Arrival (pertaining to Adelaide, not Abba)

At the rather frank request of an anonymous commenter (see comment on previous post) I hereby “for Christ’s sake write something!!!” in my journal. In fact I did recoil with shame at myself, logging on to make this update, noticing that the date of my last post was nearly two weeks ago. I blame this state of affairs on the fact that, since arriving in Adelaide (yes, I made it) I’ve been too busy to connect my ailing laptop to the net from home and rather reluctant to open these pages at work where a Services Manager seems to have a penchant for frequently turning up at my desk to check that everything is okay in the new job. So it’s been a while since I’ve even had the chance to check on the always delightful volacious_gus diaries or the ever eloquent pickaporn page (and its sexy big brother, gayety.net) or any of you other kiddies’ fabbo journals. So what have I been doing? Well I burnt a few days and exactly 147.6 litres of unleaded driving the 1790 km from Newcastle to Adelaide (I have the logbook to prove it) via the scenic route – which turned out to be fairly unscenic. But I guess the fact that I do these trips without hating the experience (as most normal people do) speaks volumes about how much I enjoy driving. Like easing the Charade up to a (sort of) effortless 150 km/h on a late night run along the Sturt Highway into Mildura under the watchful glow of a full moon. During this I ponder the spinning crankshaft that’s less than half a metre in front of my feet and the fact that it’s rotating 5300 times every minute, with four pistons and sixteen valves throbbing up and down in time, and slamming enough power on to the road to cut my briskly advancing slipstream through the night air. At times like these I am in awe of Japanese industry and its ability to make characterless but highly efficient motor vehicles but also frustrated by its inability to make sufficiently bright headlights, especially as I peer through glass that’s plastered in the wafer thin remains of about eight billion insects.Thankfully these were the only living creatures I collided with on my journey since I had not the misfortune of crossing paths with either any hopping pouched marsupials or any stumbling pissed Mildurians. I believe my lack of encounters with the former can be credited to the small whistling bits of plastic I stuck on the front grill – apparently roos don’t like the sound and stay away. I believe my lack of encounters with the latter can be credited to pure luck since I don’t believe the inhabitants of this North Victorian town can detect sounds with a frequency in excess of 40000 Hertz, either before or after a dozen VBs down at ‘The Royal’.I arrived in Adelaide to find it much as I remember it: hot and flat but pleasingly endowed with a plethora of cafes, places to drink alcohol and gorgeous singlet wearing Italian boys. On Friday night I arrived at the Mars Bar to find it much as I remember it: seedy and unevenly lit but pleasingly endowed with a plethora of gorgeous singlet wearing eighteen year olds. Well, plethora is not really the word but we are working with a smaller population to draw fags from down here. The DJ was ecstatic when I told him that I remembered him from the last time I was there, which was nearly a year ago. This recognition occurred despite the fact that, in his words, he had “stacked on a lot of weight since then”. Well I wasn’t going to say anything but…This is one nice feature of Adelaidians though: they are generally not burdened with pretension and often prefer to be honest and just clear the air about things. Not that the air in the Mars Bar was clear – rather it was full of sugar smoke and illuminated by a glow of wavelength less than 400 nanometres. (That’s UV light. Thanks for asking.) Still I’d better get used to it. I’m meant to be here until May. Wish me luck.