GO SAINTS!

Its Australian Football League (AFL) Grand Final weekend. And wouldn't you know it, the first time my team has made the big match in years - and actually has some chance of winning - and I am at the wrong end of the world altogether.

For any passers by that may be unfamiliar, the last (and only) time St Kilda Football Club won The Big One was 1966. That's a long time between drinks, my friends.

My team scarf is at the ready alarm is already set for 5.00 am when ESPN starts telecasting in the UK. Apologies to the neighbours in advance for any uncouth hooting and hollering that may eventuate.

GO saints!!!!!!!!

Gypsy memories

Ms J. sent the e-mail in the afternoon. What happened to Dirty Three, she wondered. Weren't they on the bill? Well, I thought so too, and a quick check on last.fm showed we weren't alone.

It didn't matter. The night had a Saintly Mojo all its own. I was heading to the City from the ragged heart of Footscray when I suddently recollected that Ms J., Southside Supreme, worked in Footscray herself. Lo and behold, instant door-to-door transport and a happy journey in the J-mobile. When we arrive, Ms. J's famous Parking Fairy (bless her little cotton socks) finds us a spot.

We head towards the New Gold Mountain.Only one day till I leave. We wonder about a rendevous in New York. How did I start having such surreal conversations? Maybe it can happen, maybe it can. Hunger diverts to the neighbouring Japanese, Horoki, where my sashimi salad (with daikon, seaweed and a light tangy dressing) proves to be spectacularly good. The Saki Samurai (saki, ice, and a fat wedge of lime)are pretty damn good as well.

JL the Magnificent turns up to find us, and we all head to The Forum. Ms. J. and I discover that A., the waitter that always looked after the CSBM (Children's Service's Branch Mafia) at Nudel, just happens to have been a friend of Ms J's for 20-odd years. The delicate little threads that tie us all together flicker into view in the soft evening light. I ask her to relay our regards.

I collect the tickets at the Box Office, nearly tripping over a member of Blue Ruin in the process, and head on in. JL says that X are making her ears bleed, and heads for the seats at the back. I can't sit down at a gig, though, and head to the standing area with Ms. J. We soon find B., former collegue whose rock pig instincts have snaffled him a great spot against the railing. He is happy to share. X are great, and the bass is making my breast-bone vibrate just the way I like it. There is still at least one bass-player in the world who goes with the open-shirt look. It's good to know. The big vertical spit into the air is also particularly impressive. Not everyone can break the 6-foot barrier with a big gob of slag.

In the break between bands, B. confesses that he started the rumour that Dirty Three were on the bill. Says it serves us right for trusting networking sites and other scurrilous gossip. Meanwhile, JL comes down from her pew and is soon is having deja vu about Ms J's cat, though she has met neither Jane (or the cat) before tonight. Invisible threads are suspected.

The Saints come on, and I finally see Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper in the same place at the same time. They open with Stranded. Can't get better than that. Chris Bailey keeps berating us all for being stupid enough to pay $60 to hear an album played that we could all listen to at home: ("I hate fucking matinees.Don't worry, it will be over soon.") Ed Kuepper looks earnest, Chris Bailey shows of relentlessly and occasionally remembers to pretend he is not enjoying himself. We yell and scream and coax them out for a great couple of encores, complete with a little diversion into a river deep rendition of River Deep Mountain High. The sweat and beer eases the collective creak of our old arthritic bones, and we dance. Someone even musters a stage dive. Sweet.

Ms J. spots Jimmy G. through the crowd, who was not only with us at RMIT years ago, but also was a primary school with me.

Hello, hello. How are you? Good to see you.

L. is here somewhere, but I can't see him. We walk to a bar off Bourke for a post-gig drink, talking about Otis Redding & Stevie Wonder. KC walks in the door, a face from another time: flashbacks of a party in her tiny Balaclava flat, dancing in a tiny living room.

Hello, hello. How's things? Whatcha up to? Yes, I heard you'd gone.

KC & JL start hatching plans for a Big Day Out. Conversation breaks off suddenly "Neil!". JL has seen a face she used to work with. She doesn't know it's the same Neil that I did my Masters with, and with whom I have shared many a beery chat.

Hello, hello. You know eachother? Can't believe I bumped into you. How's the family? How's the life?

I need to write this down, try and capture it lest the threads stretch and break. I sit down in the State Library this morning to write this blog, and look up Horoki. The review says the name means 'gypsy memories' or 'tastes of the wanderer'. Who knew?

See you soon, Melbourne. Look after yourself. I'll miss you.

No shortage of shiver

I am delighted it has rained. No, really. Rain is good. Parks look nicer dressed in green. Things grow and such. All good, really very, very good.

I live in a very cold place, now. There is no lounging about limbs akimbo in the naked darkness wondering whether the buzzing in your head is a mosquito or the sound of the sweat sizzling on your skin. There is no slipping down the beach early before the sand gets too hot to stand on, then holing yourself up in a darkened room to watch the cricket until the sun stops doing its 'hammer and anvil' schtick on the pavement. There is no ritual slathering of sunblock before you step out the door of a morning, nor inspecting the sun-damage on your skin before you go to bed at night (a rather depressing aside: I look like a wisened hag, skin-wise, compared to the average person of about my age over there). There, if it should ever hit 25 degrees, the people go all pink and flustered and keep saying the word 'scorcher' to each other. I kid you not.

Don't get me wrong, there is a lot to like. There is (or at least was in my former residence and I trust will be again) curling up by the fire. Pubs with lead-light windows give of a friendly glow in afternoon darkness, and in summer you can stay in the glowing pubs until 11.30 and still stumble home in the light.

And the sky is big. There are places have small skies, but I don't think I could live in one. Snow falls, occasionally, which is hilarious. Besides, it makes the hills over the Firth go all white on their little rounded heads, and if the sun ever does come out they give a little blinding sparkle of joy. August (a.k.a. 'summer') was cloudy. Unrelentingly cloudy. There was not a single moment when I saw even the tiniest sliver of blue in the sky for the whole month. Not once.

To be fair, August was also reasonably un-cold. Nothing wrong with cold, per se, but in my new home there is rather a lot of it. It's cold all the time. I am cold all the time. There is cold a-plenty. My friends, I have no shortage of shiver.

So, despite being utterly delighted that the rains have finally come in the nick of time to save all of Melbourne, nay Victoria, from blowing away in a puff of dust, I must admit to being a little peeved about the fact that I ride in on the big flying horse this morning only find myself sitting at a kitchen table shivering. I had to rifle the cupboards of this house to find a jumper, because I didn't pack one.

Yes, I know, it's Melbourne. I should have packed a jumper as well as an emergency Heat-Stroke Resucitation Pack. I am an idiot. A shivering one.