just a further ten minutes ferry ride from Liberty Island. Ellis Island was once the immigration centre for all people coming into American by boat, and so the first thing they would see on entering America would be the Statue of Liberty. Many of the buildings on the Island have fallen into disrepair and so a concerted effort has been made to restore them to former glory. As a result, much of the Island was closed off to public view.

There was however an immigration museum where you could look up the names of people who immigrated to the States in the early 20th Century. And so it was interesting to see that there were at least two people from Britian travelling under the name of Mark Levy who entered the country in the early 1900s.
Good to see that I'm keeping up the tradition then.

In the late afternoon I made my second attempt of going up the Empire State Building, the first having been in the morning of that day with a queue stretching for over two hours long, and that was before you got to the ticket desk in the main lobby.
And so on my return, I again felt like a cheat and a fraud as I walked straight up to the main lobby, and then up the escalator, and through the miles upon miles of ropped walkways, up to the lift, through the 80th floor, round to another lift, up to the 86th floor, and then out to the viewing area, with barely another person in sight. The one downside of going at this time, was that a thick sheet of smog had started to form around Manhatten, and so the view probably wasn't as good as it would have been had I gone at midday. But hey, it sure beat queueing.

The main highlight of Tuesday was Grand Central Station, which was incredibly grandiose in its stature, and had a massive food court housed in its basement. So of course, this being the hottest day of the year, with temperatures reaching the early 90s, I naturally opted for a curry.

Whatever happened to............. The Great Ocean Road?
Topic: Travel
The trip along the Great Ocean Road. Well call me a total and utter ejit, but how on earth did I forget to write about this?

The three of us - that's Stig, Eve and Myself - set off at around 11am, underestimating that the goal of our trip - to see the 12 Apostles (of which only about eight remain, although at time of writing their numbers may well have decreased yet again) - was in fact at least a four and a half hours drive away. And so we drove - well Eve drove, with some input from Stig later on, what with my tendency to fail driving tests becoming a rather large noose around all our necks (funny, Greg was most reticent to allow me to drive in the South Islands as well) - and the sun was shining, and the weather was fine. And we stopped to take pictures, and I lost my jacket (my brown military-esque one - been like a brother to me), by rather foolishly placing it on the roof of the car so Eve could take an action shot (this is evident in one of the pics on the Melbourne Photos page, if you look closely), and then forgetting to retrieve it again. A good fifteen minutes down the road later, I clocked that something may have been amiss, and so asked Stig who was sitting in the back "Have you seen my jacket"

Unsurprisingly, the answer was to the negative. And so a desperate search began in which we retraced our steps, desperately checking every look-out point or lay-by for signs of the AWOL garment, as quite frankly every look-out point lacked a uniqueness of its own, in that they all some how looked exactly the same.

And then a feral cat ran out into the road. And Stig wanted to adopt it, so Oscar would have a playmate, and so yet another desperate search began in trying to locate this cat.

Both searches were unfortunately futile, and so we hit the road again, ever onwards to see the crumbling relics known as the 12 Apostles (or in lavatory speak this would of course have been referred to as the 12 Apisstles countless times on journey, but of course I was above such purile humour).

With the 12 Apostles almost in sight, we pulled up for some food at a cafe, which also doubled as a gas station, and was quite likely a well known haunt for certain members of the cast from Wolf Creek (a rather gristly horror film set in the Australian outback in which three backpackers are abducted by the Aussie equivalent of a Red Neck, and have rather unpleasant things done to them). So, unsurprisingly we quickly vacated the premises in an orderly fashion, and once again hit the road.

And there they were. The 12 (count 6 and a third) Apostles, in all their photogenic splendour. And then the sun went down, and we realised that we had to drive back, because both Stig and Eve had work in the morning.

Jetlagged in NY ain't no good
Topic: Travel
Yes dear readers, I am indeed jetlagged to the max, which means that for the past two evenings I have gone to bed at 5.30pm and 6.30 respectively, or rather my whole body has decided to "f*** this" and rapidly shut down at 5pm each day, regardless of where I've been or what I've been doing. It's like it's said "Ok fella. We can either do this here, or do it back at the hostel, but I am crashing out in 30 minutes, mate. So, it's up to you!" So, rather than risk collapsing on the sidewalk, I've taken the wise decison to return to the hostel, where I have slept in fits and starts until dawn. My sleep punctuated by my 11 other room-mates (that's 11, I kid you not), coming in at all hours, crashing about putting irritating lights on, and generally snoring like oafs. Depsite have booked months in advance on hostelworld.com, a 6 bed share (the minimum), I still found myself stuck in a dorm room for 12 others, but with a size more suited to about 4. And they can't put me in a smaller dorm, as they're booked out. Oh and the sinks in the communal bathrooms are cracked, several of the showers are blocked, and someone kindly left a rather large and festering s*** in one of the toilets this morning. And the Internet room swallows your money ($6 an hour). But apart from that, it's fantastic (in the words of Mr Hill, "I feel a strongly worded letter to Trip Adivsor is in the offing").

So go figure, I'm seriously thinking of finding myself somewhere else to stay the next three nights. Think The Hilton's got any vacancies? Failing that, maybe I can just bunk-in with Paris?

Despite this I have so far ventured to Times Square, where within 10 minutes I found the local Virgin Megastore, thus adding to my collection of Virgin Megastores of the world (count LA, Sydney x2, Melbourne, and now NY on this trip alone). And then took myself round the NBC Studio Tours, and got to peer round all the sets of such shows rarely seen in the UK such as Saturday Night Live, Jay Leno, and Conan O'Brian.

Yesterday I attempted to take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty, but with the queue stretching over an hour long, I opted instead to find shelter from the hot hot sun while in Battery Park (we're talking 84 degrees in US Fahrenheit speak). And where do I find shelter, but the Jewish Museum itself(I dunno, perhaps it was God talking, or something?).

Time Travel
Topic: Travel
So get this. I board the plane in Melbourne at 10.30 Saturday morning, arrive in LA 14 hours later at 7.30 Saturday morning, and then fly out from LA at 9am Saturday morning, arriving in New York 5 hours later at 5.30 Saturday night, thus gaining 14 hours in total. So no wonder I'm flippin' confused.

They never had Jetlag like this in Dr Who!

"No, I'm not going to save your planet from alien invasion, cos I've been travelling through the space time vortex for the past 17 years, and now I've found I've landed a hundred years earlier than when I set off. So, if you don't mind I'm going to have a lie down for the next five weeks. And what d'ya mean, you've booked me into a dorm room with 12 other people?"