Tips anyone?

I've been at work here in London for around 3 weeks now and am yet to do anything productive. Unless you can count trawling through the latest statistics on the Herald Sun Supercoach website or watching "Ask Ninja" video clips on YouTube as being productive. Although I'm not at a magic circle firm, I was expecting work levels here to be a touch higher than they've turned out to be. In fact, the hardest thing I've had to do over the last couple of weeks has been work on my foozball. Foozball (aka table football to the Brits - how boring a name can you get?) is, in a kind of Ally McBeal-esque way, a huge sport around these parts. There's an old foozball table on my floor that seems to be the firm's social hub. Even as I speak I can hear deranged giggles from various partners as they bash away on the table. We're about to move to another building and two brand spanking new tables are a key part of the fit-out. The corridor gossip is all about what the playing characteristics of the new tables are going to be like. This is serious stuff. Not that I want to sound critical of a bit of uber-competitiveness - it's all good fun after all. But there is a serious downer about this whole craze: I suck at foozball. I mean, I'm really bad. At first I claimed it was because in Australia we played foozball with a different shaped ball and I was used to being able to pick it up with my hands. But those excuses are starting to wear thin and now it's dawning on everyone that I'm just really crap. Now, I'm not all that upset at being crap. In some ways, I'm actually glad that haven't developed a reputation for my "handy wrist action" the way some people here have. However, getting thrashed on a daily basis my my workmates is starting to get to me. The mocking comments from partners aren't doing my confidence (or career prospects) much good either. Clearly the way to win respect around here is to dazzle on the foozball pitch. So I've decided that I want to develop some skills. Any chance that those of you with some past foozball-playing experience can give me some tips?

Happy days for panel beaters

One thing I've noticed about London is that there are a higher-than-usual number of expensive cars parked on its streets. And we're talking in the higher-ranges of "expensive" - like around the region of Ferrari, Bentley, Aston Martin, Porsche, that sort of thing. And when I say they're parked on the street, they're not just parked on the street on a Sunday afternoon when all the investment bankers leave the offices to show off their newest toys. No, they're actually parked out there ALL the time (apparently they didn't design London large enough to fit in any garages). Now, I've never owned an expensive car before (or even a car at all) so I can't really speak from experience, but it strikes me as a bit of a risk to leave your ride out in the open like that. I mean, a 15 year old kid with a set of keys could have lots of fun in London, if you know what I mean. And if you add a screwdriver into the mix, that kid is going to be able to pick up a very handy badge collection. And then there's London's weather to take into account. I imagine that every time it hails the number of pock-marked Benzes floating around town increases dramatically. All I can say is there must be some very happy panel-beaters out there ...

Was that Martin Lawrence? I don't think so.

Star-spotting is a favourite passtime of most visitors to London. Nothing thrills a tourist more than the prospect of running into Jude Law coming out of a seedy nightclub or catching Hugh Grant and Liz Hurley making out in a dingy back-alley. Maybe that's why people in London spend so much time hanging around seedy nightclubs and dingy back-alleys ... but that's beside the point. Since I'm still very much in tourist mode, it's no surprise that I've been doing some star-spotting of my own. Well, actually, it was completely by accident that I stumbled across the red carpet premiere of the very art-house new flick "Wild Hogs", but what a happy accident it was. I saw all the stars of the show ... well, I saw a tall bald guy who I thought was John Travolta, but it turned out it wasn't. And I saw another guy that I thought was Martin Lawrence, but I later found out that he was just a security guard. And I probably saw William H Macy, but he was so nondescript that he blended into the crowd. And then we got bored and went to get dinner.

Answer: Not as sweet

Well, in my first ever blog posting I wondered whether the traffic noise in London would sound as sweet as the noise of Dandenong Rd. The answer is no. In London, there are lots more buses, vans and wailing sirens than I ever heard along Dandenong Rd and most of them seem to like driving up and down my street - I didn' t realise that Upper Tollington Park was part of the "scenic route" to just about every destination in this city, but apparently it is. As a result of which, I've had very little sleep over the past week or so (notwithstanding the fact that I've bought Boots chemist's entire stock of earplugs). So I'm moving. Next weekend in fact, to a nice mansion flat in Maida Vale - different side of the city and potentially a little staid (there's very little funky urban grit in Maida Vale from what I've seen), but at least it's quiet (I'm on the fourth floor facing a one way street - gold). I'll post some photos when I can. In the meantime, if you want me to show you the sights of Finsbury Park, you'd better hurry up, because the last tour leaves on 31 March.

School fuel

I know a lot of people my age who are still struggling to decide what they want to do with their lives. Everyone wants to do something that they feel passionate about, but sometimes it can be hard to find that passion. Me, I'm lucky - I found my passion at a very young age ... breakfast cereal. I love the stuffy - crunchy or soggy, sugary or plain, with fruit or without - it's all gold as far as I'm concerned. But for a little while now, I've had the feeling that something was missing from my cereal diet. I mean Weetbix was great and Just Right had its moments and nothing beat Mini Wheats as an after dinner treat, but somehow something was still lacking. And now I've found it ... SHREDDIES. This stuff is GOOD. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it's the king of all cereals and I've been shovelling down boxes of the stuff ever since we landed. Do yourself a favour and try some. You won't regret it.

No longer homeless

The housing market in London is so ridiculous that it takes about 3 generations of saving pennies in order to buy a property here - the only way to shorten the process is to make a windfall by winning the national lottery or scoring a football contract. Even renting is hard, but I've managed to break my way into the market by securing a room in a nice flat in Finsbury Park and a reasonable price. Now the word on the street about Finsbury Park is mixed - apparently there are some parts of the suburb that are a bit dodgy - but I like it and having to combat a bit of street crime on the way to and from the tube station should make a man of me. Anyway, check out these pictures of my new place ... I'm moving in on Sunday so feel free to come and stay any time after that ... just make sure you bring some capsicum spray and a personal alarm to make sure you get here safely.

Hello, London

Well, I've just arrived in London - just two hours ago in fact (and I'm blogging about it already ... now that's commitment). Obviously I'm excited to arrive, but the welcome was not the warmest I've ever received. For a start there's the weather - grey skies and rain. But I was expecting bad weather ... more worrying was our driver who welcomed us with these words "Well you must have really pissed off someone in Australia if they've sent you out here." I wasn't sure whether or not to tell him that I'd actually chosen to come to London, but in any case I didn't have much chance as he quickly proceeded to reel off a long list of things that he personally dislikes about London (from minicab drivers to the gay population of Earl's Court) ... at least it helped pass the time on our drive to Kensington, where we'll be staying for the next few weeks.