Bounce for your youth!

There was a jumping castle.

Words fail.

I can only say that I have chosen some stellar friends here in London town. Super fantastic people. The kind of people, in fact, who hire a jumping castle for a party exclusively for the use of adults. I love them.

I have always loved jumping castles but have been hindered by society's frowning upon adult women heaving themselves onto the bloody things while 4 year olds play about on them. So when we were invited to a house party with a a jumping castle we - ah ho ho ho - jumped at the chance.

Oh ho ho.

The whole event had a rather surreal air to it. You'd be sitting outside chatting and then out would walk two people. All in all, generally trendy-looking people. They would walk out, look up at the castle, place their drink on the grass, remove their shoes and then run at the castle.

At first everyone is a bit awkward on it, just jumping up and down like Coke bottles bobbing in the ocean. But eventually someone goes for a back flip and then it's all on.

Anyway, it seems jumping on a jumping castle is significantly more difficult than the abovementioned 4 year olds would have you believe. Seriously. It's hard work. After 30 seconds on the castle apparently healthy 20-somethings rolled themselves off it, panting and shaking their heads. The put their shoes back on, picked up their drink and returned to muck about with the playlist.

This led me to worry: this could be the last time I both have the opportunity and ability to jump on a jumping castle. I mean, if it's this hard when I'm 26 how hard's it going to be when I'm 36? And given that it's been 10 years since I last got a chance to go on one, this could very well be my last opportunity to jump. I mean to really jump.

As this dawned on me I turned wide eyed and looked at my fellow jumpers (incidentally, they were Laurie, Geoff and Claire - you don't know them). It felt wrong. This couldn't be the last time we all got to fully enjoy a jumping castle. It was too soon.

And yet, too late.

"Bounce!" I cried. "Bounce for your youth! Bounce for your youth!"

And so we bounced. Dear lord, how we bounced. We bounced until the bouncy castle man (for in England it is a 'bouncy castle') came and stood to watch myself and Claire continuously run at opposite walls like frenzied ferrets.

But I think he understood; we were bouncing for our youth.

It seems, however, that I over-estimated my youth. For I was sore and unable to move my left shoulder properly until Wednesday.

Next party we're pushing for a ball pit.

I'm a work of art

Yes, my friends, I believe I will resume this blog once more. Things are in need of being said and I have some spare time on my hands.

So I am, in actual fact, a work of art. An important work of art, mind.

Lazing about one Sunday morning a couple weeks back now, Laurie and I got an urgent call. That call, dear readers, was from Art. And Art said: "Celina and Laurie. There's an emergency down at the Tate Modern. I need you save me. Will you come and save the day for me, Art?"

"It's nothing naked is it?" I asked, having studied a little bit of art in first year.

"There will be semi-naked people there, but you won't be naked," Art said.

"Well Art", said we. "Art, if you're in a bind we'll see what we can do. I think you're in luck, Art. I think you just might be in luck."

A slow breakfast, four coffees and two thirds of the Sunday papers later we raced down to the Tate Modern to see what it was that Art required us to do.

We arrived at the Tate Modern to see our friends Richard and Cleuci, acting as agents of Art. Cleuci was part of a team organising a performance art weekend at the Tate featuring key works since the early days of performance art being re-performed in one performance art bonanza. When, if I recall my lectures correctly, there was a lot of naked.

Art ushered us over to a corner in the Turbine Hall. An old German artist - who looked significantly more like a carpenter than a revolutionary performance art mastermind - took us through our paces. There were 5 of us in all. A crowd started to gather around us and I thought, my how casual this is of Art. People can come right up and touch us. How democratic. How nice for the people.

And then, I became art.

By holding up a canvas in the shape of a half completed tent. And then, when my arm got too tired, I knelt down at the semi-tent and looked at it as if, I believe, to convey deep contemplation.

I was art for about 10 - 15 minutes.

I should also mention that on this day I had not realised that we would be kneeling for the duration of the performance and so, it is quite likely, that given these damn low cut jeans, it is fairly probable that on that day, Art had arse crack.

And, sadly, people had cameras.

But while it lasted only 15 minutes, if there is anything I have learned from my work as Art it is that Art is both ephemeral and eternal. Yes, it was fleeting. But how many lives did I touch? How many little children watching me as Art will go on to produce great works of Art themselves?

It is one of the small, but many, contributions I like to think I have made to the advancement of humankind as a spiritual force.

Other things that were Art that day included:

I'm comin' home!

No one reads this any more. I know that. Can't blame you.

But here's a heads up to dead air on the internet:

I'm back in Sydney in mid-December. Hooray for life! I'll be in town for Chrissie and the New Year and then I shall depart Oz for London once again. Friends and associates are encouraged to book 'Cel time' in advance because I expect to be highly popular and suffocatingly loved on my return.

How do you catch a moonbeam in your hand?

English people are great

I know. Once again. Long time, no blog. I'm 'lazy', as they say.

But anyway, if you are reading this, I will tell you why English people are great.

To be frank though, first off, I generally don't believe this to be true. English people drink hideously. The kids kill each other frequently. Their feta is 25% fat. They litter. They don't know how to make coffee. They always eat chips. And they pronounce Pantene 'Pan-ten'.

So, being so prejudiced, it takes a lot for me to like English people. But two Saturdays ago I fell in love with them.

I had been to a picnic in South London on the Thames with a few people; Laurie, my uni friend Kana and assorted friends of a friend of Laurie's. On a green, green stretch of ground along the banks in the sunshine we drank rose, ate mushroom pate and I - as is my custom-bitched about the numerous short-comings of the English as a race. It was a nice day, a sunny day, a rare day. Everyone packed up to go home but Laurie, Kana and I decided to stick around. Just to try a cider at the pub on the riverbank while the sun was still out. The pub was full, as they all are, and everyone was standing on the footpath outside squinting through the sun.

Essentially, long story short: we got flooded. This wasn't your old fashioned rain flooding. This was just a very quiet, sunny, perculiarity of a flood. By the time I returned from the bar to get 3 ciders the very civilised bank, which 3 minutes before people had been dangling their feet over, was broken. Within half an hour the water was knee high.

But the thing is, the English didn't flinch. They didn't care. They hardly even moved. They rolled up their pants and stood there in the water chatting and refilling their glasses. They cycled through it. They walked their dogs in it. We giggled, sat on our bench, tucked our feet on the edge of our seats and decided that, essentially marooned at the pub, we should remain there until the flood waters receeded. Though, given the very unnatural nature of it all I wasn't altogether sure that the waters would go back at all. If, somehow, the apocalypse was upon us and it was quirky.

Somehow the event seemed so civilised. So much the band playing as the Titanic sank. And so ridiculous. And I think this is what it is about the English sometimes, they are so civilised it is ridiculous. They will let the waters rise around them, wade through it and not even giggle. Barely even speak to eachother. I liked it.

Eurovision is just dumb

I hate the Eurovision Song Contest.

I'm not saying I'm going to hate it forever because I ain't no damn fool. But I hate it right now.

Well, to be honest, seeing as it's been almost a week since The Vision my initial loathing has somewhat simmered down. But I'm still a bit angry at the Eurovision Song Contest.

So, OK. I don't hate hate it, but it was a little bit crap. For me. I'm sure the event itself was still great.

I went to Helsinki to cover Eurovision in a behind-the-scenes, what's-it-all-about-alfie? kind of way. I had this idea that I could hover in the green room and watched the semi-finals imagining what questions I would put to which Euro stars. But then I got there I realised that not only did I not get to go backstage but I didn't even get to go in front of the stage. My press pass essentially allowed me in to the press centre and got me free transport through the Finnish capital.

Oh. And I got a Eurovision laptop bag which included a Marija Serifovic notepad and paper door knob hanger.

For that I travelled across a continent and slept in airports on two consecutive nights on my days off.

And for that, I hate Eurovision. A little bit. For now.

I am going to Eurovision

I am going to Eurovision.

People, I am going to Eurovision.

But not just going to Eurovision, I'm going backstage at Eurovision.

I don't even know what to write. It's ridiculous.

Year after year I've sat huddled on various Sydney sofas, involuntarily repeating"Belgique, deux points", planning the Eurovision house party that would never come. I'd frantically turn off the end of news broadcasts so I wouldn't find out who won and one year - when I was working and had to listen to the news - I watched the whole affair carefully monitoring my body language trying not to give any indication to others as to who the winner would be.

And here I am. Going to Eurovision.

I'm there in a professional capacity thus the press pass. But the story I'm writing is actually so short my fee won't even cover my airfare. I leave London on Saturday morning, spend 23 hours in Helsinki and then fly out at 8am on Sunday. But I don't care. Because how many times do you get a press pass for Eurovision in your life? Really?

Last night for the first time in my life I got the opportunity to vote in Eurovision. I voted 4 times. I only meant to do it once, but it's a little bit like crack cocaine. Once for Israel's controversial 'Push the Button' ska-hip hop ode to Iran's nuclear programme and widely condemned position on Israel. Three times for Portugal because God knows they need it.

So, if you are watching for any reason on Sunday (and that reason should be because Eurovision is the greatest cultural event of the year) keep an eye out for a wild-eyed version of me buzzing around the glittered European D-listers. Still haven't decided what I'll be wearing yet, because what does one wear to Eurovision?

The problem is soy.

The problem, my friends, is that I’ve found it.

The packaging is slightly different, it's true. But this is the soy milk I drank and enjoyed at home. The one that set the bar too high for any European soy milk to meet. The one I had considered having shipped over (until I realised it would cost over $800). The one I wrote to Sanitarium about (I really wish that was a lie dear friends, but I actually am that sad). And all the while it was sitting quietly on the shelf of a supermarket 10 minutes walk up the road.

This, my friends, is my one and only daughter. Lakisha. The brilliant first child against whom all of my subsequent sons have failed to compete. This is the one I thought I had left behind, but who has returned to me, unchanged and forgiving.

And so now the problem is this: can I continue to write a blog premised upon the search for soy when I have in fact found said soy? It seems to make it all one big ugly lie.

But I've decided, since so much has happened that I haven't written up I have heaps of stuff to write about and catch everyone up on. Banal stuff mostly, some whingeing and a fair bit of defamation.

Because I know you're all desperate to know.

'lright?

Every work day starts off awkwardly. Every day I isolate myself just a little bit more. Look a little bit more bitchy, a little bit stiffer. Because every time someone greets me I get flustered. I hesitate and, inevitably, witness my chance for a jovial and productive work relationship sputter out like a firecracker that shoots higher and higher and just farts, drawing a thin grey line of shame behind its hollow, falling mass.

For what, my dear (largely non-English) friends, is the appropriate response to ‘Lright? It’s both greeting and question. And response. And I just can’t deal with it.

I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried ‘Fine thanks, how are you’ (too formal), ‘Not bad, not bad’ (too negative), ‘Hello’ (appropriate but somehow incomplete) and ‘Yes’ (the wrongest of them all).

The only thing I haven’t tried is, in fact, ‘Alright’. Which it seems is the only acceptable response.

Sorry. I can no longer continue this entry because I just now said- and this is a direct quote – “G’day, g’day” to a fellow editor as I passed him in the hall. That’s it. I mock no one.

Oh my god.

Shut up, I'm working.

Here I sit at a proper desk, in a proper office, on my fourth day of work and I wonder: will updating my blog from my highly visible work computer result in me being fired before I have given my new employer my bank account details?

I guess, though, that it’s not all that much worse than bringing an MP3 player in on my second day and spending most of yesterday trying to find out if there really are only 8 public holidays a year in England. I have to say, though, I’m not just a little bit cocky about my ability to hold on to this job seeing as specially bred monkeys could probably do it quite satisfactorily.

So it is, my dear neglected readers, that I have finally landed in London and started to resume something of a ‘productive life’. That is to say, I used up all of my redundancy payout somewhere between Bosnia and Sweden and I need to start earning a valuable currency.

And I must say that I have a great affection for the English dreariness. I always found the sunshine in Sydney oppressive. So much squinting. But here, every morning when I see that great eternity of greyness slumped over the city I smile and think London is the greatest town in the world. Bring me my galoshes man servant!

I am also quite amazed if you have read this, seeing as it’s been two months since I last posted anything at all. You must be really, really bored. My ego thanks you from the bottom of it’s shallow heart.

Italy: Accurately represented by violent cinema.

The mafia.

I can't say for certain that I was witness to mafia activity. I have no actual 'evidence' as they say. But you know; men, guns, Italy. You join the dots.

So we ended up in Venice. It had never been our intention to go to Italy. I had said the words: "I have no desire to go to Italy at all. It's strange. It does not interest me in any way". And so, while in Finland, we burned the Italy section of the Lonely Planet. And Portugal and Spain. Andorra, Germany, Belgium, Iceland, Austria. Gone. All part of Idiot Boy's grand plan to 'consolidate' our luggage down to a lunchbox. He says the Lonely Planet is significantly lighter now. I got to burn Switzerland myself though. I really hate that country.

We went to Italy because there was a cheap flight from Madrid to Milan and Milan is east of Madrid. And we stopped in Venice because Venice is east of Milan. And we stayed in Venice for 6 nights more than planned because we were living in a caravan park out past the airport and we discovered that you can quite easily live on pesto, gelato and women's multi vitamins.

We had been walking for hours one day and found a quiet part of the city. We found two health food shops and declared the area bohemian. It's quite a rare thing, in Venice, to find a part of the city away from the chaos of the pounding of tourist upon tourist, and we thought ourselves superior and fortunate.

We stopped to take a photo of this little piece of stencil art. Because we thought it was funny. Gun death, we laughed. Ha ha. Sometimes there's tempting fate, and then there is tempting fate.

"Our own little part of Venice", said Laurie looking out over the canal at the gently bobbing fishermen's boats. I nodded. Venice is nice.

We started towards this little narrow alley that had clothes strung between opposite windows. And I got to thinking about how it is that after hundreds and hundreds of years of stringing clothes between windows, nobody has thought there may be a more effective method of drying clothes. And how it is that noone seems to mind that the whole city can see your underwear. I've seen undies that could power yachts. And I saw one apartment which washed a load of pinks and whites twice within a week. What kind of freaks have that much pink that they need to do two loads a week? Who would do something like that?

It was because of this kind of profound thought that I didn't catch it when Laurie first said "That's a gun".

I continued walking down the little narrow alley.

"That's a gun", said Laurie again. But he says a lot of things. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I hear other things. This particular time I heard 'that's a group', by which I assumed he meant a tour group and so I picked up the pace planning to get close to the group and listen in to the guide's talk and get information for free (score!).

"That's a gun", said Laurie.

And then I saw it. The man pointing some object at another man's head, that man opening his trench coat in an apparent gesture of innocence. And the man in a black beanie and sunglasses who was looking straight at us.

"Oh", said I. "A gun".

We tried to walk away at a pace that told the organised criminals, "Hey guys, we don't condone your activity, but we lack the linguistic skills and local 'know how'" to report it. We're nobody. We like your gelato". And then Laurie took of his jacket so that we could not be tracked down by the mob.

On the plus side, Italy had Lindt balls as big as my head!

You win some, you lose some. But with gigantic Lindt balls, everyone's a winner.