2004-09-13 - 1:36 p.m.

Sydney, Australia

Apologies for radio silence, but I�ve had to spend the last few days hooning around the countryside like a gallah in a girdle looking for gourmet meat pies (don�t ask) and the appropriate technology in said rural parts is rarer than a termite in a tutu, which I firmly believe is not a well used phrase in that part of the world.

A nice, relaxing six hour drive back today, which in Oz terms is a tootle down the road, but if you know anything about me and driving, you�ll know that it was every bit the fun adventure.

I especially liked the 40 minutes I spent driving I the middle of nowhere with the fuel warning light blinking at me, 39 minutes and 59 seconds of which were spent thinking that there �must be a patrol station round this NEXT corner� in increasingly hysterical tones. Thank god for the eventual omnipresence of planet-raping petro-chemical outlets, that�s all I can say.

Hmmm.

I�ve been staying in the antipodean equivalents of Buttfuck, Idaho, and mingling with the locals almost seamlessly, as you can imagine.

Here are a couple of handy ways to mingle into the smalltown crowd:

Firstly, try unlocking your car with your car keys, cursing loudly when they don�t work, then kicking the car in rage, then looking sheepish as someone shouts at you from across the street to get away from their car, and realising that your kind of vaguely similar hire car is actually parked a bit further down the street. You don�t look like a shady, car-thieving stranger who needs a good kicking IN THE SLIGHTEST.

Secondly, as you buy a ticket for the local cinema (seats six comfortably), try combining two things you were going to say. I wanted to be polite to the cashier AND enquire what time the feature started, which somehow came out as a cheery �Thank you o�clock!�, and then went into a big explanation of what I actually meant, which looked even more stupid, and I heard him telling his mates later, and was shocked to overhear the word �faggot� employed when referring to me. I�m sure straight people say �Thank you o�clock!� all the time. And anyway, he�s just the cashier in a cinema in a really small town so WHO�S THE LOSER NOW YOU CORPULENT PODUNK BIGOT? It�s not the guy accused of breaking into other people�s cars, who can�t even process two simple thoughts simultaneously, is it? Actually, it probably is.

Anyway, I saw kangaroos and wombats and parrots AND the second best cheese in the world, so, well, bully for me, huh?