A few days in Melbourne
Trip Start
Dec 06, 2006
1
155
188
Trip End
Ongoing
Melbourne,
Australia
Saturday, March 22, 2008
I made my choices based on familiar favourites from the Edinburgh Fringe and a couple of new ones. The first choice was a new one but I thought I recognised the name, Adam Vincent, from the Edinburgh festival. Maybe I was wrong. He had a shocker. First up was the weird venue which was tiny, way too hot and the chairs were arranged to form a semi circle, we call that mistake number two. The show was entitled Humans Anonymous and his idea was that it was a meeting rather than a show, like Alcoholics Anonymous. To our horror we got given name badges and sat in an awkward and sweaty room hoping that the theme of the show was a joke and he'd actually do some comedy. He died on his arse a bit, although one of his comedy mates and his publicist seemed to enjoy themselves. He was relying on people chipping in and agreeing when he was saying weird things which was the mistake that put a nail in the coffin of the show. He would say something like have you ever wanted to kill someone with a frying pan, then he'd grin inanely at the confused people wondering if they could escape the sweaty hell they were being subjected to. You win some and lose some and this was a loss. He didn't help his own cause by saying that in Adelaide they were splitting their sides and mentioning the awkward silences he'd caused. Still, it was a preview, you never know, in future shows he might get some laughs out of some people he doesn't know.
The next day after a cooler and more refreshing sleep I was up and out early to see some sights. I wandered over to Brunswick St to check it out but just wandered straight through. As a man with no interest in fashion as I'm sure you're aware, there wasn't much there and poncy cafes have never appealed too. I fancied going to have a look at Albert Park to see where the Grand Prix took place and set off for a long walk. I knew it was a distance out of town but decided I'd go by foot anyway. They were still in the process of taking down all the stands and barriers so I could imagine what it would have been like. It's a shame I couldn't make it as I reckon it'd have been a good day out. I wandered right the way through and decided that as I was close I'd keep on to St Kilda beach. After some of the beaches I've seen in Oz it wasn't much to write home about, but I'm sure for a big city it's nice enough. I then headed back in to the city. I enjoyed my walk about, Melbourne has got some nice architecture, but I've not been amazed by the place. I've heard a lot of people raving about it and it may be sacrilegious but I preferred Sydney. I think it's been the classic case of it being built up too much, I think I was expecting a lot more after enjoying Sydney and being told it was better. There's certainly plenty to do and plenty going on, so maybe it's a better place to live, with Sydney being the better place to visit.
I'm not finished yet though, things to do, comedians to see. Next up was Mark Watson who I'd seen before and after the previous nights disaster I was pleased that he didn't disappoint. The last time I saw him a good few years ago he was with another Welshman, but nowadays he's on his own and did a good set. He started out sat on the same row and told us all he'd do that to keep things informal as it was a preview night. He made the point about allocated seats that the people in the front row didn't get a choice but as it turned out he's started half way up and so I ended up in the front row. He's not the type to do crowd stuff, but Jason Byrne is and I saw him next. Luckily I wasn't in the front row as I've seen him tear people apart before and true to form he snared a few more victims. I've seen him every year at Edinburgh and he's always good, although he seems to be sticking to his sets rather than just ripping into the crowd nowadays which is disappointing. It's always a joy to laugh at someone else's suffering. Speaking of, half way through the show he had someone zipped up in a wheely suitcase after using them as a ventriloquist's dummy. Just your usual run of the mill standard comedy fare.
The next day I pretty much did nowt. I just fancied a day of rest and relaxation after the self inflicted madness of walking all over Melbourne in a day. As I did nothing I can tell you about the insanity of Melbourne's road rules instead. They have what's known asa hook turn. This stunning idea is that when you want to turn right, you sit on the left side of the road. Makes tons of sense. In my limited time in the city I saw one near miss, it doesn't make any sense as quite often the cars that are waiting to turn right end up blocking people wanting to go left. Perhaps because they've not got the Kiwi rule to stop people turning left they felt they needed a different way of hampering a straight forward manoeuvre. You're meant to sit there until the lights change and then swing across the whole road before the other traffic gets going. It's mad, and that's official.
That night we went to see Ross Noble another that I'd previously seen in Edinburgh. By now the venues were getting grander and grander, we were in the Town Hall with big fancy chandeliers but sat on very shaky temporary seating. He was good, as is his style he spent most of the first half laughing at people in the crowd making up complete nonsense. He was lucky to have a comedy gem in the front row, a man with an exceptionally stylish leather man bag. He was then uncovered as being incredibly organised and was carrying a plastic folder with him. Later when Ross revealed he was getting a bit of nipple rash, mr super organised came to his rescue with an ointment. So it continued. The second half he got into his routine, seamlessly intertwined with the made up stuff. Top quality stuff.
Saturday was going to be a big day, there's not many days in your life you're up early to go to Ramsey St. Oh yes, it'd finally arrived. Possibly the highlight of my entire trip. It's tiny. I'd heard rumours, but on telly it looks like quite a spacious street with plenty room for cricket. When people leave and drive down the street it looks like a long way. They must be driving pretty slowly as it's just not. But still, there it was, Pin Oak Ct (sorry to ruin the tv magic, but it's a normal street) and the familiar houses that strangely didn't really look like they do on telly until I took a picture and they were then the same. It's a weird illusion. I didn't have a clue about any of the current inhabitants, I'm talking Neighbours here, obviously I don't know the normal bods that live there. So to me the houses will always belong to Paul Robinson, Madge and Harold, the Robinsons and Mrs Mangel. Only the Kennedy family have surpassed the Willis family in to my permanent Ramsey St residences. On the way there we went to Erinsborough High School, again, just a normal school, madness. I didn't recognise it at all so didn't bother and I was shocked and stunned by more unheard of locations when we went to Lassiters.
As I remember Lassiters is a huge complex containing Daphne's Cafe, the Watering Hole and there was a very large lake in the middle with a walkway over it. More telly magic. It's also tiny. The other problem is that everything has changed. I can't believe the storylines have moved on, they certainly didn't when I was watching it. There's now Charlie's Bar, who the hell is Charlie. Never mind that Harold and Lou have started up a general store together, unbelievable. One thing that remains is the touching memorial to Kerry Mangel, who we watched getting shot at the protest against a duck hunt on the drive there. That's an episode of Neighbours incidentally, we didn't casually pop in to some local parkland to see someone get murdered.
All very exciting, but soon over too, we were plonked back in town at 10.30am. This left a gap which was filled by the Melbourne museum which was good but I didn't have much time to enjoy it. My other plan for the day was to go and watch some Aussie Rules to see if I could work it out. No, I couldn't. I got some of it. The jist seems to be to punt the ball in to the end zone bit and if your player gets a clean catch he can have a go at kicking it. You get 6 points if it goes through the middle sticks and 1 either side. The rest of it made no sense, they sometimes ran, sometimes bounced, sometimes kicked, randomly punched, pushed and kicked eachother and sometimes the crowd would be crying foul and other times not. The only thing that was clear was which team to support. Collingwood were the home team, but they were black and white and had the nickname Magpies, so I went for Fremantle. I suppose I've been to Freo so there's my excuse. The funniest aspect of the game is the way the refs start the play. It's very childish, they just smack the ball off the ground. The best one is when it goes off the side as they turn around and throw it over their shoulders! In the end the home team prevailed, so sadly the team in black and white won. It went on a bit long for my liking, 4 quarters of 30 minutes of randomness.
That night was the final comedy night, scrabble unscripted. This was chosen as Louisa is a scrabble fan. The idea was a game of scrabble took place and then scenes are enacted using the words from the scrabble game. Saves the usual audience shouting stuff out I suppose. It's timed to coincide with the scrabble world championships that are taking place so Lou was quite in awe of the 6th best scrabble player in the world that came along. He was playing against a man that wasn't funny. Overall it was mildly amusing, but generally not the funniest thing I've seen. Improvisation is always a risk and other than a few smiles there wasn't much to laugh at. I'm not sure I can say what the only belly laugh was from in this family friendly travel thingy. Oh ok then, it was when one of them completely inappropriately just shouted out [ahem].
Back to the room for the night. I've met a few weirdos on my travels as you'd expect, but I think the one that's in my room at the moment is the winner. I can't imagine I'll top him. He's a mix between Hoggle from Labyrinth, John Inman and Rain Man. Very very weird. The first night he decided to have a loud conversation with a lad that was leaving for a plane in the middle of the night and last night snored. I didn't exactly warm to him. Freak. I've got to question myself though, there was another lad in there that was quite happy to chat to him. He sounded like he was from the north east, durhamish. That's the lad, not the oddball by the way. Anyway, perhaps I'm not being a good traveller, not interacting with people from different parts of the world. My travelling principles basically consist of scoping someone out, a hello, a quick chat and then at that point if they're in any way mental I then avoid any further conversation or eye contact. Seems sensible to me.
Comments
The man with the man-bag
Sitting at dinner with a number of friends recently revealed a trip to Melbourne which a very close friend of mine and his wife enjoyed. After another friend noticed his man-bag and made a comment, Shane launched himself into an explanitory defence, albeit quite mildly considering his lack of sleep and consumption of wine.
Shane was the butt of that event where the man-bag humour was the centre of much laughter, and the 'ointment' was Vaseline. Shane well-and-truly deserved that attention, as he is one to eloquantly reduce another into a bumbling mess without much thought.
As you can imagine his explanation of the evening created much uproarious laughter directed squarely at him and his man-bag during our dinner that night. So I'm glad to hear from a third party at least some of that story was true!