GOING TO SCOTLAND

I am going to Scotland on Tuesday. My mate Andy runs a bar in Edinburgh so i dare say i will go and have a beer with him. Taking the bus up there, it only cost me 15quid. Can't wait to check out the countryside on the way there.

The Mighty Cronulla Sutherland Sharks are playing the storm (no caps deliberate) tomorrow morning. I am catching up with an old school mate, and my mate Phil who is from around my way in Sydney is staying at the hostel with me too.

Should they win and get into the grand final i am going to cry, missing them being in the grand final would be absolutely devestating and winning.

Sorry Mum im getting a Tattoo if i cannot go to the game and they are premiers.

(31/10/08)

Yes its Halloween, and they take it seriously in London.

Anyway i went to Edingburgh with the intention of staying there and it looked like i was going to be able to score some work soonish. I heard back from an Agency that had me go for an interview some weeks previous. Unfortunatley i needed the money back and it was guaranteed so i went back to London. I only got to scratch the surface when i was there, i will go back one day.

Anyway here are some photo's





This is a monument in Edingburgh to celebrate the relationship between a man and his dog. The man passed away and for the rest of the dog's natural life he stayed put right at the man's gravesite. It was quite a number of years.



This is where i stayed in Edinburgh. This hostel was well clean and the people there were fantastic. I could not recommend this place enough, this is where my mate Andy lives.



The English are a fantastic bunch of people. They taxed people in Scotland for the amount of sunlight that went into their premises. Easy solution to that, brick up the windows.



Yes i ate Haggis, it was brilliant with that whiskey sauce.

FIRST WALL IN THE UK

Aks i painted at Milton Keynes skatepark. Good street park. Sorry about the picture but it is dark when we finished and not very well lit.

FREE RENT

I have been in London just over 2 weeks now. Still looking for a job, nothing suitable appears to be coming up just yet. By all accounts it is a difficult time for it, i know some professional people that i am staying with at the hostel who are much in the same boat. I may have to bite the bullet, pull my head in and do something much my junior, but then again am i here to travel! Im now finding not having a steady job and money coming in rather strange, despite my dislike for the rat race per se'. London is expensive, those things aside i am having a great time! The hostel im staying in at Kensington is great plenty of young and those young at heart to hang out with. I'm learning a lot about the travelling life and picking up a lot of tips on how to survive. Sure i still have a fair bit of coin in reserve but i worked WAY to hard to get that behind me and dont want to rest on those laurels.

Ricky who runs this hostel got me to paint some boards up for the hostel for some free rent. Im going to be doing another couple of boards and a canvas for him till i find some work.

TATE MODERN

Today i visited the Tate Modern. Awesome place, it is a old coverted power station and massive inside.

There was a Street Art exhibition which finished yesterday but i was still able to catch it. The exhibition involved having artists paint the front of the Tate. The artists involved included Blu, Faile, JR, Nunca, Os Gemos, Sixeart, Spok, El Tono and Nuria, Nano 4814, 3ttman.

Blu, Faile, JR, Nunca, Os Gemos, Sixeart were given the opportunity to put their work up on the front of the Tate. When i got there today JR's paste up was being guerneyed off. Faile also did a paste up but the rest of the artists actually painted. When you see the considerable size of these it will come at some cost to remove. They should have left it up as far as i am concearned but at the end of the day nothing is permanent in street art.

The exhibition involved all artists involved 'putting up' in the streets around the gallery. I was given a map and had to go looking for the works.

I paid £2 (about $4 Aus) to get a handheld multimedia device which had a touch screen and would give you a guided tour throught the gallery. I learnt a lot today from the experience. Im glad J2K got me back into art (only if it was fleeting at high school) something that i will never forget and love him dearly forever for.

NOTTING HILL FESTIVAL

Muskrat was right.

First thing i had to do when i got to London was go to the Notting Hill Festival.

Fortunatley i arrived on the bank long weekend when it started. I met a couple of Aussie lads from Melbourne Dave and Nick and convinced them to go out there. We got there just after 11. We ate a lot of Jerk chicken and drank enough Red Stripe to fill the water catchment areas of all of Australia's capital cities.

A ridiculous amount of Jamacian sound systems, playing many various styles of Jamacian and African influences. Revelers would follow their favourite sounds systems around if they were mobile. It was so ridiculously dope that my world travels could end now and i would be happy.

The picture below is an example of just ONE of the streets. There was people in a few hundred streets just like this. Estimated that about 2 million people decend upon Notting hill. My only disappointment in hindsight is that i wasnt able to take too many photo's of the parade (too many people)

LONDON

Yeah i got here ok. Catching up with my brother tonight...More Tales to come. Its a nice day too.

MORE OLD STUFF

My Dad just showed me this old picture. My kindi teach by all accounts had to censor what i said and instead wrote "My Dad doing the shovelling because of Kaiser." Which roughly translated in 3-4 year old speak is "My Dad going nuts because he has had to get the shovel and clean up my dogs shit." By all accounts everyone involved had a pretty good laugh about it. As you can clearly see my Dad's mouth is wide open from yelling, probably after having stepped in Kaisers business. The brown lines are Dad's mo.




Kaiser was a Weimaraner, he had to be put down when i was 11 and he was about 15 or 16 from memory. He had bad athritis, he was a cross with a Labrador, he had the fur but looked like a Weimaraner. Best dog ever, i would have posted an actual picture but my Mum couldn't be stuffed finding one as she would have to pull a million things out (you know what its like pulling out old photo's you start reminising) but this one i found brought back plenty of good memories about my dog.



I also thought in keeping in theme i would not post an actual picture of my Dad. When i was a kid i would get to hang out with the older girls at primary school because they thought my Dad was famous. Believe it or not he was an actual splitting image of Ed Rooney from Ferris Buellers Day Off. Dad went to the states for work in the late 80's not long after the film was released, he went into a burger joint and by all accounts everyone stopped in their tracks believing it was him.
Whats funnier is that the actor that played Ed Rooney has been in hot water over Child Porn. He entered no contest and now that the kid who is an adult is being sued. Dad rekoned he was being set up because its very new black to claim someone is a rock spider.