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It was YB's birthday on Tuesday and, to celebrate, we went to Luna Park on Saturday. As it is her last year in her twenties, she decided it was fitting to go to an amusement park and act like kids, going on silly rides and stuff. I'm not one for rides but Luna Park is such a good opportunity for pictures.

The highlight of the trip was Coney Island; DB pondered that we were old skool... but how can you beat silly mirrors and slippery slides. As we entered the building I raced ahead to take happy snaps of the girls on the various rides and a random guy came up to me, thinking the girls were some kind of celebrities or something, and asked me if I was a professional photographer. No I'm not and no the girls were just having fun. DB and I decided to try out the big kids slide, which is crazy high, as we were about to slide down we questioned what the hell we were doing up there but, after the first go we were immediately back up the stairs for a second go. Fun. Later a group of us tried the Wheel of Joy, where you sat on top of a spinning cone and tried to stay on the longest. I slid off fairly early but DB was challenging for a win when she stacked it and did a full forward roll over her tiara and got a couple of bruises. Awesome!

None of the other rides at Luna Park quite matched Coney Island, except maybe the Dodge 'ems, which is classic. YB decided it was more fun to try to avoid being bumped, which only just made her even more of an appealing target! We also tried some of the games. The first was a sort-of race where you tried to roll balls into holes, each hole makes your chariot fish go a certain distance. Three Bangarra dancers had a go and we got third-last, second-last and last positions. We have shamed our company. Later on JS and I tried the Clowns; I initially thought that high scores are good and felt dejected half way through when I was only on four when we found out that we should actually aim to get a LOW score. Consequently I did pretty well and got a Cat In The Hat, which I gave to JPB. He loved it...

Does anyone know why the harbour has just exploded? I love random fireworks. We had just finished work and were sitting in the office checking emails and stuff when suddenly it sounded like the pier was being bombarded. Racing outside we found the sky ablaze, which lasted for the next half an hour.

Sydney loves a good fireworks display and, besides New Years, this was pretty special. We just don't know what for? It would have been nice to have had some warning so I could have brought decent equipment to work to take pictures.

I haven't written much about the love of my life lately but everything is going well. It's just a bit too personal to talk too much about us. But he's been absolutely adorable and we've been having a great time. Well past the eighteen month point and still going strong.

This maybe old news (sorry about that but I've been on blogging hiatus for the last month...) but I've got a new toy! SLR - very exciting. I'm now on a whole new level of photography! It'll take a while to get used to all the new features and I'm considering taking courses to learn how to do it all properly. I've already got a couple of favourite piccies too!

Not only that but JPB got me a Holga. Super cool! I've been eyeing out all the cool pictures that other lomographers have taken. It's on the other end of the photography spectrum from the Alpha, which is a terrific contrast. One is ultra-precise, but the Holga you can only hope and pray (until, again, you get used to it) and the pictures aren't immediately bloggable (read: not digital) but I've developed a roll and will scan some of the pictures soon.

And lets not forget the *new* phone that has a 3.2 Megapixel camera. Beats the shit out of the crap Motorola V3x that I'm going to be paying off for the next year and a half! Motorola: never ever again.

Tags: camera, slr, Sony, lomograph, holga, mobile, photo,

(This was written ages ago but it's not until now that I've had a chance to transfer it from my laptop to a computer at an internet cafe. More stories to come...)

These Northerners are quite proud of their city, aren’t they? The Manchester folk that spoke to us after our opening night at the Lowry were insistent that I check out the centre of town, after I had dared to suggest that I didn’t have the energy to be a tourist as London had tired me out. I didn’t need to see another old building or some slanting wall of glass or whatever. Besides, there was enough Modern going on around Salford Quays where we were staying and performing, with the colourful The Lowry and the oblique curves of Libeskind’s Imperial War Museum across the water. My favourites were the NV Buildings, apartments that seemed to be bending in the wind. But, apart from that, the Quays were as desolate as Homebush, not quite on the same scale but similarly dearth of any form of life. Planned to death. There’s a ghostly outlet mall and cinema complex, a few restaurants, but nothing that would actually sustain any kind of community.

Manchester was described to me as the “cradle of the Industrial Revolution” and, without the governmental and cultural significance that London had through its history, it looked very mediocre indeed. Old factory buildings are rarely architectural masterpieces. Part of my disappointment was that, being described as England’s second city, I was expecting a lot more. Melbourne is Australia’s second city. Los Angeles (or Chigago?) is America’s second city. Despite its significant contribution to the UK music scene, Manchester seems to define itself in terms of London, albeit in its staunch declaration that it is able to “look London in the eye and show it how it’s done” (or something like that, I forget how the quote goes). It’s a city that has an inferiority complex, that it’s constantly trying to prove itself. I only had a few hours on our last performance day to check out Manchester and places like Oldham Street (and, reportedly, Affleck Palace) showed some promise of an alternative, stand-alone identity from the long shadow of that great southern city. But further wanderings up through Arndale and Deansgate and Cathedral destroyed all that potential, covered it up with concrete, slabs of grass and your standard fare of high street fashion labels that you can get along London’s Oxford Street. I also came across the Urbis, which tried so very hard to convince me that, yes! Manchester is a vibrant and modern city. The more it tried, the less I was convinced. The music: yes. Everything else: no.

On the plus side, the Mancunians seem to be much friendlier than their World-City counterparts down south, and they were much more open to what we had to offer (well, the few people that did bother to turn up!). Also, to get some perspective on the matter, I guess I was mistaken in my assumption that the city was bigger that it is; for a city of less than half a million, I guess it’s doing pretty well for itself. And I do tend to reduce my evaluations of cities in terms of visual elements, the available shopping options, and quality of expresso.

Tags: Manchester

I haven't actually taken very many pictures of London. It's simply too spectacular and full of sights that there doesn't seem to be enough time to stand around and compose pictures. That and I didn't really want to exhaust myself being a tourist when there's a job to do. When I get back from Aldeburgh I can devote more of my energy sight-seeing.

Lloyd's has to be one of my favourite buildings on the planet. To me, this is just a blatant statement: "Money Factory". How appropriate. It's such an intriguing sight, especially down a street full of sandstone. That being said, London also has more than it's fair share of modern architecture (not to mention the Gherkin just around the corner) and the urban landscape seems to be in a constant state of renovation and construction.

St Paul's is also quite fascinating. It's on such a huge scale and yet it's so hidden by the surrounding buildings, it's one hundred plus metre dome playing peek-a-boo with the pedestrians.

Its not all sandstone in our second oldest city!

I didn't end up venturing far from the centre of town. On the morning of our departure I headed down to the Salamanca Markets to get two more balls of wool for my fluffy scarf; in the end my total spending from three visits to the Tasmanian Woollen Co was $52, which I guess isn't too bad considering the amount of wool I ended up with. The real bargain was the rather large hank of wool that still smells of sheep for $15. I don't know what I'm going to make out of it. There wasn't much happening at the markets but I guess everyone's still hibernating. My casual meandering meant that I got back to the hotel a bit late for our call to the airport; I don't know there must be something in the clean fresh air that slows you down...

But a few hours later and a couple of coffees at lb just off Chapel Street and I was back in big-city mode, impatiently power-walking past the big-label shoppers.

Tags: Hobart, Photos, Salamanca, wool.

It was a bitch getting to the airport. I had to drop my car off at PT's place again but had to pick stuff up along the way which took longer than expected. Made it with forty minutes to spare, not before witnessing the aftermath of an accident where a truck's trailer had toppled over. At the very least I made the flight, unlike some ;) but when we got to Hobart I realised that I had left my flexy bowl (tupperware) at home, my breakfast bowl. Bugger. Also left my razors at home, too.

Anyway, Hobart really is quite lovely. The people here have been so nice, recognising that we're Bangarra and wishing us luck (break a leg, which really isn't the most appropriate thing to say to a dancer but the sentiment was appreciated). Its not even that cold here; Canberra was worse. Anyway, on the first night I wandered down to Salamanca Place and Battery Point via the piers. There are some very cute looking shops, not least Tasmanian Woollen Co, but I also want to check out Astrolabe and Klektik. And the fairy lights on the trees are delightful. Oh how quaint! After wandering around taking random photos I stopped by Fish Frenzy to find some of the Bangarra mob finishing up dinner.

We had rehearsals at St Michael's Collegiate, a school well-decked out for the performing arts, before heading off to Theatre Royal for spacing. Australia's oldest working theatre, like the rest of the place it was small but oh so cute! Its a bit of a squeeze onstage but at the very least we're not flying rings, light boxes and sheets of corrugated iron in and out, and we're not stringing the place up with elastics and dancing under thick mats and balancing tins on our heads whilst chucking bags of flour across the stage...

Technorati Tags: Dance, Bangarra, Spirit, Hobart, Travel, Tasmania

I was enjoying a very late breakfast at the Cairns Art Gallery when behind me I heard that familiar vocal inflection that is the calling card of you run-of-the-mill poofter. It was no surprise; Cairns is by far the gayest place we've visited on this tour. Though Darwin, Canberra and Townsville also have gay venues (though, in Darwin's case, gay friendly, the local poofter bar being overrun by straights out for a more alternative night out when I went out) the gays here seem more visible, if not quite as out as Oxford Street. Not that I'm necessarily interested in a place just because of the visibility of its queens, it's just an observation.

A totally unrelated observation is that Cairns seems to be quite a body-conscious kind of place. There's more of a display of flesh and half-nakedness than other places that we've visited. And people here tend to scrub up better than your average Northern Australian Joe.

Anyway, on this totally lazy Sunday off, I got up at lunchtime, caught the bus to town and wandered around for a bit. It was overcast, a contrast to the traditional view of this place as a sunny tropical tourist town, but pleasantly mild. The tide was out and the bay was stripped back to reveal the muddy bog that it is. The prevalence of palm trees and a mountainous backdrop reminds me of Maui, the large hotel chains of the Esplanade are more like O'ahu though not quite as Honolulu chaotic. It is completely unlike its dusty fraternal twin Townsville just down the road, which I think I prefer more as a place to visit; Cairns is just a bit too tourist-oriented for me to like very much. Still, it's good enough for a few piccies!

Technorati Tags: Queensland, Cairns, Gay, Photos

I was almost bitten to death by mozzies for this panorama!

This is the Fitzroy River, the second largest river in the country. It's not the prettiest of views but, at sunset, the shadows hide much of the details.

Tags: Rockhampton, Fitzroy River, Queensland, Photos, Panorama, River.