Thoroughly Good’s Neighborhood

Well, the First Night of the Proms was on Friday, so I guess I ought to say something.

The Brahms Alto Rhapsody was the highlight of the evening for me, but then I would say that, as it was my first appearance of the season as part of the BBC Symphony Chorus. We went on to give a rousing performance of Bruckner's setting of Psalm 150.

Along with many others, I found myself enthralled by the pyrotechnics of the Labèque sisters .Who would believe that they are now 59 and 57 years old?

It was nice to get a text message on the way home from "Mrs Bridges" to "Ruby" (or was it the other way round?) saying I got a good close-up in the Brahms, Sorry if my massive size eclipsed any of the other baritones ...

I hope this is scintillating enough for Nigel!

Pbbbbbttt!!!!

Self-indulgently skipping along with the review of year gone is "what I want to do next year". Again, who am I to argue with blogosphere folklore

A few aims for 2009:

1. Have a great time on the remaining bit of my round the world trip. Catch up with people across America and Canada. Go boarding again if snow permits.
2. Weigh up career and lifestyle things and decide where I want to be for the next few years. Get there
3. Travel more. See that Europe thing I missed out, especially if I number 2 means I'm moving away
4. Keep up with the fitness. Get better at freestyle swimming, running and cycling. Do a triathlon with these new found skills.
5. Do an open mic spot somewhere every month
6. Do things outside the office, the laptop or the gym. Ideally with other people existing and new.

It's the time of year that people start posting awful end of year summaries, and who am I to break the trend...

Wordy version: This year was easily the biggest in my life. After years of being too scared, skint, or disinclined to travel - I did. I left my comfortable but plateauing job. I went to places I didn't speak the language. I went to places they didn't stand on the left on escalators. I tried stuff I didn't try back in London. I made progress in things I'd never have thought I'd care about. I moved away from everyone I knew, I met some new people. I jobhunted in a foreign land.

In the end, as long as there's bandwidth, all is well.

In summary: this was the year I learned to excel in being average. Learned to appreciate that just because I wasn't great at something didn't mean it wasn't fun. Or useful. Or both.

Super-summary: 2008 was the year of controlled Fail.

Anyway, I've taken one tweet, and one photo from each month.

January

'can i argue that i'm allowed to forget my mum's birthday as it didn't flash up on facebook? No, thought not'

I got into Portal and made my friend buy Rez HD on his xbox 360. I ran about in work trying to get stuff deployed before I left my old job. I was on the phone to Australia to try and get a job sorted out there also.

This month's photo is from the Science Museum's Launchpad Adults Only night. The bubble lady demonstrator was awesome.

February

'noticing alarming correlation between not seeing people in an office and IM-stream-of-counsciousness-flooding during conversations.'

Camden was on fire. I was working weekends. I did manage to deploy my system eventually. I finished my job of 3 years and an overall BBC(ish) tenure of 6.5 years. The initial shock of being unemployed was strange. I started answering "how are you?" questions in shops truthfully, which you're not really meant to do.

Waiting for Eddie Izzard to perform at the Arts Theatre

March

'they can fix Terminal5 by next Tuesday, right?'

Found out the planned Australian job had fallen through after they didn't get the contract that I would have been working on. This was just before I headed to New York and South by Southwest (SXSW). This was my first trip out of Europe at the tender age of 28. I loved New York, SXSW was also awesome. I met lots of people, old and new. I hung around with Apple a lot, iTunes seems to open doors for Music after-parties. Terminal Five opened with limited success.

Revel in Simon Batistoni's awesome slide on Internationalisation and Localisation.

April

'i have never been this scared/wired/apprehensive/excited as now. On the hex. Goodbye london.'

I went via Tokyo, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpar, Singapore, Sydney

Terminal Five worked just fine. I loved Tokyo, and more surprisingly loved Hong Kong. I wandered through the Kowloon night markets, and avoided over zealous street tailors. Got ripped off by a taxi driver in Malaysia, and Singapore was just oppressively sterile. Arrived in Sydney jet-lagged as hell and staying in a shitty hostel. Turns out that trying to jobhunt, househunting and be a tourist at the same time was a bad idea. 

Despite being a veggie I took a trip to the Tokyo Fish Market one morning

May

'My new contract has a porn clause. Awesome.'

I turned 29 towards the end of the month. Not really a big do, but I had the best present in waking up on my Birthday with both a job and a place to move into. Started to get bored of taking shots of blue skies, autumn in Sydney really is quite nice. Started work just before the end of the month, and took the mandatory new flat trip to Ikea. My tweet was wrong, my contract had two porn clauses: I wasn't to look at it, but was to help customer access it.

Flat White from Single Origin coffee. Americans do coffee with too many options. Aussies just do it well.

June

'offsetting annoying housemateness in saying "the washing machine keeps me awake" with "i recorded you favourite show on the PVR"'

I basically worked, and exercised. Met some flickr people. I missed being with Chris & Mirona at Mashed08. I walked through the casino and remembered how much I love the sound of chips clinking. Everyone played with wordle.

The shrine arrived in Sydney.

July

'back from buying a 0.1 cheathco of t-shirts'

I avoided Catholics. Hoards of Catholics. And the pope. But the legislation was repealed so that you could at least annoy them. In the end the only annoyance was them standing in front of you on the pavement. I found out I was nearly 20% body fat. And I started swimming lessons to be immediately levelled up to advanced. I didn't get an iPhone despite queuing a bit. That was a good thing, I only wanted to have one before everyone else through time-zone advantages.

Cockatoo Island. I went to a former military base and saw art.

August

'Just walked past someone in an 'i <3 sap' tshirt. That must be another sap. Nobody loves sap'

The Olympics appeared, and after the opening ceremony which put to shame whatever tat the in London 2012 will do, I settled into a pattern of trying not to care while this immensely sporting nation pounded the UK in the medal table. Only then we started to win. Lots. And it was on their equivalent of "Today". Quite a lot. Then I went Snowboarding in Queenstown, New Zealand. Which was immensely pretty. I had my first helicopter ride. I was distinctly average at boarding, but I could connect my turns eventually. It was the most fun I'd had bruising/breaking a rib in ages.

Goggled up.

September

'Scaring myself by impersonating a morning person.'

The world financial meltdown appeared, I mean, we all knew it was there, but various things started going boom and share prices weren't a happy thing. I healed from the previous months excursion. I went down to Wollongong to see some flickr people exhibit. I bought a new iPod nano. I enjoyed Wall-e about 2 months after the rest of you.

Newtown after the rain.

October

'things that are the same the world over: the light blue train line will be closed when you need it.'

Saw the Blackseeds live, who I'd discovered in Queentown. Watched a few presidential debates in work. Started Advanced swimming classes. Saw those big rocks in the middle of Australia. Felt like a complete tourist. Noticed I was watching sunset with McKinsey people after their strange use of the word "Study". 

Awesome sunset in Uluru

November

'thinking it's never a good sign when your housemate, goes out, comes back, and you're still on the sofa in the same place'

Obama. Handover. More handover. More meetings. Documents, etc. Was a bit more controlled this time, unlike February's rushed omnigrafflefest. Friend from the UK appeared just as I was jobless, so we did tourism. And I did some rehearsal for Comedy, having signed up to do Stand up for some reason. Got a bit messed around by Apple, politely pointed this out and got free stuff. Said goodbye to @MarsPhoenix. Got amused that Ferroro Rocher are apparently posh here.

Sometimes you see nice things on the way to work.

December

'Taking quite a geek approach to writing stand up - checking the transcript from castingwords.com into SVN so i can track it.'

Merrily let all action plans to do stuff go out the window and just chilled in Sydney. Did a comedy gig. Bored everyone senseless with panicky tweets beforehand. Signed up for another. Was told my swimming was Squad standard. Got pleasantly surprised by tax calculations. Unboxed lego advent things. Started packing. Had my first Christmas away from my folks and in a warm climate.

Well it was the biggest thing I did this month

There's lipstick on that pitbull.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Having been in Sydney for 6 months now, I've got a reasonable feel for the place. Having spent a decade in London, I've been wondering where I will spend the next 10 years. Or at least the next few years of the next 10 years.

Raining today, which kind of suits my mood  - I'm sniffly and full of patent medicine to try to que

ll

 the sniffles.  I think maybe I should read my horoscope, as I'm sure some major planet must be stuck right in the middle of the skies of all Taureans  - can't believe life can be this limbo-ish by accident!

 

All my life is in suspense,waiting for people to decide things  - the Assembly to award contracts, the doctors to send my mother home (or not) and various good souls in Carmarthen to summon me for interview (also or not).  Not to mention the writing thing, which is somewhat hampered by a thick head and sneezing.

 

Have to say that I love the layout of Vox pages, they look so clean and inviting.  Current photos from a walk in the park on Sunday and a walk by the sea with Becky on Saturday (her birthday).  

There's something comfortingly effortless about putting together a pleasant looking blog page, re-using photos you used last week for something else and somehow creating something completely different.

 

Things to remember  -  my headache will go, my cold will get better, time will pass, all will be well    -  omhhhh. 

Well, after only two months, it's arrived  - the formal expression of interest in my manuscript from the Fluellen Theatre Company.

To be honest, I'd forgotten that I was waiting for a letter  - so many things going on at present that it had slipped from the forefront of my mind into the "Pending" tray  - probably just as well, there's only so much stuff you can keep in the forefront of your mind at once  - too much and you have a tendency to topple over!

As it happens, I have just found a job I really want  to apply for (amazing  - never thought it would happen). It's managing a local Arts Centre (local as in within a radius of 40 miles as opposed to just down the road). This would mean I could combine Arts and Business expertise and possibly earn a living doing it (if my application were to be successful, of course.

The possible application was taking up all spare brain space this morning, so was quite surprised to find an unexpected envelope in the pile of otherwise unexciting mail.

Really wish everything else was a bit calmer so that I could savour the moment and focus on getting on with writing  - but hey  - I always was one to want the moon on a stick ...........

Together we'll stroll on the sand
We'll stroll on the sand together
Where the air and the land meet forever
The sea, the sand
A land of tan

We know a place were we are free
We throw our suits into the sea