October 2005

Friday was a sad day in the history of British radio. Christian O’Connell and his team, Chris, Brian and Roque have decided to part company with Xfm. the morning drive to work will never be the same.

Or at least until February it won’t. The boys have decided to move en masse to Virgin but their contract requires them to take a three month “sabatical” - shame! Check out the last days of their blog here.

Well, well, its finally here. Publication of the Weekly Ale has un-officially begun, for a sneak preview check out this link of the editor. It is raw at the moment, lacking a little form, but I have no doubt it will become mahusive. Don’t forget to check out “The Louvre” for a few photos of days past.

And remember you read it here first - Off the record, on the QT and very hush-hush!

PS: A great antonym to describe Peksta can be found on his website, the male wafflecr*pper!

Jeez I love the Hudsucker Proxy, saw it again on TV recently and its gotta be in my top ten comedies of all time. Yup you heard me, my TOP TEN!! The Coen brothers are ACE, apparently the duuuudes who set up www.youknowforkids.com agree with me…………

Footnote: Fargo was made under duress!

Postnote: Just bought a Coen Bros box set DVD from the fabulous play.com: Hudsucker, Big Lebowski, Barton Fink and Blood Simple-Directors cut.

Finalnote: Hudsucker cost $40mil to make and made a miserable $3mil at the box office, an amazing flop by a fantastic movie.

This is one of the craziest emails I have ever received. Many months ago now I was allocated tickets to the world cup final in Germany, I paid the money upfront for the tickets, over £500, and then settled down to wait until South Africa qualified. Well it turns out that SA have not qualified, which means that my ticket application becomes void and the money will be returned to me, for a full explanation read my previous post.

Well today, almost 5 months after my application was successful FIFA send me this bollocks:

Date
10-19-2005

Customer number
1000673268

Order number
1001473971

Dear Mister Fisher,

Your 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany (TM) ticket order has been processed. It was both in the ticketing general terms and conditions for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany (TM), and in the rules referred to in the ticketing general terms and conditions indicated that individuals who represent a safety risk would be excluded from the attendance at football matches of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany (TM). We found out in the course of a vetting that you are subject to an effective stadium ban. This implicates that your complete ticket order has to be cancelled.

The reversed transaction as well as the refund of your payments will be made from November 15th 2005 on.

We thank you for your understanding

Kind regards,

Your 2006 FIFA World Cup (TM) Ticketing Center

Hey it looks like tickets will be going on sale pretty soon for the RWC in France 2007. Check out the official site now!!

Although I’m not an Arsenal fan I do like the idea of buying a studio apartment off-plan in the new development planned at Highbury, Arsenals current ground. They will start the development at the end of the season and if I go to the launch I may be tempted to put down the £2500 deposit for a studio flat worth £230,000. It is likely that the development will only complete in 2010 when the likelihood will be that these apartments are worth a lot more and it may be tempting to own a little studio in the village of Londres.

Check out the website by clicking here.

I saw this story a week ago and thought it was amazing. A 9 year-old boy has just entered the history books by swimming from Alcatraz through the shark infested waters of San Fran bay and reaching the other side in under 2 hours!

Check out this link with a video broadcast of the event, click here!

Well November is already looking like its gonna be a stonker of month.

Firstly it is almost time for Kirk and I to vacate the illustrious premises of 41 Spencer Walk. Our Landlady has sold the house so we have to be out by the end of November which is probaly a good thing considering I really do need to move closer to work. The three hours of commuting everyday are starting to hurt. They say a move is as good as holiday. Those wankers have never had to move have they. If there is a city which requires the individual citizen to undertake as much administration as London then please let me know and I will tell George Bush that Osama lives there! London is an admin nightmare, just writing down the list of things that must be done before and after moving takes almost the whole day. Then you have to deal with British customer service!!

Case in point, this weekend Orange (The shite phone company) had told me that my replacement phone would be delivered between 9am and 1pm on Saturday and that if I was not present when it was delivered they would charge me a £15 redelivery admin fee. Fine, I have been stung by this little trick before when I was in a meeting I couldn’t get out of, so this time I would make sure I was home. Cut a story short and the phone is only delivered the following day at 12.45!! Ater numerous conversations with Orange they eventually tell me that the delivery company broke down and they are sorry, but really they don’t give a shit! So weekend spent sitting around waiting for a phone.

Well, not exactly! I still managed to squeeze in a trip to the London Ski and Snowboard show. If there is one holiday a year that excites me like no other it is the antipation of hitting the slopes with a snowboard strapped to my feet. So this year I am looking at a few options, one of which is to return to the wonderfully cheap and powder abundant resort of Kaserg -Grunau in Austria where we went last year. The other place I would love to try is Fieberbrunn in PillerseeTal, again in Austria. I have a knack of being able to put together schweet travel packages which make the Tour Operators look like Imelda Marcos in their level of unnecessary expense. I might just be ale to do it for the Snowboard town of Fieberbrunn with a little excursion to Kitzbuhel on the cards as well. Heavenly in Lake Tahoe also looks like the ducks nuts. I reckon I could get us there for a full week for under £600, flights to San Fran, car hire and staying in the first purpose built snowboard hotel in the world, check out The Block!!

Thats a nice little photo, but nowhere near as good as this little video some numpty took of me eating some snow, click here to see a jump that went a bit pete tong.

Back to my weekend, Sunday was spent waving at Truman and Sarah who returned to London for a weekend prior to jetting off to South Africa for a 4 week holiday before returning to Australia for good riddance. We went to two wicked pubs, both of which I can highly recommend. The first is the Prince Bonaparte, with a cool atmosphere, great tunes, good crowd and the best Roast Beef lunch I’ve ever had. It would be hard to beat but the Metropolitan almost does. The crowd here was hip, the music spot-on and the ambience way to good for a Sunday. The food also looked just as fab as the previous place.

The weekend ended on a fairly sombre note when I realised that I am coming down with a bit of cold, most unusual for me.

What a hectically busy couple of days I’ve had. On Monday night I attended the exclusive Re-opening of the Hard Rock Cafe. So exclusive in fact that Michael Jackson got turned away at the door, along with the owners of the New York Yankees. Read the article here.

When we arrived we new we were in for a big night when all we could see were hoardings keeping the celebrity spotting crowd away from the paparazzi lined red carpet. We navigated our way around that to walk down the red carpet in front of the jostling paparazzi snappers and tv cameras. Once inside Terry and I settled down to sink a few JD’s from a spectacular vantage point in front of the stage. To be honest I didn’t see that many celebrities although at one stage we were standing next to the two brothers from Right Said Fred and Liberty X (whoever they are) were walking behind us on the red carpet.

I also happen to be the proud owner of a Hard Rock t-shirt designed by Eric Clapton, one of two actually signd by him, one of which is hanging on the wall in the Las Vegas Hard Rock Cafe the other one soon to be in my cupboard!

Another great night of fun in London and we might be in for an even bigger one soon as it looks like Terry has secured tickets for the 35th Birthday bash which promises to be even bigger than the re-opening.

Some facts about the London Hard Rock Cafe: It was the 1st one in the world opening in 1971. Eric Clapton was a regular customer during the early days. It was Eric who started the whole Memorabilia collection when he sent the owner a signed guitar to hang aove the wall of his favourite bar stool. A week later Pete Townsend from The Who sent his guitar with a note saying “Mines as good as his”. And that folks, is how it all started!

Oh yeah forgot to mention my weekend in Manchester. Went to Old Trafford to watch what turned out to be a boring game. Ingalund won but the bl00dy referee killed the game as a spectacle when he sent Beckham off.

Quite a long way to go to see 90 minutes of a boring game, but I had fun on both the Friday and Saturday with 4 hours sleep on each night! Manchester knows how to party, everytime I’ve been there I love the vibe in the city. The canal is a good place to start off, its known as the gay part of town but if you know your apples from your bananas you’ll have a blast! Then head on down to the Deansgate locks to party in one of the clubs crammed with Manc Angels ! Going up to Old Trafford again on Wednesday night this time in a box!

Tonight sees the VIP invite-only re-opening bash for the London Hard Rock Cafe. The author of WozaFriday (Zulu for “Bring on Friday” ) will be attending. There have been rumours circulating amongst the Paparazzi for some time about my attendance and it can now be confirmed that I will be making my red-carpet appearance alongside such stars as Kelly Osbourne, Deep Purple, Rooster etc. Big-up to Terry “Turkish” Aston for arranging the “invites”, should be an entertaining night considering I have never heard Kelly Osbourne or Rooster and I can only think of one song by Deep Purple, albeit a very famous one, you know “Smoke on the Water”. The guitar riff from that song is one of the most famous ever composed and I will be there to witness it live and give you the feedback later in the week when the after-effects of all the free alcohol have worn off!

PS: I was going to post a photo of Kelly Osbourne on here but for obvious reasons decided against it. If the party organisers think that Kelly may come right if we are all ploughed with free drink, then I want to clear things up a bit, I will never get THAT drunk ………

I had a meeting yesterday with 6 spaniards over from Catalunya. Really difficult when some of them don’t speak english at all! Speaking of Spain my mind wanders to the great bullfighter Russelo. He become a favourite of the fans and an enemy of all bulls. The art of the matador is not particulary well understood by the rest of the first world but I assure you it is an art that is noble and gracious. It has been said through the ages that perhaps the greatest protagonist of these virtues is the Mighty Matador Russelo. Click here to see him practising in an empty bull ring in Ronda. This a fascinating photo, possibly the only remaining image of Russelo, one that will surely bring most bullfighting fans to tears.

Going up to Manchester this weekend to watch England vs Austria in a crucial world cup qualifier. Basically England have to beat Austria and Poland to automatically qualify for the finals in Germany next year. That should be easily achievable but stanger things have happened in football. Whether I make it up to Old Trafford on Wednesay night for the Poland game will probably only be decided for definite after Saturday.

I have changed back to my old theme for a little bit ‘cos I’m working towards creating an awesome new interface for my site. A few of you have asked me what some of the pictures are that I’ve used in the header of my website. They are as follows:

What has really started to piss me off recently is the pessimistic murmurings of South Africans living in the UK. I hardly ever hear anything positive about the country and I think I understand the reason for that. There are a lot of South Africans abroad who have made the decision never to return home and I think it makes them feel better about their decision if they run the country down.

Most of the time the comments made have to do with the economy, crime and the latest favourite - land repossesion by the government.

Land repossession may well escalate into a problem if the whole willing buyer-willing seller (WBWS) situation really breaks down. The recent media publicity about a farm being sold against the protocols of the WBWS policy are really just a storm in a teacup and certainly does not constitue a valid forecast of things to come.

Crime, we all know its bad, but it can only get better, and all indications are that it is indeed improving.

Unfortunately most people complain about money and the economy in general. I know that, for example, teachers in general get paid really low salaries in comparison to England and life in SA could be quite miserable for them. But money is not necessarily directly proportional to quality of life.

The SA economy in general is booming right now. I listened to a Barclays stockbroker on the radio today who has just come back from Johannesburg. He couldn’t contain his excitement at the prospect of the current boom! The JSE (Joburg Stock Exchange) and the general economy is soaring and unfortunately that has lead to a lot of jealously from South Africans abroad who feel that they have missed out. The property market has gone through the roof and a lot of people missed out, me included. But I don’t look for ways to justify my decision to leave, I left because I wanted to travel, I wanted to work abroad and I wanted exposure to life outside South Africa. My intention is to return at some point and when I do I logically want to return to a healthy economy.

My greatest regret about leaving South Africa is having to spend time away from my friends and family. Not that I didn’t buy a house and benefit from the massive capital gains in property over the last few years. If anything, I am kicking myself that I lost touch with the JSE. I used to be well up to speed with it but since I left SA I haven’t followed it at all. I am going to make a conscious decision to get into trading the JSE mainly because I know the companies and the sectors whereas its very difficult trying to pick up the LSE.

Oh and I will not tolerate another blindly pessimistic comment from a permanently emigrated South African ignoramous.

Feeling shattered today, not up for working much after this weekend. Went down to an amazing 15th century Manor House near Torquay for Brendan Gray’s birthday. The house was mahusive in the extreme, there must have been 13 bedrooms scattered throughout the house, 2 enormous living rooms, dining rooms, pool room etc. As a group I think we drank about as much alcohol as a 5 litre v12 Chevy drinks petrol in a 5 hour traffic jam………. Aaaiiish, toooo mush!

There were 6 Saffricans, 3 Englanders, somewhere like 15 K-Ways (New Zealish) and way too many bloody dingo Aussies.

Click on the photo of GF’s Russell and Tom if you would like to go and see some of the photos Brendan took.

Managed to squeeze a game of Kings (Matt Salmon rules) in. Naturally that helped encourage the night along if the Jose Cuevo Petangue (Boule) Championship hadn’t done the trick earlier. The night was labelled a raging success after people began literally swinging from 15th century chandeliers.

Adam Lawry and myself got seriously murdered by that fat bastard Tom Lehner when we tried to take him on in “late night wrestlemania”. I think I might try and lay a civil claim against that bell-end for the permanent disability my big toenail has suffered. On second thoughts I should count my blessings ‘cos if a broken big toenail is the only lasting damaged my bones are breathing a big sigh of relief. What the %^&* were we thinking!

For those of you whom I convincingly trounced at pool, Nigel and Lloyd listen up, here are the rules, you guys had no idea!!

Actually there was only one Aussie - Russell Hatcher - allegedly his girlfriend likes chicken, ask me about it when you see me or if you really want to know then email me and I’ll tell you why.

Lastly well-done to Oanita for organising, why the hell is your boyfriends hair so gray when you do all the work!