“How do you have any fun?” I was asked when I entered into the very rant I am about to transcribe here. I was so perplexed that it was all I could do to stammer out a response with a puzzled look on my face that really didn’t make things any clearer. “Don’t you understand,” I said, “that this is how I have fun?”

Airline grammar

It has long been said – and when I say that I mean: “Every time I go out to eat I say” – that restaurant menus are where the English language goes to die. Every noun has an adjective, every adjective has an adverb; the very worst have verbs in their own right, as though your dinner is capable of performing some activity other than simply being, which is the kind of extant position you would have thought we could assume when placing our order. Whilst nothing can be worse than the lamentable state of the modern bill of fare, there are other places where our language is, if not gasping its last breath, at least clocking off early and taking a breather. I speak, of course, of the airline industry. At the prospect of crossing a border – and I’m including you in this as well, America; you’re as bad as anyone else – English seems to break down, and airline personnel are willing accomplices.

Now, I know several cabin crew members for various airlines very well and they are among the cleverest, most informed people I know. (See also: ’some of my best friends are gay’.) International languages trip from their tongues like Austrian children in outfits made from curtain fabric. They talk like natives of places that I would have to look up on a map. And yet, whenever I am in an airport I can guarantee that I will hear at least one of the following:

• “This is the last and final call for…”
• “If I could have your full and complete attention…”
• “Ladies and gentlemen, at this time…”,
• or sometimes all three together: “Ladies and gentlemen, at this time I would like your full and complete attention as this is the last and final call for…” *head explode*

Tautologies abound! If it is the last call it must be final; if you want my full attention, it must also be complete. As for “at this time”, it is wholly redundant. Re-read that sentence and tell me that it doesn’t make sense without those three little words. What annoys me is not that people use them. I can understand that it helps to distinguish between advance notices such as “in five minutes we will start selling you duty free and robbing you of all your loose change for an unspecified children’s charity”. What annoys me is the way they litter airline announcements like grammatical dog turds on an picturesque linguistic village green. Sentences that begin with: “At this time…” frequently also end with “…at this time”! Sometimes there’s even one in the middle!

I have no doubt that this little phrase is an air steward’s version of an “ummm” – the pleonastic symptom of an attack of stage-fright or a mental blank – but please, for the love of sanity, think before you press “page”. Good planning is the key to successful public speaking. And while you’re at it, put a comma in this, and a question mark at the end:

Thanks ever so much.

I’ve been to New York before and this time, since I was visiting a friend, it was nice not to have to rush around and do the touristy things again. Nick’s family live a little out of Manhattan in a beautiful country town where we could sit on the dock of the lake at night, drink wine, get bitten by mosquitoes and try to attract the resident bear with imitation mating calls. When we weren’t pestering the local wildlife, we got some target practice with the family guns, of which there were more than enough to fuck you up should you come looking for trouble. Turns out I’m a natural with a firearm; I’m considering jacking in the writing lark and becoming a marksman. I’m sure I could make a mint in downtown Sydney with my wicked skills.

Of course, I didn’t go all that way just to sit out in the countryside getting a tan and beating people at Scrabble and Rummikub; those were just additional benefits. I went to the Met to see a couple of exhibits (including one on Aboriginal art – how’s that for poetic?), caught a Broadway show (Phantom of the Opera – excellent), and spent a day at Six Flags. I also shopped my ass off. I left Australia with one suitcase and came back with two. That’s some serious retail. The total inventory looks something like this:

• 2 x sunglasses
• 2 x jumpers
• 6 x polo shirts
• 2 x formal shirts
• 3 x jeans
• 3 x shoes/trainers
• 2 x bedsheet sets
• 1 x writing set
• assorted gifts/cards etc

Considering I have done virtually no shopping in the past six months, I think I was actually very reserved. I didn’t spend all my holiday cash on clothes, however: I also ate like a king and drank like a fish. You haven’t lived till you’re drunk on champagne in Central Park at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon, thinking that margaritas and mexican food is a good idea. (It isn’t, as your colon will remind you the following morning.) So, while I didn’t see the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building this time, I did see the inside of Vlada and Therapy, which was probably more fun. After all, when was the last time you got home-distilled vodka on the Staten Island ferry?

Photos of my trip (including me looking fierce with firearms) are in the usual place.

When I was a boy I used to complain about doing things without any choice in them. Little did I know then that making choices means living with them. You can’t blame other people when you make the decision freely. You can talk to people and ask for opinions, but you must decide who listen to, and whether you think they are right. Sometimes you should listen to their advice. Other times not.

A choice is always a gamble: living with the right ones always easier than the wrong ones. Hardest of all are the ones where your heart was right, your brain was wrong and there’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes you can go back and change your mind. Other times not.

I need to remember to trust myself more: I am best when I lead with my heart. I’m lucky like that: my heart is usually right and my trust or love or caution is usually rewarded. But sometimes my brain takes the lead, and sometimes it agrees with my heart, and other times not. Regret comes after your brain betrays your heart, even for noble reasons; and you have no one to blame but yourself.

Over the past few months I have made some bad choices. I have to live with them now. That’s the deal you make when you listen to your head and not your heart. For better or worse, we’re in it together. I’m not dead, but I don’t feel stronger.

Maybe, after a while.

AGL were very helpful: they said they would talk to TRU, sort out the problem and bill me retrospectively. They also said they would let me settle up over a few months rather than pay for a whole year’s energy in one go. “Leave it up to us,” they said, so I did. Six weeks later TRU threatened to cut me off. I rang AGL again. “We have no idea why we read your meter but didn’t transfer the contract,” they said, “and we have no way of finding out.” I went apocalyptic on them, but to no avail. Apparently AGL don’t (a) keep records or (b) chase up potential business contracts. I guess (b) is a logical result of (a), but it’s no way to run a business. “It really doesn’t matter whether it’s our fault or TRU’s,” said AGL, “you’re still going to have to pay that bill, then we can take on your contract.” Au contraire, AGL. I’d rather power the whole place with batteries than give you my custom in future. Your dreadful service has cost you my business.

I love Australia, but I wonder how we are so wealthy with service like this. Businesses in any other country would simply go under. AGL is still trading because everyone else is exactly the same. The customer service bar here is so low that the most derisory, patronising, unhelpful call centre worker can sail over it with ease. Telstra, the single most awful company I have ever had to deal with, remain the national telco despite their abysmal service reputation. I suspect the number of complaints is actually spectacularly low: anyone calling to raise a concern would wizen and expire long before they got through the queuing system. Similarly, Strata – the ubiquitous property management company – seem to have based their service philosophy on “The Stalinist guide to keeping your tenants happy”: by-laws abound and their staff are ruthless, tyrannical martinets; like a military junta running a helpline.

Life in Australia is a extant case for the minimum wage and performance-based commission. Luckily for businesses here, we have glorious weather, beautiful beaches and an amazing standard of living instead. When we finally reach the unsatisfactory end of our disappointing customer experience, at least we can conclude that it wasn’t a total loss: three hours on hold in the sunshine can give you a marvellous base tan for summer.

This will be my first time flying over the Pacific and, as a Brit, it feels like I’m about to go the wrong way around the world. Living in England, you get used to thinking that London is the centre of the world (it is zero longitude, after all) and everywhere rotates around the flight paths out of Heathrow. Despite living in Australia now I still think of it as a country on the very edge of the world, as though we are clinging onto the map and just beyond the shores there be monsters. New Zealand is literally dangling over the abyss. I’m a secret flat-earther and I never even knew it.

Three things excite me about my upcoming flight. First, I will cross the international date line. I’m going to try and stay awake as we go over it: I know it will pass completely without event it will still be a little thrill for me. The second thing is linked to the first, in that I will get to see the same sunrise twice. I leave Sydney at 10am, so I will see the sun come up as I head to the airport to check in. As the sun travels through the sky in one direction, my flight will go the other way around the planet and catch up with the same day as we approach LA. I know that it’s just a flight and it happens every day, but it still blows my mind to think of it like that. Living in the twenty-first century is just great. Finally, and perhaps most stupidly, my return to New York means that I will have gone completely around the world once. I left New York after my last holiday there in 2004, and although it has taken me six years with lots of stops, side-trips and doubling back, it marks the end of one complete circuit. I don’t care what you say: I think it’s pretty awesome.

Of course, all of of this is merely the beginning: I haven’t even started on the holiday itself! Not only am I hoping to meet the fabulous New Yorkers from my circle of bloggery, but Emma Blonde – beloved friend and university housemate extraordinare – will be in town; New York Gay Pride kicks off on the second weekend; and the rugby team will all be flying in after their Bingham Cup tour concludes. It’s just too exciting, so to ease myself into the fun we’re having an afternoon in the Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park on 19 June. If you’re in the city, come join me – I’ll be the one drinking champagne and exuding fabulousness.

See you there!

The show was one of the best ones I’ve seen in recent years, where “best” means “thankfully the novelty entries have been kept to a minimum and the cheese factor is high.” Sarah and I enjoyed two bottles of wine and a healthy serving of fattoush and dukkah (traditional Eurovision party fare if ever there was some) while we mocked the entries mercilessly and wondered aloud at the sexuality of most of the performers.

Since I already knew the winner the only mystery for me was where the UK would end up. Britain put in a sterling performance, of course. So great was our entry that we finished 25th out of 25 entrants. What a success! For a nation that simply doesn’t take this show seriously I can only assume that was the plan all along. Of course we all moan about it and decry the political voting, but next year we’ll send in another Ten Good Reasons-reject song from the Mike Waterman Hall of Forgettable Pop Mediocrity and repeat the cycle. We’re nothing if not consistent.

And so that’s it for another year. I shall be humming the Romanian entry for the next week, and no doubt when I get to Stonewall on the weekend the drag routine will be set to Albania’s rousing number. Enjoy!

I have known that roller derby is the hottest shit around since I saw Whip It one Saturday night when I was sofa-bound with a hangover. I immediately googled my local roller derby league and liked them on Facebook, followed them on Twitter and subscribed to their RSS feed. I was actively searching for people who would come with me to the first interstate roller derby showdown right here in Sydney not two weeks later. You’re excited now and you’re just reading it: imagine how I felt! We were agreed: it was on.

Enter the third member of the cast of madness: my partner in dog bites and pyjama-clad dining, Nicholas. Back from Atlanta for a limited time only, he was excited long-distance at the prospect of watching teams of butch women race around a track in roller skates and try to beat each other up. Who wouldn’t be? Sarah roped in a couple of her friends, Adrian and Ivana, and the five of us rocked up last Saturday to watch Brisbane eat Sydney’s wheels.

The derby was like an awesome instruction manual in what-the-fuck: no one under 18 could sit trackside in case a skater broke loose and charged into the crowd, I read the programme and the rules were still a complete mystery, and the fans came from every walk and stage of life imaginable. To my left a bunch of skinny emo girls sat patiently watching the action; to my right a group of middle-aged housewife-types were out of their seats and screaming like banshees. There was a Mexican band playing on stage. The half-time entertainment was a pole-dancer. Adrian had been drinking since lunch, Ivana and Nick were conversing in Serbian (what are the chances?) and Sarah and I were getting slowly addled on Bundaberg rum-and-coke out of a can. It was trippy.

After the match (Sydney 106: Brisbane 86. Sucks to be you, Queensland!) we all bundled into cabs and made for the nearest (only?) Baltic restaurant in town. Nick and Ivana could barely contain themselves as they explained to us just how much meat we would be eating. They failed to fully explain the amount of onion that we would be eating with the meat: enough to give you breath that could give a man a stroke from twenty paces. Nonetheless, the prospect of working our way through the equivalent of an abattoir’s daily output was too good to refuse; and, I might add, utterly delicious.

As we sped our way towards our impending meat feast, Sarah suggested that we do something completely out of character every month. I’m buggered if I can think what could possibly beat this, but if I find out, I’ll let you know.

To get into my flat, you need a swipe card and two keys. The swipe will open the communal door to the building and the keys will admit you to my humble yet fabulous abode. The first time around Nick locked the keys in the flat, but the second time, after a night at a Drag Queen competition, I discovered I had forgotten to take the swipe card. There are places I would choose to be at 2am; locked out on the street in the drizzle is not one of them. I investigated all the options available: jumping into the car park to see if the back door was open (it wasn’t), trying to work out the numbers of the flats with lights on so I could ring their bells (I got it wrong), and trying to reach through the gate to open it from the other side (I couldn’t). I had resigned myself to ringing James and telling him I was on my way over because I was an idiot, when a miracle appeared. When I say miracle, I mean little Asian lady with a swipe card.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when I began to approach her. I think I was at my least threatening wearing my $10 Cotton On scarf wrapped around me like an old woman’s shawl for warmth, but when you’re a 5ft-nothing single female and a 6′4″ man lurches out of a doorway towards you at 2am their wardrobe choices are probably your last concern. My story about being locked out seemed as preposterous as it was, but after I produced my driving licence and proved I was as big a clown as I appeared, she happily let me in and laughed at my stupidity as we climbed the stairs together.

The very next day I resolved to get a spare set of everything, but that was more difficult than it seems. First: one of the door keys is a security key and cannot be cut. I have to travel to Bondi to get a duplicate, but only between the hours of 9am – 5pm and not on a weekend. Taking the morning off work to get a spare key seems a tad excessive, don’t you think? Second: getting a duplicate card requires a trip to Annandale (the opposite direction to Bondi), an application form and a $100 deposit. In short, a spare set of keys will cost me about $175 when cutting and travel expenses are all included. Not to mention a day’s holiday from work. Does all this seem like a waste of time and money to you, too?

Enter the craziness. Since I am clearly too tight busy to get a spare set of keys together, my latent OCD is making a comeback. Whenever I am in a hotel I only ever close the door with one hand when I can see the room key in the other. It’s learned behaviour I now apply to my daily routine: I only shut the front door after I have physically seen that the swipe card and both keys are OUTSIDE the apartment. Even then I dither in the doorway, mentally running through the unlocking process before committing and pulling the door shut. It can take me a good few minutes to cross the threshold on the way out these days. I just don’t trust myself.

On the face of it, that’s not so bad, but it’s not just the front door. OCD function creep is starting to ruin my life. This morning I noticed that I count the train stops on the way to work, and check the station names as we approach to make sure that I don’t miss my stop. Then I check them as we leave again, just in case – what? How stupid can I actually be? When I finally get to my station, not only do I check the name on the platform, but I check the screens on the opposite platform going the other way to make sure I’m in the right place.

Tell me I’m not the only person who does this kind of thing. Or tell me that I am, and $175 is cheap compared to the therapy I’ll need if I don’t sort myself out soon. Somebody, please, save me from myself.

Before I continue I should  define the term ‘cold’. I am not talking northern hemisphere cold. If it ever snows in Sydney I’ll eat my bobble hat. I don’t think I’ve even seen a frost in the city, although last year the temperature did drop to -1C overnight. The days usually peak at around 12/13C in the coldest period, which may not seem all that frigid to you, but when it’s 30C on an average day a 20-degree drop feels pretty baltic to me.

As usual I caught the first cold of the season, spread it around the office and got it back again with interest. I was feeling smug to have shifted it in two days, little suspecting my colleagues were just looking after it for me. I’m beginning to think I’m some kind of influenza incubator; a common-cold Typhoid Mary just waiting for the next wintry snap to spread my infection like a seasonal plague.

Last week I packed up the fans and rolled out the heaters as my aluminium-framed windows aren’t exactly built for the colder seasons and, this being Sydney, central heating is unheard of. I admitted defeat and accepted the summer was over when I dragged my duvet out of the cupboard and installed it on the bed. I dug my slippers out from the back of the drawer and wrapped myself in a blanket while I watched tv. I am a beaten man.

Winter in Sydney is horrible for two reasons. Firstly, it’s not Christmas. In the UK winter means the end of the year, a winding down from the summer and a ramping up of the party season as we race towards December. Here there’s nothing to look forward to but the return of summer. There’s no Christmas, no New Year and no party season. It’s just an inconvenient three-month interregnum between barbecues and pool parties. And secondly, nothing happens. Everyone rugs up, stays in and waits for the sun to come back. When you live in an outdoors-y nation like this one, you forget how to entertain yourself at home. By September everyone has gone stir-crazy and deathly pale.

At least this year I have three things to look forward to: my holiday in NYC, my birthday and my sister’s wedding. I’m sure that will keep the blues at bay. Now, where did I put that Scrabble?