For the love of Music

We have conquered many things on our trip, including many festivals and gigs. We have been lucky to attend some awesome shows and gigs as they tend to sell out within minutes sometimes hours. 


We have also been fortunate in winning tickets to events, my favourite so far has been to the iTunes Festival: Foo Fighters.  My favourite venue would be Albert Hall and then Electric Ballroom.  Both very different venues.


10th November 2010
Regurgitator, Shepherd's Bush Empire
Free Event


27th November 2010
Motorhead, 02 Academy Brixton, Brixton, UK
$55 each


11th December 2010
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, 02 Academy Brixton, Brixton, UK
$40 each


16th December 2010
Electric Six, O2 Islington, Angel, UK
$17 each


20th February 2011
Ben Folds, O2 Shepherd's Bush, UK


18th May 2011
Erland & The Carnival, supported by Hannah Peel, The Garage, Camden, UK
$12 each


25th May 2011
Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare's Globe, London UK
$20 each


16th June 2011
Kaiser Chiefs, Electric Ballroom, Camden, UK
$30 each


29th June 2011
OK Go, Koko, Camden UK
$30 each


11th June 2011
L.E.D Festival, Deadmau5, Victoria Park UK
$85 each


21st June 2011
Gomez, Roundhouse, Chalk Farm UK
$30 each


2nd July 2011
Wireless Festival Acts included: Chase & Status, Aphex Twin, Chemical Bros, Hyde Park UK
$65 each


11th July 2011
ITunes Festival Foo Fighters, supported by Jimmy Eat World, Roundhouse, Chalk Farm UK
Free event  - Won tickets


17th July 2011
Lovebox Sunday,Acts included: Blondie, Scissor Sisters, 2ManyDJs Victoria Park UK
$50 each


3rd August 2011
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland UK
$45 each for 3 shows including Fascinating Aida and Croft & Pearce.


12th August 2011
BBC Comedy Proms - hosted by Tim Minchin, Royal Albert Hall, London, UK
Grand Tier Seats - $50 each

John Lennon in a Suitcase

Yet again it has been a while since we posted.  I have to admit we haven't been doing too much of the normal touristy things, apart from a weekend in the Cotswolds we have mainly been trying new ales and hanging out with friends.

First, we had better fill in the facts.  Christmas and New Year's were spent in Munich with friends and last weekend in Liverpool. Let's just say I don't recall ever being told that Liverpool is a good place to visit, however we were pleasantly surprised and had an enjoyable weekend - I think the highlight was our guide Chris.

We took the train from Euston Station, London, which took roughly two and a half hours to Liverpool, Lime Street.  A pleasant journey nevertheless on a Friday evening.  We managed to find our swanky hotel (a bit of a treat for David) where we were greeted by our guide Chris, whom we had met in Prague at the Beer Festival.

We dropped our bags off and headed into town, a pleasant 15 minute walk into the famous Matthew Street.  We had a tasty beverage at the Cavern Pub and listened to some (loud) live music, posed with John Lennon in the street and then headed to a local favourite - Doctor Duncan's.  Doctor Duncan's serves mostly the local breweries Cain's Beer.  I tried the Pilsner whilst David had a Bitter.  We called it a night when the pub closed at midnight so we could get through Saturday without too much trouble.

The next day we got up around ten, ate breakfast, met up with Chris again and strolled into town.  On our way in we passed the famous Lambanana which has smaller replicas all over town, much like the cows that travelled around Australia and an interesting art piece called 'Turning the Place Over'

Liverpool is an odd place, it is not the prettiest city, but it's drenched in history.  During WWII most of the city was bombed which means a lot of the buildings are newer. The Church of St Luke's, now standing as a shell, commonly known to locals as "the burnt out Church" was hit in 1941 by an incendiary bomb.

Up the road a bit stands the monolithic Anglican Church and public gardens. Thus began our religious journey for the morning.  It is essentially like every other church other than it has a tower accessible by several elevators to the tenth floor and includes a platform which gives you a birds-eye-view of Liverpool.  It was a beautiful sunny day so the visibility was tremendous, we could just make out Blackpool.

From here we moved onto The Metropolitan Cathedral otherwise known to locals as "Paddy's Wigwam".  It was originally meant to be much larger than the Anglican Church but due to WWII construction had to be altered and therefore has ended up looking much like a wigwam.

We were getting rather thirsty after all this so we had a stopover at the Philharmonic Dining Rooms which was where John Lennon used to go and was quoted saying the thing he hated most about being famous was "...I can't go and have a pint at the Phil." due to the fact he probably would have been mobbed by fans!  This was a beautiful pub with a fancy exterior and mind blowing interior with it's wood carving, marble, inexpensive prints and comfortable couches.  I didn't get to have a sneak peek at the men's toilet's, but David certainly did. Apparently you can pee where John Lennon did and the entire toilet is covered in tiles with details on the urinals.  After this experience and drinking up our real ales we headed down the street to 'The Flying Loaf' for lunch.  Another haunt for John Lennon the story goes this is where he proposed to his first wife Cynthia, so classy John.

There have been significant urban renewals within a large section of the down town including an open walking mall and shopping area and the Albert Docks have been renovated with numerous shops, restaurants and museums.  Along the way to Albert Docks we saw a lot of public art, one of note was the 'Suitcases'.  They were a giant pile of cast cement suitcases in the middle of the city.  Most of the suitcases had names on them of famous individuals either from Liverpool or that had been through the city for a time.  Right next to the suitcases was the Liverpool College of Art that John Lennon attended before his fame and band took off.  It is now a performing arts school, very prestigious and expensive!

We reached the Albert Docks just at sunset and after a short walk around the docks, taking in the Liverpool Eye the smaller brother of the London Eye, we of course decided to take a tour of 'The Beatles Experience'. The exhibit chronicled the members and the group from their very beginnings and contained a lot of nostalgia.  Overall an interesting experience but somewhat lacking in personality.

On the Sunday we saw City Hall and the Walker Art Gallery where we saw some interesting dresses made from glass. We had a great weekend in Liverpool and it just wouldn't have been the same without our magnificent tour guide Chris. Thanks Chris!

Monopoly Pub Crawl

25th September 2010

On the one hand this meeting had a slight strain of "we're too old for this" running through it. Our youthful days of putting as much alcohol as humanly possible into ourselves and then seeing what happens have passed. We have explored those territories; they hold nothing new or exciting for us, only dehydration and regrettable mornings. On the other hand was maturity and practicality.

The day started on Fleet Street at the delightful  Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.  It is one of a number of pubs in London to have been rebuilt shortly after the Great Fire of 1666. There has been a pub at this location since 1538. While there are several older pubs which have survived because they were beyond the reach of the fire, or like The Tipperary on the opposite side of Fleet Street because they were made of stone. We particularly liked this pub and was a great starting point.

First beers of the day. There's something repulsive about having alcohol before lunch, so we were a little later than others and commenced our day at 12.30pm.

From here we set off to The Wellington which stands on a corner of the Strand opposite Waterloo Bridge and was built in 1903.  By the time we arrived around 1pm it was overflowing with people. We had one beverage here and then moved onto the next.

Remarkably discipline is required to get the whole route in, which we lacked. Instead of spending 15-20 minutes in each pub, we spent a good half hour to an hour.  The other sensible thing to do would be to have halves all the way round. David thought a little differently than me and started out on Pints and then slowly adapted to the idea of half pints.  By the time we got round to our third pub, the hunger was setting in, so we decided to exit Convent Garden and try for a lesser expensive area and have lunch at The Chandos off Trafalgar Square.

After several rubbish pubs we decided to change our course and head over to Angel.  However, on our way over to Embankment Station we had a detour to Gordon's Wine Bar.  A little gem that is definitely recommended.  You enter through a rather grubby looking doorway in Villiers St, The Strand and down some very steep steps.  Once inside, you walk into the candlelit cellar  dug into the rock under the street. There's old posters and newspaper cuttings on the walls going back decades. There's no beer, no spirits, just very good wine, and sherry and port from barrels behind the counter.

We then proceeded along to the Aldgate Exchange in Whitechapel which, has had some sort of interior makeover and now looks like somebody's Ikea kitchen, all friendly and squeaky clean..

The Hamilton Hall, on Liverpool Street while beautiful, was an absolute shocker. Packed to the rafters with people, another expensive pub with nothing much going for it.  From here a few of us were getting peckish and stopped in at McDonald's for a cheeseburger to carry us through to dinner as it was 9.30pm. We then jumped on a bus and headed to the Red Lion in Angel - our 8th and last port of call.  From here we went across the road and finished the night on margarita's and burritos.

Here's Looking At You

Exposed: Voyerism, surveillance and the Camera - Tate Modern, London.  We managed to catch this exhibition in it's last week.  I'm so glad we made it. Exposed offered a fascinating look at photographs made on the sly, without the explicit permission of the people depicted. With photographs from the late nineteenth century to present day, the photographs presented a shocking, illuminating perspective on iconic and taboo subjects.

Entering the first room of the exhibition we were met with enlarged shots from Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s series Heads. The images were taken from great distance when pedestrians in New York unwittingly tripped automatic lights diCorcia rigged on the side-walk. The text accompanying the photos told you that one of the artist’s subjects took legal action against him, with the court eventually ruling in diCorcia’s favour. In the rest of the “Unseen Photographer” section it had images taken through buttonhole cameras.

Philip-Lorca diCorcia - Heads

By sequencing “Celebrity & the Public Gaze” as the next section, the curators ask visitors to consider whether the rules are – or should be – different for the famous. On one wall there were several of Ron Galella’s photos of Jackie Kennedy, one (“What makes Jackie Run?”) in which she is actively fleeing the photographer. On an adjoining wall Marilyn Monroe’s dress billows as she poses atop an air vent. There was a vibrant candid shot of Jack Nicholson also; which dominated one wall showing him swinging a golf club at the car of a driver who had just cut him off.

The next two sections of the exhibition were the most challenging: sex & death which contained journalistic images of death and violence some awful images of suicide, execution and lynching. It included images such as Tom Howard's electrocution of Ruth Snyder, from 1928, and Eddie Adams' haunting photograph of a Viet Cong officer being executed in 1968.

The final section, “Surveillance,” was perhaps the weakest.  These were largely pictures taken automatically, or single frames from an automated recording; simply in terms of composition, colouration and focus, you can tell that there is no human interest in their production. As a result I felt detachment from these last photographs where the majority of what had preceded had engaged me.

My favourite piece of the exhibition would have to of been by the photographer Shizuka Yokomizo who sent letters to strangers asking them to stand alone in their living rooms for a specified ten minute period of time when she would photograph them from outside.

Shizuka Yokomizo - Stranger

The most disturbing piece was Kohei Yoshiyuki's 1971 series,  it was originally shown in Japan: in a dark room where visitors had to use torches. However, for this exhibition it was shown in a dark hallway. The images were taken at night with an infrared camera and show straight couples having sex in Tokyo parks and gay men cruising for sex – all the time surrounded by others looking on, gawping.  My original thought was - "Only in Japan", I'm sure others will agree.

Throughout the exhibition I sensed a lack of interest in narrative. The images on display were taken quickly or secretly (or both), with the aim being to capture a single, true moment. The act of doing this removes that moment from its context and allows viewers to wrap their own story around it. Every invasion of privacy with which we were confronted with is simultaneously an invasion of our privacy and our invasion of someone else’s.

Life In London

Having been in London for about a month now, we really haven't been up to a great deal in the tourist side of things, too busy trying to find a home and a job. Now, that I have both of them out of the way, we hope to post updates more regularly.  We'll see how we go.

We arrived in London at Heathrow on the 12th August from Ireland.  Didn't even have to go through customs which was a tad strange, but no hassles, so we were illegal immigrants for a short time.  Now was the time to start our couch hopping stays before finding our new pad in East London in an area known as Bethnal Green.

We have seen London Bridge and Brick Lane as well as a few other random places along the way.  Been caught in a rain storm, to be honest, I haven't really seen what everyone complains about - I say "bring-on winter"! Seen and tasted a lot of beers and a few cocktails in between. Tasted some horrible food and also had some very good food. All the joys of a new country.

Street art on Hackney Road in East London

David went on a camping trip to Dover and saw the white cliffs and a castle, we hope that we can go back again together so I can enjoy the scenery just as much as he did.

Dover's famous white cliffs

Corking Good Times

Except for the allergies anyway. We've done a fair bit in only 3 days in Cork. We seem to spend less time napping like old people when we're on a bit of a schedule.

After walking around town for the remainder of our first day, we then spent the second day at Blarney Castle. This was a lot better than I first imagined it would be as it includes the surrounding grounds, which are rather large. We also bought a ticket to tour the manor house which is on the same property. This was pretty interesting as it is still occupied by the family who own the estate at certain times of the year. We also climbed to the top of the old castle and kissed the Blarney Stone. Yay for doing clichéd touristy things. The poison garden at the bottom of the castle was rather interesting as well since it contained a lot of plants you would traditionally think of, like madrake and poison ivy, and a few others which were surprising, like the tobacco plant and marijuana (or a hemp plant in this case anyway).

Blarney House

Blarney Castle

The Poison Garden at Blarney  Castle

Sancha also had a great time ringing the Shandon Bells at St Annes Cathedral, which is right next door to where we are staying. She tried to play "The Final Countdown", but it came out an incomprehensible mess. I don't recommend using church bells as an instrument if you are going into the 80s hair metal business.

We also took a self-guided walking tour of Cork, which was a nice way to see what is around the town although it is a touch short.

One of the more interesting bars in Cork was Fred Zeppelin's, a rather non-traditional Irish pub with metal paraphernalia taking the place of the sporting memorabilia found in your regular Irish pub.

We spent our last day in Cork doing a dolphin watching tour (we wanted to go on the harbour tour, but forgot to ask when it was on). This was a great way to to get about the harbour and despite getting a face full of dolphin blow hole spit it was pretty enjoyable. The tour included a fair bit of history about all the islands in Cork harbour (second only in size to Sydney Harbour) including the naval base and serveral old forts constructed to defend against Napoleon's fleet, should they even show their faces in Ireland. We also learned a bit about the Titanic and the Lucitania, despite Sancha trying to steal our skippers jacket to keep warm.

Dolphins! I hear they taste just like tuna.

Blackrock Castle

Sancha looking stylish in her borrowed windbreaker and life jacket

One of the island forts around Cork harbour

Rocking the Wicklow's, Just like Quiet Riot Did

A day tour of the Wicklow mountains leaves one with the impression that all is as it should be in Ireland. Every stereotypical picture you've ever had of rolling green hills covered with grass is exactly what these mountains look like. Close up they are a little more interesting as there a great big rectangular gouges missing where licensed families were allowed to remove sections of the peat which was compressed into bricks and burned.

Our first stop was a little unconventional as our tour bus driver stopped off to purchase some tools for about 10 minutes. I felt like I was 10 years old and dad had told me to wait in the car while he stopped off at the hardware store. Turns out he had his shed broken into and all his tools stolen, so he was replacing them.

Our first official stop on the tour was while climbing the Wicklows and we had a glorious view of Dublin through the fog and rain. A lovely Irish day for a jaunt in the mountains.

Dublin is in there somewhere

Second stop was one of the many lakes in the mountains where I got to bounce around on some of the peat bog. It was the springiest ground I've ever encountered as I'm much more used to the hard, concrete-like packed dirt or clay of Australian soil. After enjoying the view of the lake, which didn't do much except allow the wind to pick up some more water and throw it at us, so we were getting rain from both above and below, we stopped for a much needed tea break in the shelter of the side of the bus.

Oceans of heather in the Wicklows

We continued along our way through the mountains accompanied by lots of stories of the area, from the mass grave of German airmen shot down or sailors washed ashore during the war, to the stories of billeted German children who lived in the area after the war.

The area we were travelling through was even more photogenic than our crappy cameras allowed for, it's been a staple location for lots of movies for many years. We stopped at a bridge used in the movie "PS I Love You". This bridge crosses the river Liffe which is just a stream at this point. We passed a valley that was used as part of the Scottish countryside in "Braveheart" and passed near the coastline that served as the beaches of Normandy in "Saving Private Ryan". Interestingly enough most of the Scottish armies as well as the invading Allies and defending German forces were all filled in by the Irish Reserve Army forces.

The Liffe is just a stream up here in the mountains

We continued upwards driving along roads that were perfectly safe except for the treacherous drop down one side. Although narrow and windy we got a great view of many of the valleys and we eventually stopped at a lookout point where we could see down to Guinness Lake. Named after the member of the Guinness family who owns the property this lake is very deep, and has brownish water that has been filtered through the peat to give it a deep, dark brown colour. Add to that the white sand beach that has been constructed at one end of the lake and you have something resembling a pint of Guinness when viewed from several hundred metres above.

Guinness Lake

We headed down at this point and got off the bus for a short stroll down the road to view the waterfall and then head into the town of Laragh for lunch.

Glendalough Waterfall

After lunch we headed to Glendalough and the remains of a monastery. This was the home of St Kevin, who decided to become a hermit in an old copper mine halfway up an almost sheer mountainside. Of course people hearing about a crazy recluse living halfway up a mountain instead of doing the sensible thing and having him committed, decided the to visit with him and learn the scriptures. A wooden monastery was built by one of the lakes, which was eventually replaced by a stone monastery with a lookout tower and walls.

The tower at the Glendalough Monastery

Inside the church at Glendalough Monastery

One of the twin lakes at the monastery. St Kevins cave is supposedly somewhere up on the left mountain

Bonus Picture, Sancha lying in the heather