Please mind the gap. [WARNING: ADULT CONTENT]

Fabulous. Everything is working once again.

Well, my travels have taken a rather different turn. No longer am I absorbed into something new and shocking every day. Realisations are slower now, seeping through the skin into my bones. Working their way into the subconscious before I've even had a chance to choose my thoughts.

PS. Please forgive the swearing and if any of you would prefer a non-swearing version I can email you one when I've calmed down. You have been warned.

I have been working for about 3 weeks now. I can't help feeling there is something amiss in all this. I am supposed to be paid $18 an hour; when you take off the tax it's about $15...I imagine this is still less tax than I have to pay on an English income (and I do at least get my tax back here - but not in America, oh no, those cunning kniggets). Plus of course I have to pay all the hidden taxes...turns out money doesn't go anywhere near as far as advertised. Surprise surprise.

Did you know that once, there were no taxes? Then people got all Robin Hood on the world and decided to tax the rich. THEN the government decided it liked having all that income a little bit too much and soon everybody was being taxed. Well done guys. Well done. The rich find ways around it anyway. They're rich enough to have that flexibility.

I don't think I like working like this. Don't get me wrong; I'm enjoying the job. It feels ethical and it has a point. I'm honing my persuasive skills to diamond cutting sharp and I'm getting used to rejection. But I can't help feeling this is all a bit...well, I feel like a hamster. In a wheel. Generating electricity for somebody elses hamster-run-generator. If you see what I mean. It's not really what I had in mind for my life. I don't want to be a cog. I want to own the watches. In fact, I want to own the man who owns the watches.

I walk through the crowds here and I see people with Normal Lives. They have husbands and wives and mistresses and probably a few kids thrown into the mix somewhere. They own TVs and cars and credit cards. They eat Macdonalds and discuss where the best coffee is to be found. And I go into work every day and tell them how there are millions of people dying in warzones and every other person says 'ah, well, yeah, you see...-insert excuse here-'.

And, to be fair, at 50%, I'm doing well. The expected conversion rate is much lower.

I'm not trying to lord it over the other hamsters here. I'm a hamster too, for the time being. But I can't seem to have a proper conversation with anyone. And when I do start talking about stuff that I'm interested in they tend to get all shifty and change the subject.

Climate change? Nope. Politics? Nope. Obesity? Nope. Ethics, philosophy, and the general meaning of life? Nope, nope and no-fuckin-siree.

It doesn't seem to be that they're not interested; it's just that they don't know anything about it and they don't seem to want to know anything about it because, let's face it, it's a hell of a lot easier to exist in this world if you don't think.

Another thing that people do is say 'Oh, that's really interesting'; so you start to tell them a bit more about it and then they cut you off because they weren't actually listening to you. What the hell happened to the world? Where's the connection gone?

Oh yeah, I forgot, we all hang out with the tv and computers now. We've got governments and celebrities to tell us what to do and how to think.

Everybody who I have actually managed to get to talk (and you know me; I'm pretty good at this) has shown panic in some form or another. I believe that I am gradually being fringed to the world of social outcast here. I mean, that's okay, you know; I don't really mind it. But it is a pretty lonely place.


A train station advertisement; a man sitting on a bench with briefcase:
'It takes a lot to make a forgettable journey.'


A lot of time and money has gone into making every day blend here. Seamless convenient mind-numbing oblivion. God forbid the train should be one minute late, there are at least three people who catch my train who would have a nervous breakdown if that happened. I don't want my life to be forgettable. Do these people?

We have an automated woman who tells us what to do:

Please do not run for closing train doors.
Please take extreme caution when walking; surfaces may be slippery when wet.
Please mind the gap.

I particularly hate mind the gap. You mind the fucking gap. Who's minding the gap between existence and reality here?

You don't see graffiti in Asia.

I see lots of lovely glossy advertisements with shiny white smiles glinting with What Men Want and How To Get It. This invariably involves spending money, some manipulation and of course, a couple of compromising sexual positions. And the worst thing is, most of the men have actually fallen for it. They think that this "pretty, brainless, expensive-to-run whore" is going to make them happy. And the women dutifully follow suit.

I have been absorbing myself in the male yuppie section of Western society (seeing them as the less scary alternative of the two sexes). But to be honest, the way things are here, it's not that much different to elsewhere... entirely unaccountable for their actions. After all, they're just men. What can you expect? They're all 'hormones' and 'masculine urges'. Boys will be boys.

It's an ugly world on the other side of the mirror, ladies. This is another type of gap we have to mind; the gap between the sexes. Men don't seem to know anything about women and women don't seem to know anything about men. They don't teach each other anything. They get together, they fuck for a while, both get fucked up, tell each other to fuck off and then go off to fuck somebody else.

So yeah, that's how it is.

Problem solved...I think...

Right, I think I know what I did wrong now (beyond pissing off a whole country)...my offensive new layout did not have my tracking data within the walls of its lovely html jargon and as such nothing was getting through (honestly it's almost as much hassle as redecorating!)...right well I'll check that everything's coming through as it should be and then things *should* continue as normal...

...watch this spaaace...

Sydney - Sic man! -

Well, a few interesting things to report; firstly, google analytics or my blog has died, as my statistics have completely stopped...I guess I'll type an experimental post and see what response I get! Or perhaps you're all objecting to the new layout and my use of pink?

Secondly; the I am proud to report that China has decided to block my blog for being a little bit too revolutionary!! I imagine this is bad news for the blog-followers in China, although hopefully they come back into democracy in a very short while now so it's not too bad.

I want to tell y'all about some of my hilarious call centre quotes:

'Hello? Ah, sorry, you've got the wrong number! ...you sound nice though...want to talk?'

'I'm sorry, I'm in the middle of cooking the baby'

'I'll send you $20 a month to defend human rights, but I still think we should nuke the bastards'

Right; sorry it's so short but seeing as I'm not sure you're going to be able to read it I don't want to write too much! Will check in a couple of days and see what the computer says...

Australia: Initial impressions...

After 10 days in australia and one nerve wracking interview, I now have a job! I am working in a call centre (which sounds bad) but it's warm calls for fundraising on behalf of charity (which is good). I'm so glad I managed to get a job that's pretty well paid, pretty good hours, and doesn't make me feel like I'm entirely wasting my time. It's pretty hard to get to know the people you work with though, you spend all your time talking on the phone!

I haven't done much in the way of touristy Sydney stuff (beyond the obligatory opera house and sydney harbour pictures)...it's been really nice to just be 'normal' for a change. I have been exploring sydney nightlife in some detail, and am also becoming well acquainted with several restaurants in the area.

The highlights so far have been the Comedy Store and the We Love Sounds music festival. At the comedy store we saw Steve Hughes, hilarious guy, he's so anarchic, I think Dad would have liked him! Hughes thinks there's some kind of Evil Masterplan guiding governments into leading us all towards the 'nanny state creche mentality'...and I can totally understand what he's saying but at the same time, I find it hard to see how the Evil Masterplan exists in a quasi-literal or at least a conscious sense...but yeah, he does make some very valid points about freedom of choice vs. health propaganda...it's very, very, VERY anti-smoking here!! And I mean, yeah, I don't smoke and I don't like it when people do but at the same time there's no need to make people feel like second-class citizens for choosing to smoke, so long as they only let it affect themselves not others...the advertisements make it look like every other smoker is a tramp who hasn't brushed his teeth in years, on the operating table without anasthetic, mid-stroke with cancerous bronchioles and arteries full of mashed potato! It's pretty ridiculous.

There's one advertisement where they've staged an 'operation' and got this woman with throat cancer on the operating table. They're sticking one of those internal cameras down her throat; she wretches, in pain, and they all ignore her like she doesn't exist.

-shudder-

In some ways it's pretty frightening to be back in a western world...when you tell people you've been to Nepal they look at you with this mix of awe and fear, like you survived a plane crash and lived in the jungle with monkeys for 20 years or something...and almost everybody goes 'Wow, that's cool, I'd really like to do something like that, but...' and then they trail off because they can't think of a good reason. And then they move onto to another topic that makes them feel less uncomfortable, like movies or restaurants or the relative merits of marmite vs. vegemite.

The weird thing is that Sydney feels less like England than Malaysia did...here, I'll be running through the park, thinking 'Hmm, smells like England...' and then I'll see a parrot fighting with a cockateil over a banana and suddenly I'm back in Aus. One rainy day the bell tolled at Town Hall and I took my earphones out and pretended it was Big Ben. It's strange that it's only when you actually see or smell something that's reminiscent of England that you miss home...for that split second when your brain thinks you -are- in England...first thoughts in my head are 'sweet, I'm only 2 hours drive away from -insert loved ones name here-'. But I guess all that shows me is that it's people that make a place; I don't miss England, I miss being able to be close to my friends. But I'm making more and more friends here every day now, and it's really nice to know I'll be able to get to know somebody for more than a day before moving on. Although of course that means having to deal with the consequences of my actions as well...-sigh-...