Entries from January 2005 ↓

Not for the first time I have been a bit slack in regards to uploading the photos. There is a lot of them and only one of me, trust me they are worth the wait.

Fiona has broken the deadlock in our dire struggle for a job. Fi landed an HR Assistant role at a London law firm with good pay and really good hours, we are so happy that we will be able to eat this week. I have had 1 interview (23 more to catch up with Fiona) and hear back next week. Fingers crossed. More effort required.

We are currently housed at Fiona’s cousin’s house (I don’t think it’s her cousin exactly but it’s convenient for the sake of this short message). They originate from Lanoch (or some similarly spelt location) in Scotland and when I can actually discern what the hell they are talking about they are really friendly people. Actually I can understand them perfectly which is rare for the Scottish and they’ve treated us like kings, we’re having a great time in Liverpool. It’s a pleasant change from the daily grind of living in London with Fiona. Actually I don’t mean that, Fiona keeps telling me off for being mean to her on this website, but to all her concerned friends and relatives I can assure you that these barbs are the result of my totally crap humour and unrelenting sarcasm, I mean well.

Whilst you all probably forgot it was on, Australia Day was huge over here in the UK. We had a bit of a house party to kick the night off and devoured quantiful amounts of Twisties, Burger Rings and Samboy Salt and Vinegars to celebrate our Australian heritage (no doubt these foods are made in the U.S or some foreign land). We were then scheduled to kick on to one of those Australian themed Walkabout pubs but every one of them was packed out and had queues 100 people long that weren’t moving. It was obvious that the majority of these bastards were Poms, why don’t they get their own day? So we ended up in an Irish pub on Australia Day drinking Czechozlovakian beer instead. How patriotic. More patriotic was the fact we got thouroughly sloshed, caught a bus home and passed out on the bed.

We’ve been watching most of the late night tennis games at the Australian Open thanks to their start times being our wake up times. I don’t think anyone in Australia actually likes Lleyton Hewitt but give him credit he’s a gritty fighting bastard and I almost like him as much as Michael Chang. We will be watching him bleary eyed on Sunday morning, Go Aussie Go.

Great to see lots of comments on the stories, we have a good laugh when we read them. To all those criticising my vegetarian plight, kindly accept my free copy of ‘Not on the Label’ by Felicity Lawrence in the mail shortly. As much as I love Sam Kekovich, I will love your squeaming over this book more so. Photos soon. xx

Comments:

Sarah (January 31st, 2005 at 2:36 am)
Regardless of the cruel method in which we turn cows into meat, etc, and the weird arse additives they put into it, and the way that the contents of animal’s guts get uncomfortably close to the actual meat, I still think vegetarianism is a complete and utter wank. Dairy is just as bad. Doesn’t mean that I get sick or anything. Well I did spend a fair bit of time on the WC after eating spag bol at the Wye River pub last night, but does that really matter?

bev (January 31st, 2005 at 3:32 pm)
Hi Fi & Cam, Just wanted you both to know, We just loved havin’ you guys to stay for the weekend and it was really quiet last night without you both here. You have both left arse indents on our two seater sofa so we’ll send you the bill for re-stuffing!! (You pair of Couch Potatoes!) It was lovely to meet you Campbell and finally put a face to the name, Howerver, we just want to set you straight on a few things that you’ve written about your time in ‘Liverpool.’ You were actually in Southport Cam, not Liverpool, but we’ll forgive you. I’m also ashamed of you for not doing your homework and finding out the correct spelling for our home town in Scotland, Which is, of course, Lanark not Lanoch!!! Just windin’ you up Cam! Next time we see you both, We’ll have our baby, so get yourself ready for sleepless nights the next time you visit. Have to go now, but will be in touch, Hope the Job hunting goes well and that Fi’s first day wasn’t too much of a nightmare. Take Care, lotsa love. Bev, Stephen and Bumpy! x

Chris (February 1st, 2005 at 1:54 am)
Would’t you rather not spend precious time in the WC if you can avoid it? I’m with you on this one Cam. I’ve got a mild digestive problem atm and I’m really having to watch what I eat and when I eat it. It’s absolutely scary how much crap is put into almost all foods that we consume. Even bread has preservatives….I mean, what the heck did people eat before all these things came along? I can totally see the benefits of organic foods. Good on ya Cam!!!

Sarah (February 1st, 2005 at 4:13 am)
Well Chris, I hate to point it out, but before people ate all the preservative ladden foods they basically ate organic foods. But they also died about 20-40 years earlier than we did now. I don’t know, but maybe the preservatives are keeping us preserved too! Organic foods are just an idea created by money hungry hippies in an effort to justify grossly over-inflated prices for bodgy and damaged produce.

ross (February 1st, 2005 at 5:46 am)
Oh how I yearn for some correct spelling and grammar from either of my children or my nephew!! Did you go to the Cavern night club in Liverpool or are you too young to know? Great to hear ,take care, love Dad. PS. Where are the photos you promised days ago?

campbell (February 1st, 2005 at 2:52 pm)
Less concern over our grammar and more concern over your daughters extremist right wing tendencies please Ross.

I’ve loved Ireland ever since Brad Pitt played Mickey the One Punch Pikey in the movie Snatch and actually visiting the place didn’t falter that love. That’s right, we did make it back alive from Ireland and to make up from my extensive absence I promise that this post will be extra long and if you don’t yawn at least twice while reading it then you are either my mum or my dad.

I didn’t want to leave Ireland. We had a ball, lots of laughs, Guinness and irish stew. It didn’t start off well though, we were delayed in the airport for about 6 hours, thats what you get for flying on the cheap. Nonetheless we found a cosy Irish pub in the airport lounge and enjoyed our last English Guinness before trying the real stuff. The flight lasted for about 10 minutes before we made our way to my first ever stay at a hostel. I didn’t mind the dirty bathrooms, the soiled linen, or the crap muffin for breakfast, but I was forced into a room with 3 females (fi, kris, cassie). They wanted to straighten my hair and talk about girls stuff, not since the days when my sister would try to give me a facial was I so scared. Although we’d been up since 5 we hit the town, more specifically Temple Bar which is the central, touristy, take all your money nighspot in Dublin. Suffice to say it was in the centre of Dublin, full of tourists and all our money was taken. Fi kept walking around the pub asking people she presumed to be Irish to say “turn right at the third street number thirty three”. The fact that no sane Irish person would visit this tourist destination seemed to elude us, but one English bloke named Terry obliged before we found out he was actually a cop from Essex. I’ve never seen such a young and short cop but he was a good bloke and joined us for a dance, drink and a laugh. I’m doing way too much of that dancing thing, it’s killing my image.

The next day we tried to recount the events of the night before and on realising what we had done we tried to forget them again. We went to O’connell St, the main street of Dublin, and had a look around. I had this whole itinerary mapped out to see the sights of Dublin, but we skipped all that and headed straight for the Guiness Brewery. Thankfully Fi was in charge of directions and led us the wrong way so we saw most of the sights anyway before we wafted on the scent of Guinness toward the distillery. The brewhouse has been converted into 6 floors of educational information on Guiness, how it was made, shipped, advertised, drank and stored. By about the 2nd floor I became bored and rapidly ascended to the 7th floor bar for my free pint of Guinness and 360 degree view over Dublin city. Given that Dublin has few highrise buildings it was a sensational view. Irish Guinness is most definetly better than anywhere else in the world. We were exhausted after a long day of walking so we decided to stay out until 4am drinking heavily and dancing to crap pop songs. Sort’ve like going to Finbars.

On Sunday we took a tour out of Dublin headed towards the seaside town of Dalkey and the Wicklow mountains. If you ever go to Dublin, get the hell out of the city and drive or tour around the surrounding areas. The scenery was amazing, helped by a relatively calm sunny day. We went past Bono’s and Van Morrison’s houses in Dalkey and looked across the bay towards Howth. Dalkey houses a lot of the embassies in Dublin and has a Rose Bay feel to it (i.e. bloody expensive). Heading towards Wicklow we visited some ancient ruins (bloody Vikings) and some amazing lakes. We stopped off at a cute little pub (who calls a pub cute?) and had a Guinness and a big bowl of Irish Stew, what a meal! We then went to the mountains, the wind was incredible, the windiest country in the world apparently. The people in these towns seem so welcoming and funny, they must hate us invading their lands deep down. We had a brilliant tour guide who made the trip all the more special for me, he was constantly talking, was very witty and raised lots of interesting political and economic questions. His only downside was that he constantly played Enya. The tour was definetly one of the highlights of our couple of months away so far. Monday was a rainy day and we made up for the lack of sleep over the last 4 days by skipping most of our planned Dublin activities. We went to the Irish National Gallery of Art which was interesting and then headed to the Jamiesons distillery for a tour and tasting. It was an interesting tour and Fi volunteered me for a special whisky taste test, comparing Irish whiskies to Scotch and Bourbon. I hate all of these spirits especially without anything to mix them with and hesistantly drank my way through the tasting. For my troubles I got a certificate in whisky tasting, this may be the item that will get me a bar job in London. It was sad leaving Dublin, but I’m sure we will see Ireland again as I would like to explore more of it, especially given that in a bizzare twist of fate I found that they sold my favourite sweet (forbidden fruits) all over the place. I bought 10 packs, we have but a few left.

We’ve settled into Clapham comfortably, photos of all of you cover the walls and we’re getting on really well with the housemates (Big Brother ruined that word). A couple of nights ago we saw a fox trotting down the street, but we’ve resisted the urge to buy guns, horses and a pack of hounds so far. We are sending out lots of resumes, Fi seems to have interviews lined up daily. I’ve got one reply from about 20 applications and have an interview on Wednesday, i just need to buy that trivial item called a suit. I had a phone interview this morning which I was a bit scared about, my first interview for about 5 years and my last one was with Greg, which if you know him you would understand that we talked footy for about an hour, had a beer and then I was gainfully employed. The nerves calmed after I made my first joke and the employer strained a consolotary laugh in my direction.

Oh I forgot to mention i’ve become vegetarian. I didn’t think I could just stop eating meat, but I bought this book at the airport which has some unbelievable stories on the manufacture of certain meat products, salad, bread and other everyday foods that completely turned me off meat in particular. We are buying all organic foods, one step closer to my dream of one day becoming a hippy. Needless to say I have passed the books around to destroy other peoples lives as well, they all hate me for it but it’s good for a laugh.

We were at Camden Markets on Saturday which is a real alternative lifestyle market. Lots of punks, goths, naturalists and tourists. If you ever want to start your own market I can give you the unfailing recipe. (20x shop with funny worded tshirts, 18x shop of thailand jewellery, 30x marijuana paraphenalia shop, add 1000 tourists and you will successfully kill your suburb. Once you’ve seen 1 shop in this place, you’ve seen the contents of half the market. Nonetheless it was a fun Saturday stroll.

I’ve exhausted my negativity now so I will leave you with some incredible photography (up tommorow) and all my love. Thanks everyone for the comments, Fiona is a slack bastard and will send you emails shortly. Maybe going to Liverpool shortly to catch up with Fi’s pregnant cousin and Scotland maybe at Easter. x

Comments:

Jenny (January 24th, 2005 at 10:16 pm)
Sounds like fun. I was thinking Cam that it had been a while since you put a entry in. But that one made up for it. It was nice and long. Mum and dad are coming back from PI so i am sure you will hear from me and the rest of us soon. Keep having fun. Jen xox

Sarah (January 25th, 2005 at 4:33 am)
Point A - you loved to get facials from me. Couldn’t get enough of it. Point B - this vegetarian propoganda is a load of crap. You will not feel any better as a result. The cows won’t love you any more. That vegetarian cheese you used to buy….well I think you were the only one because they discontinued it this week. And as for soy products, they are an absolute joke. Read an article about them and soy kills you. It also ruins the environment. If you don’t eat Lamb you are Un-Australian….a current ad featuring Sam Kekovich says so. And if you don’t believe Sam, who can you trust!?

Greg (January 25th, 2005 at 6:30 am)
Hey Campbell, what does vegetarian Irish stew tatse like!!!!! Sad state of affairs I reckon.

Chris (January 27th, 2005 at 4:33 am)
Hey Cam, Good on you for your vegetarian exploits. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Apparently just living kills us these days, so you may as well try everything once. Chau left for UK midnight on Tuesday (AUS time) and is there now. I’m enjoying relaxing at home and am looking to travel sooner rather than later. Good luck with the Job hunting. If all else fails, Fi can just get a better job and you can live off her

Zoe (January 28th, 2005 at 5:00 am)
When are we going to get a guest writing spot from you FIONA? God luck with the whole vegetarion thing as well, it can’t last!

Hello cool cats. Has been a busy week for us. Went to Portobello Road Markets last Saturday. Pretty cool antiques and clothing markets. We saw the door where they made the movie Notting Hill and had a drink in one of the great modernistic pubs here. Reminded me of Half Moon except way better and not full of Brighton wankers (How to alienate your entire readership in one sentence). Fiona and I are smitten with Notting Hill and want to move here, great timing given that we have just today moved into our Clapham flat. Saturday night we headed to La Perla Mexican Restaurant in Covent Garden to celebrate my birthday. We had lots of Corona, plenty of Argentinian wine, but the bar closed before we moved onto the mescale, bloody 11pm closing times. The restaurant is right next to the Aussie shop which we went to earlier and bought some old favourites: Teddy Bear biscuits, Toffee Apple bars and Barbecue shapes. Do not take for granted these food items in your life, they are the holy grail overseas. They also sold some Coopers Sparkling and Pale Ale for £36 (nearly $100) a slab which I was tempted for but just coulddn’t go through with purchasing. The beer and wine over here is pretty good though, although the wine is too cold and the beer to warm, great reds from France, Italy, South America for about £3 ($8).

Photos of our new place soon, we carted our unbeleivable volume of clothing over here today and have been buying sheets and other bedroom items for the place all week, sadly this has been an entertaining feature of our week. We have definetly scored with this apartment though, cool pub across the road, nice housemates from oz, windows looking out to the street in our bedroom, a balcony, sky television (with movies and sports!) and cheap to boot. The furnishings are a bit dodgy, our bed collapses from the middle to the leg end if you sit on it and the drawers are a bit dodgy and sway from side to side. But who cares other than our parents who will no doubt be worried immeasurably over these squalid conditions. We’ve spent the last couple of days packing and cleaning the apartment we’ve been housesitting.

It was my birthday on Monday and I had a great day despite having slept a small number of hours after trying to stay up to listen to the tsunami appeal cricket game. Got a package from Mum and Dad with a few requested essentials (Dried Apricots and Natural Confectionary Company Forbidden Fruits) and a supermarket package with my beloved fruit and a slab of Stella. Fi got me a dart board, a football, some photos and a book! I’ve been playing darts all week. I thought I’d done well and then Fi gave me my card with a p.s. that said we were going to Amsterdam. Very cool. We will heading there in a couple of months once we have settled into work. Went to what was meant to be the best Indian restaurant in London that night, it didn’t dissapoint, although having only been to one other Indian restaurant in London I can scarcely comment on the validity of this statement.

Meantime we are headed to Dublin for four days on Friday. Eight of us are flying over and staying in a hostel. Everyone tells me Ireland is brilliant and I am a fan of the occasional stout so we will have a blinder of a time. We are considering hiring a car for the four days to try and see some extended areas of the place. I’m so blase about the trip though, its like we are just going to Portsea, welcome to European travel. Lots of photos and commentary soon, especially given that I now have something to talk about. Lots of love. x

Comments:

Ross (January 13th, 2005 at 2:11 am)
Think only I’m home and you’re awake when you post these stories. glad to see you are not doing an exclusively Safeway travelogue–great shots of London and the crew. There are lots of great spots like Notting Hill but this parent thinks Clapham sounds fine and probably fits your beer budget—why not ask the landlord to fix the bed? Enjoy dublin and amsterdam

Jess (January 15th, 2005 at 12:15 am)
Happy Birthday, Cam! Have an awesome time in Dublin, you guys… Kath and I are having our own little romantic getaway - a long weekend in Torquay. How exotic! But, I think I can safely say our accommodation in Torquay will be better than what we had for our weekend in Dublinn - a 27-bed dorm room! Take care… xox

Kathy (January 18th, 2005 at 4:06 am)
Happy Birthday Campbell!! Hope you had an awesome weekend and birthday on monday. Had Veale’s going-away drinks on Friday night. He’s very excited to catch up with you when he’s over there. Keep having fun! Say to Fi for me.

Sarah J (January 19th, 2005 at 12:38 am)
Hey hey…keep it up. Great hearing all of your stories, especially as your girlfriend is useless in regards to replying to emails. hope you are both well. xxxxx

Claire G (January 21st, 2005 at 2:10 am)
i cannot believe some of the crap u ramble on about in here, but it sounds like ur having fun. Dont be homesick ur missing … nothing. xxxxxxxxx Big hi to Fi missing you lots.

To further prove the theory that I have absolutely nothing to talk about please read the following paragraphs:
Today Fiona and I went shopping at our local Safeway, This is our weekly ritual (well it ends up being every 4-5 days because we eat so much food) and it’s this strange supermarket that is in the middle of some kind of government housing estate. Safeway seems pretty rare over here and its a pretty dodgy little place, most of the supermarkets here are small 7-11 type places that don’t sell many things and at inflated prices, Safeway is at least a half decent size. Mostly the mini-supermarkets (technical term: off-licenses) are by the Sainsbury’s company and they are like the UK version of 7-11 but much better. They have really good quality instant food (pastry, fruit, sandwiches, soup) and pretty expansious supermarket range, they should replace the crap 7-11’s in Australia, but keep the slurpees and the good bloke behind the counter at south rd. It’s bloody wierd though coming from Thailand where a 7-11 is located at least once in every three shops, I haven’t seen a single one in UK. I’ve been looking for one really hard, help me. Anyway, long story not so short, we are spending a lot of money on supermarket food, about $100+, but we’re kept well fed and less at risk to homesickness because of it.

Didnt think it was possible to write a paragraph about supermarkets did you? I’m in the business of proving people wrong. Like this for instance. The next paragraph deals with my cooking of risotto last night. A whole paragraph dedicated to Risotto, I can hear the shouts of “no way!?” from here. Anyway, i’m pretty excited because I cooked my first ever risotto (how the hell do you spell that word) last night. For the record the gastronomical delight consisted of chicken, sweet potato, mushrooms and tomato, I was scared that I had buggered it and the rice was destined to stay hard but despite a burnt layer at the bottom the risotto was delicious. Wish i took a photo. You want a photo don’t you. Credit to Jamie Oliver whose recipe I copied, i’m actually enjoying cooking, bit of healthy competition for mum.

Tonight i’m off to the Walkabout pub which is an Australian pub in London. I got all homesick watching Young Einstein on cable (what a soundtrack) so i’ve decided to join Jase, who’s down their with some mates, to enjoy a Tooheys Extra Dry and some darts, bet it’s full of Poms. Speaking of darts, Fi and I are addicted to the darts and celebrity poker which is constantly on cable. Why do the Poms enjoy sports so much that require they be in a pub and barely have to leave their bar stool?

I got a 15 second news spot on the Australian cricket series tonight, they basically showed Australians getting out despite Ponting 200+ and Gilchrist 100+, idiots. They actually think they will win the Ashes, idiots. We have applied for tickets to Lords to watch the first ashes test, but it is all sold out and we should have tried to arrange tickets earlier, idiots! Lobbying Fi currently to let us stay in Europe longer to watch an Ashes test. Devestated that i’ll miss the Tsunami appeal one-dayer in Melbourne, the teams look amazing, Great to see all the efforts towards raising money for the asian crisis, good to know we have the ability to occupy our thoughts on something other than war and terrorism. People who hate cricket can resume reading here –>

So the onslaught of public holidays have subsided in the city, the streets were again filled with suits and a billion coffee shops that we previously thought were uninhabited rows of shops. Very cold over here at the moment. Miss you all, speak to you soon with even more amazing stories.

Comments:

Sarah (January 11th, 2005 at 4:41 am)
You really think you’re going to compile this into a travel book when you get home, don’t you punk! I thought I was the resident travel writer around these parts. Scott is currently reading your inspiration - Sean & somebody-or-other’s trip around Australia? Hates it. He struggles with the whole reading thing. Just wants to go and do it instead of reading about it. Probably why he still hasn’t managed to get through a whole entry from your diary. Not that I blame him. You talk some real crap, bro.

Campbell (January 12th, 2005 at 4:10 am)
Little Sister, no need to state the obvious, i know i talk crap. The book you mention is far from inspiration, in fact you read it first and recommended it to me, I tossed it back to you after reading it in disgust. Scott, I pray you are not reading Sarah’s entire collection, too much Jean Paul Satre and associated philosphical crap or FACE magazines. You can’t buy cool Sarah! Thanks must be given however for breaking the comments deadlock for this story, wonderful to know that someone still loves me. xx

Ross (January 12th, 2005 at 7:49 am)
Wasn’t it nice when Sarah was on holidays with no access to the internet??!!—I like the boring travelogue stories and look forward to you branching out beyond Safeway

Sarah (January 13th, 2005 at 12:45 am)
Well it was a real delight seeing you on Tuesday night too, Ross. Not that I want to make this a forum for family fights.

Howdy, time is flying here in olde Londone. We had a great NYE at Fabric nightclub, made all the better by the fact it was a 5 minute walk from our house. The club wasn’t as massive as I had been led to believe but had 3 seperate levels in this old style English Brick underground joint with Hip-Hop, Breaks and some other stupid music movement on the other level. The night was so good that even I had a bit of a dance (unbelievable as it is), we got home about 5am or so which felt really early and probably was given that the place closed at 9am. Really good night though, let us know what you all got up to and share your embarissing stories, we won’t tell anyone! I was hesitant about Fabric because I don’t usually go to clubs, but we had great fun (awesome light show) and I occasionaly snuck up to the hip-hop room for some half recongnisable music and redemption from the constant dancing of the Breaks room. Good luck for 2005, whatever it brings.

A good mate of mine from work, Jase, has been staying the last week or so. Jase is a crazy party animal that drinks incessantly without sleep at the best of times so we have had difficulty keeping up, but its been great having someone around for a laugh and a few beers. He probably fit our entire English experience so far into 1 day because he’s not here long, headed to Thailand soon which he’s a bit hesitant about. Going to any of the affected areas, although most probably safe, would be a strange experience. Jase somehow met Fi’s friends over here in Lagos during the Tomato throwing festival, so everyone is good mates and we’ve had some good nights out.

You may be wondering why have i have spent a whole paragraph talking about Jason, well thats because we haven’t been doing much over here and i’m struggling for stories, so get off my back. We are definetly doing the city bus tour this week to maintain our foreigner image. We have been recovering the last 2 weeks from a busy christmas and nye. I have actually been cooking food, and Fiona is still alive! Mum sent over her most secret recipes and amazingly i was able to follow 15 lines of instructions to create these super dishes, homesickness is slowly being squeezed out of the system. My birthday is coming up soon (of course you didn’t forget). We will most likely go out for a night on the town, which I will be paying for because everyone over here is broke. More desperately seeking a job this week, I have found a few positions I am keen to go for, now to finish that resume! Incredibly the shops over here remain in public holiday mode, I can’t wait to work here as it seems that every week public holidays are issued and the whole city closes down, unfortunate if you actually require shopping. Nonetheless we have survived well on bread and butter, the sole items remaining in our kitchen given the shop closures. Cheap too! Headed to Dublin mid January for a few days (Hello Guiness factory). Well i’m struggling for content, London is sapping my energy, please write often, we love to hear from you. Love, Campbell.

Comments:

Jenny (January 4th, 2005 at 3:41 am)
Hi There, Did you like my random phone call on sunday night?? Anyway what date is your birthday cam?? Just in case i have the wrong one. The jobs are they good ones?? Lots of money??? Speak to you soon

Campbell (January 4th, 2005 at 7:47 pm)
Hey Jen, Fiona loved your call, did you have a good night? Did you neck it? Birthday is January 10, 24 is scary, 25 will be worse though, i am trying to flesh out a birthday register so you can all buy me presents, i’ll get back to you. Their are some good jobs over here, pay is great too, we’re even toying with the idea of getting 2 jobs so we are cashed up for europe and hopefully when we get home. Can’t let Fiona stay in anything but royalty accomodation through Europe. Tonight Fi got a second interview with BNP Paribas, massive world banking company, she’s really nervous, would be an awesome job. Let you know how it goes soon. Hope the Mckell family is well and having a great time in PI. Love, Campbell.