The continuing adventures of Cpn Justice -Tasmania

2007-01-31T15:19:00.001Z

........DoJ Final transmission. Australian outpost : 16:43 : classified date

Begin message:

International relations are under pressure, chaos abounds and as brother lives in fragile harmony with brother the lines are drawn. Troops will be called home - hardened from many months of intense survival in the harshest of climates they make the arduous journey cross continents to a land that lies resplendent in memory.

It is with a degree of sadness that this last message from Tasmania heralds a departure from a once great company of friends. And so all good things but one must come to an end. Therefore we will mourn that which was precious and eternal but has now passed, until perhaps we are together again.

Please bear with us in the interim.

You may wish to link to this imaginatively named and updated information circuit: http://guylowe2.blogspot.com

Cpn.

End all transmissions.

2006-11-17T03:47:00.000Z

For some reason my blog typing page has been designed by satan himself so that when I try to change the font colour to white what actually ends up happening is that all my text is destroyed and sucked into the netherworld. I find this somewhat annoying.

And so with what I would consider great patience I retype.

Thanks to all who pointed out that a) the link to support me didn't work b) You couldn't post annonymous comments c) I haven't posted for about a million years and d) I am occasionally given over to exaggeration (or lying as we might say)

In response: A) link now fixed and soon to be updated for those of an Australian bent (namely, I now have an Australian bank account) B) now you can (well, apparently anyway) C) This is a post (albeit it a not particularly exciting one) D) all such people are only concerned with my utter destruction and the pursuit of my misery and so I do not believe them (life is exactly as I describe)

For anyone interersted I am still working on the Trout video - which means that I am way behind and generally stuffed. Also I have scored dinner invites for teh last 3 sundays and am hopeful of a continuing trend.

Peace out (whichever of my friends used to say this - can you please let me know who you are/were because I can't remember)

Rock.

2006-09-04T10:20:00.000Z

TROUT!

You may wonder what I have in common with several hundred Tasmanian fishermen (and women in fact), approximately 120 trout, $10,000 and a cold weekend in September. And after conclusive research and study I can tell you that in fact I have precisely nothing in common - excepting the dubious possibility that both the fisher-people and I were all human. However since I couldn't do blood screenings or full medical reports on all the people I met this weekend I wouldn't like to make any claim to the truth of this.

After discovering an unfortunate allergic reaction that caused stomach convulsions, dizziness and no small amount of sweating and vomitting last weekend I looked forwards to a slightly less eventful week. I should have known better really and mentally prepared myself for the worst, but in a moment of uncharacteristic cheerful optimism I think I hoped that everything would 'turn out ok'. I was wrong.
By Wednesday I was sick again - some evil virus taking advantage of my weakened state by infiltrating my bodily defences and setting up the biological equivalent of concentration camp around my head and chest-al region. Short on staff at the school this week, my attendance was more or less necessary - though what contribution I actually make is probably questionable at times especially when I'm not well. As my eyes began to sink further into my head and a dawning awareness that I hadn't eaten regular meals for about 6 days crept over me a strange man appeared like a gorilla in the mist. [For the record we do have mist in the Po but I have never actually seen a gorilla here, I live in hope - also the girl next to me has bruised her ribs through coughing, how stupid is that?! and now she keeps doing these pathetic little coughs which sound about the same as I would imagine a particularly cute and ingraciating female hamster would make. At the rate of approximately 4 a minute but with no discernable pattern I am slowly going mad].
Back to the gorillas. Shambling like some sort of primitive beast as he was I prepared my elephant gun when he hailed me with a traditional greeting: 'ello cobber.
Ah, an Australian. I soon realised that in fact not merely an Australian but also a Tasmanian. Apparently 'cobber' is another word for 'mate' - which is as far a memory serves one of my most hated words in the English language and used by all truly uneducated and filthy english people - most often teenagers with more attitude than sense. [Really that isn't true, some of my closest friends have used that word, and often in reference to me. It's just that I hate it and I'm exercising my cynicism in case I start becoming a nice person. Also, praise the Lord, the hamster girl has left.]
So: after hailing me with such a greeting he proceeded to ask me if I would go and make a documentary on the Troutification of a local town. In a weakened and stupid state due to the virus that I suspect has been eating away at my brain I said: yes. Evn as the words escaped my mouth there was a part of me locked behind soundproof glass screaming and banging my fists attempting to strangle the life out of us both. It failed. And so I went.

Armed with less clothes than I needed to keep warm, a video camera, a microphone (which I forgot the battery for), and some chocolate I went to make a documentary about fishing for trout. More importantly a trout worth $10,000 if you catch it.

So I filmed, got more sick, ran out of battery, went home, got up the next day, did more filming, ran out of battery, missed some interviews that I probably really needed to make and will now have to devise somehow (which I think is called lying but I'm sure that that's what the media is for anyway so I'm not too worried about it) and came home again.
Amongst all that I met a crazy german dude who not only offered me larger - and then to warm it up for me because he knew about the english - and to take me to the pub with him on the way home, but who also gave me a lift from the river back into town so that I could get home. Turns out he likes Australian hip hop (I can't really imagine why) and didn't catch any fish. I think the fish thing was to do with the fact that his son keep throwing rocks into the river just where his line was and scaring any fish that might have been there away. Mr Germany just shrugged his shoulders and said he was having fun anyway.
Which was probably the point all along - less about money grabbing and more about having a weekend all together. I decided that I quite liked him in the end.

Anyway so ends the story of the troutification of a local town and a week or two more in my life. No one caught the trout. We all went home. I slept for a long time. The end. Case closed.

2006-08-28T12:00:00.000Z

Greetings!

Just a quick note to say that you can follow the link to the right (support me - like eat me or drink me in Alice in Wonderland but slightly different and making less sense) to find an updated story of where I am, and ways to get in touch with me.

Sorry that it's a bit impersonal - I'm still working on my e-mailing. But I think my brain is starting to work again so updates should be free flowing again soon.

Much love y'all

the captain of Justice

2006-08-16T06:19:00.000Z

I attampt to shake the dust off my dusty and feeble brain and to think once more about updates and blogs and humour and joy. They seem a mere distant memory, the inane ramblings of some crazy drunk who once inhabited my life.
Investigating the faded leather bound books that I like to call my rememberings - other people call them memories and generally keep them in their heads; cross checking them with the 'sacred texts' [or: norms booklet] and translating them using what I think is a modern day rosetta stone - but could in fact be the lesson plan notes I was devising for hockey on the back of a chewitt wrapper - I discover that I am in possession of some of the acculmulated wisdom of the finest minds that C4 had to offer this year. [Part A]. It's also possible that they were some sort of cultic writings for strange and mysterious rituals held on the golf course, or a recipe for pumpkin soup - all equally as likely in this village.

Some corruption of the text is bound to have occured but I like to think that what it lacks in accuracy it makes up for in style. And so without further ado, I give you: "some funny things we said in C4 2006A - Life on the Yellow Brick Road"

Molli HcMennamin: Age is just a number

Sliz Ewell: the mountain stops when you get to the top

Sliz Ewell on iced tea: Do you drink it cold?

Eryl Choskins: How would you guide someone through the process of becoming a Christian?
Gren: Turn or burn.

Gren on what rituals we use: pulling the heads off chickens. [silence]. You know, like in voodoo.

Spenny: there's no ratio in size.

"well, I'm not keen on these gestapo exercises" : The pope when asked to describe TA

The Bronster on the difference between boys and girls group: don't worry, I'll let you know which one you're in.

"Most dogs have four legs" : att. Mr Canada

"They are a little more tricky to manufacture" - JB on the difference between tanks and giant human style robots.

"I don't know what was in Mal's mind" : Baire Clankole on the choice of TNT leaders. To the TNT leaders.

"Then he took a hot coal from the altar with a pair of thongs" : The pope recounts Isaiah's vision of The Lord.

"Bambi"

"She was married to a yobbo. She was a very intelligent girl, but some people just marry yobbos" - Att. Bambi

Then you have the soft sort of metrosexual boys - Bambi on youth fellowships.

To be honest this tells you absolutely nothing about me or my life. But it was the only way I could think to restart writing my blog after a 2ish month gap. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have, and that I regain my (questionable) genius sometime soon.

Rock on.

2006-06-20T10:12:00.000Z

One more for the road

I actually have nothing to write. At least nothing in my head that would make sense. Perhaps it is worth saying that I have more assignments to do than a maniac Oxford student on speed before finals - and am on track for decided failing to complete said. Also I am considering staying in Australia for another 18 months. My current lack of phone and time make talking with anyone reading this more tricky than a russian gymnastic course whilst suffering from vertigo. So, questions or comments on a post card. I have been outed (although not in the relationship preferential sense). Yes I am considering doing diploma - how on earth I'll find enough sponsors etc is a mystery to me. I think that's why they call him 'the lord'. Partly because he is mental, and partly because he owns everything and can look after his own.

Urrrr......so yes. I go back to my maniacal attempt at working. I think I have about six million assignments to do in the next week. Poo.

2006-06-14T11:50:00.000Z

The assuredness of my boring life

It would no doubt be easy to assume that my life is one huge rollercoaster ride from the posts I write. In fact it is not, more often than not it is just the ordinary everyday humdrum existence of the average human being. And so to prove this I have decided to outline my weekend and the lessons I have had this week in order that you may all sit bored to tears in front of this blog (note also the grey text colour above). [As an aside the girl next to me just let off one of the biggests farts I have ever heard in my life - and she prefaced it by saying: 'oh dear' several times so that we began to feel sorry for her. Little did we suspect that such a foul fate was about to befall us].

So, last weekend:

Friday night - finish work and decide to watch film with friends. Decline film in order to choose Eddie Izzard show. Warn all concerned that the content of such, although hilarious is quite 'coarse'. Herein consisted my first mistake: people don't listen because they are too interested in what they're about to say next. And so after negotiating the use of a tv and room we sit down to watch. 10 minutes and many tears of joy later one of the team leave. 10 minutes later a further member leaves. 10 minutes later our senior tutor enters the room. From the way she stalks past the large glass windows and scowls as she pointedly sits down in the middle of the room I cunningly deduce that she is not happy. The once joyous atmosphere is turned to ice in seconds like a warm bread roll dropped into a pot of liquid nitrogen, and a slow dread creeps over my life.
10 minutes later said film is turned off. I am in trouble again.
Go home. Get to bed after working at approximately 1am. Sleep.

Saturday morning: get up early to get ready to film for the tv episode I am putting together. Through a series of crazy time juggles I have managed to nail down the two people we need in order to film - a feat not less than impressive.
Reach media office, discover it locked. Hunt down keys and gain entry. Gather equipment and leave to film. All goes surprisingly well. Get action footage. Reposition lounge room of said people, film them for an hour and a half getting some excellent footage. By lunchtime I am finished and head back to media office. On the way there am scared almost witless by a hulking monster appearing out of the incredibly dense fog that currently hangs over our little village and makes seeing nigh on impossible. Monster turns out to be the tutor from last night who wants to buy me coffee at the chalet. I deduce from process that I am in trouble. *Again*.
Drop equipment off and go to chalet.
Have hour long 'chat' and have to explain my conduct, defend my choice of keyboard player for Sunday, and rework all the songs we're doing because someone has requested that we add another one into the middle of out set. Fine.
Miss lunch. Go straight to Sunday band rehearsal stopping off to get keyboard and guitar. Discover that sustain pedal is on the blink. 2 hours on rehearsal. 1 hour on another rehearsal for playing guitar at the art gallery opening taking place on Sunday afternoon - learn 5 new songs and rewrite 2 of them in order to make them fit.
Head back to media office to check film. Discover that the angle and shot is all wrong and that it is unusable. Will have to film it all again. Next time take a more competent camera man - or just check camera angles before interviewing and stop passing blame. Immense depression sets in.
Skip tea and drive to ************* in order to help run youth cafe. 5 o clock. Set up youth cafe, run said youth cafe, pack down said youth cafe. Feel like a failure for my total lack of skill at working at youth cafes. Feel crap for not getting to spend time with ******* whom I have an unfortunate emotional attachment to (some call it love apparently). Return home and message said girl for some time until my exhausted frame can take no more and I get to sleep at 2 am.

Sunday morning: 7:30 am - alarm goes off. I attempt to sit up and discover that someone has placed an enormously tight steel band around my head in the night without me noticing. Damned clever if you ask me. Stumble to bathroom (which involves a trip outside) and have shower. Upon closer inspection in mirror there is no band around my head, it's just a headache. Get to church for 8:30, re-set up all sound gear that was taken to youth cafe the night before, start practice (singers are late). Drummer leaves half way through service to do kids work. Have enormous revelation about sin and beauty and why on earth God loves us and am left a gibbering wreck. Learn new inserted song as we go. Finish playing. Go for lunch at chalet - am almost stood up by the Lick who has decided to spend time with 'the spoon'. I convince her otherwise by whining.
Cheesecake and a fire make me feel better then I go psycho from too much sugar. Practice for art gallery opening, go to art gallery opening. Forget that it is winter and so fingers freeze to claws making playing guitar impossible. Turn up distortion so no one can tell. [Sound technician turns distortion down so people can hear]. Am interrupted during the second verse of 'this love' by someone asking me if I wrote it. Unfortunately I am unable to concentrate on more than 2 things at once (playing a song I don't know and stopping myself from laughing at the Lick who 'tried her best to feed her appetite, to keep her coming every night...') and can only make a sort of distorted face plus grunt as a feeble attempt at communication. I fear that they will not be asking us back.
Have break, discover that someone has eaten all the cake. Practice again and warm hands. Play again with a lot more sucess - joined by strange dance troupe who insist on standing in a line behind me and doing some sort of demented chicken impression. Pack up all gear and head for home.
Shower. Sleep. Eat dinner at some point. Sleep again. Fail test next morning due to lack of revision.

Occupational health and safety - 'so if you were running a daytrip you could have an activity like this where you slide down a hill, off a ramp and land in a lake. But your risk assessment would lead you to conclude that that would be a stupid idea because it would be too dangerous so you scrap it.' Accompanied by the following drawing on the board: [drawing fails to upload - imagine previous post]

I am filled with a strange sense of deja vu and embarrassment.

Life continues as normal.

(All events portrayed in my blog are entirely fictitious and any resemblence to people or places now existing or having had existed is entirely coincidental)

2006-06-08T11:39:00.000Z

The 5th option

Life it occurs to me is always a little more complex than we at first think it is. For example: I decide to record a song. For this I need a guitar, some thing to record on and a place to record. Guitar: check. Place: check (pre-arranged). Equipment: check.
And so I walk to the tin man's house to see if now is a good time for him to give me the keys to said hall. Alas, the tin man still has not been given a heart yet by the wizard (who has gone out for a while) and refuses to relinquish the keys until the Chromester is consulted [fountain of all knowledge and head of the normal police]. The chromester is asleep. 2 hours later I return. Tin man informs me that despite all predictions The Chromed one has agreed to my request. But first I must consult the wicked witch of the south to see if she will give me permission. Armed with a bucket of water I trudge to the south - of course no phone system is available, not even some form of primitive jungle drums and so all errands must be run on foot. I finally scale the castle walls and the witch reluctantly gives permission for me to go back to see tin man so that I can then go to get the keys and then go up to the hall to start recording. I trudge onwards.

I arrive at the hall armed to the teeth with a guitar, a capo wrestled from the hands of a pygmy savage who is convinced that it is her most prized possession, and a set of keys. Entering the hall I discover that someone HAS MOVED ALL THE EQUIPMENT SO I CAN'T DO ANYTHING! It turns out that it's behind another locked door for which you need another set of keys. At this juncture I give up.

In terms of lessons for life, from that episode (and several more like it) I have deduced the following. In any given drama there are 3 normal positions: victim, rescuer and persecutor. The circle will self replicate unless you can take the 4th option: engaging the adult. Viz: be mature. The gross mistake made by all people who propose such a construct of social and personal interaction is that they have forgotten the 5th option: the recourse to immaturity.

Thankfully it was pointed out to me by my very good friend 'The Lick' and so now life has a whole new range of colour. Lick has also supplied such innocent gems as: "if it's below the belt I'll do it" and "your new nickname could be: buttholio".

Life continues as normal.

2006-05-16T06:58:00.000Z

Life in Poatina – episode 4 Uluru strikes back

Some may know that recently (by standards here anyway) that I have moved out of 20 King Street – although any mail gets forwarded to my pigeon hole anyway so you can make up the most bizarre address you like. There wont be any prizes for strange addresses but it will make me laugh so please go ahead – one of Tim’s letters the other day was addressed to ‘Stud Street’ as I recall.
The moving story and pictures can be found on my blog, it was a traumatic time but much has changed since then – like the fitting of electrical cables so that we have power and hot water. Hurrah.
Anyway my new address is: 3 Possum Lodge, [postcode obscured for security reasons – e-mail me to find out] Australia
Technically it’s actually ‘3 Wilmot Street’ but I renamed it Possum Lodge and it seems to have stuck.

2 weeks ago now I did in fact embark upon that which is known as: The Pilgrimage to Uluru – or Ayre’s rock for anyone not in the know that the name got changed.
Uluru (henceforth the shortening of ‘The Pilgrimage to…’ ) is a 10 day 24 hour youthwork marathon. Some describe it as life changing, many fusion people say it is profound and challenging. This I have discovered is often a code for ‘flipping hard work’, and sometimes ‘hell’. True to form Uluru was all of the above and a little more.

Sunday (16th) starts with us traveling down to Hobart to go to an Easter march and to meet our small group for the trip – 3 Tasmanian boys and a dude from Sudan – before going to the airport and flying to what people affectionately call: real Australia. For me it also means doing some filming for a tv mini series that ******* are producing. Scary you might say because if I stuff it up they’ll have to wait a year to try and get the footage again. Or stage a fake Easter.
A short plane trip to Melbourne then it’s on to a coach to travel to our first stopping point – a place called Stawell. Stawell is known for its tendency to try and be the coldest place on earth. My small group cope admirably until they get tired, as 13 year olds do, and then they get cranky. We get to bed quite late (midnight), get up quite early (6 ish as I recall) to observe the next ice age happening around us.
Breakfast, norms, showers (I have no towel, so I improvise and sacrifice my tea towel for the sake of having clean hair) and soon enough we’re onto the coach again. This will become an easy routine until one day we spend almost 14 hours without killing each other on said coach. A series of days follow where we reflect, eat, travel, pitch tents, sleep underground, go ‘noodling’, get less and less sleep, do bus aerobics, watch landscape change from green countryside stuff into desert, do the best we can to cope and eventually arrive at Uluru – the Uluru, the whopping great big rock I mean. Slowly those around me become more and more proud of the fact that they’re Australian, and in general become more and more Australian. I can only begin to describe what this does to me as an English person stuck inside a moving metal box with 69 others and so I wont. It is at least an interesting experience.

3 days at Uluru pass too quickly and we only spend really one morning at the rock – which is more impressive and more beautiful than even I had imagined. Then it’s back through the desert - writing a few songs along the way – until we reach a place called Camp Koorong where we meet an Aboriginal elder dude called Uncle Tom and get taught to basket weave. This is probably the most amazing part of the trip because we actually get to connect with someone who has these impressive stories and culture to share with us.

What’s the real point I hear you ask? Well I guess that seeing 85 kids on the next breakout (a story in and of itself as all breakouts seem to be) some of whom became Christians, most of whom have now heard about God (unless they were trying really hard not to listen), some of whom have changed destructive behaviours, opened up more…..I mean how do you measure internal change anyway? I look the same but I’ve changed on the inside. The young people look the same but they’ve been on a week long trip – some for the first time away from home or the state – to see some of who they are, learn values and be loved as best we knew how for 10 days. If that isn’t worth it then what is really?
And Zac says that episode 4 should be: a new hope crushed. He’s probably right.

2006-04-11T06:53:00.000Z

A theme emerges

1. It is possible that my life works along a predictable and bizarre stream of mayhem and chaos. 2. It is also possible that everyone else in the world is mad and I am completely sane and lead a normal life, but given the numbers involved in the calculation the first does seem more likely.

And so it was that I came to our second breakout at a suburb of 'The cest'. Keen to improve on my performance from the last breakout I entered the job with all the enthusiasm I could muster early on a Saturday morning. Which is to say: not very much.

I arrive and find that my job has changed somewhere between leaving the Po and getting to the Cest, I am now required to be in two places at once. A feat not entirely impossible -at least not without with a small amount of time travel and general bending of the laws concerning the time space continuum that is. I rally to the task magnificently and complete my job at great cost to personal freedom and well-being.
Then to our first rotation activity - rafting on the lake. Half way out the wind picks up, we struggle onwards valiantly, make it to the island [oh by the way don't actually go onto the island because there are snakes there], make it back and nearly collapse from exhaustion. The girls team however fare less well and get stuck in the middle of the lake amid now hurricane style winds.

In a moment of infinite stupidity someone says: we should go rescue them. According to witnesses, I was that person. A hasty plan is concocted during which no one actually engages their brain - except for a brief moment when my rational side says: but wont two extra people make the boat heavier so that we wont be able to row them back anyway? It is quickly dismissed in the face of daring chivalry.
Not only that but John - 60 years old and a crazy man - jumps into the water and starts swimming out across the lake. I dump my clothes (ok, my jumper, t-shirt and shoes) and start after him so that I don't lose face. It is not long before I overtake him because he is a lot older than I am. About half way out - at the deepest point - I realise that the water is very very very cold and I am dying of hypothermia. Also it is so windy that I am having trouble swimming. The girls, who by this point have realised that the easiest thing would be to row to the other shore rather than against the wind, mount their own rescue attempt to save me from drowning.
fear not: I never let on that I am 2 inches from death and pretend to be some kind of olympic swimming champion.

Reaching the raft I drag myself onto it and turn around to find that John is in real danger of drowning - he is hardly moving across the lake and looks like some kind of strange frozen ferret drifting hopessly in the water. A herculean effort later and we save him. The two of us bravely row to the other shore (occasionally spinning round because John is actually unable to row by this point due to extreme cold and exhaustion) where John is transported to the warmest place available and given a healthy dose of sugar and tea. Since we have started being extremely stupid I see no reason to stop, so after dumping the girls on the other side of the lake Chris and I row back.

It takes approximately an hour and a half for my feet to warm back up so that I can walk properly - at which point I realised that I had walked through a stack of brambles without noticing. The rest of the day is less eventful. We go home. I warm up again sometime around sunday evening.

And in other news I left the Po for the first time in about 5 weeks last Saturday which was the best thing I have done for a long time. However the post Cest depression that set in was so bad that I was almost unable to communicate with real people on Sunday - let along fulfil my duties and play in the worship band at church.

Apparently I did do both, but no one will vouch for the quality of either.

This week I will be journalling about my own tendency towards stupidity and on how to make daytrips a safer place to be. Expect a book to be published shortly - possibly in several volumes.

2006-03-21T05:46:00.000Z

The move

And so it came to pass last Friday that I was met by a mysterious woman on the way out of class who told me that I was being evicted from my house.
"For why?' I enquired.
"Because we must give it to 3 girls instead of you males" she replied.
"I see. [as though that's a good reason? - ed.] And wherefore shall I live?"
"They call it: THE LODGE."

However since then I have decided to call it: Possum Lodge, because on my first visit I discovered a strange and unenticing smell that reminded me of the dead possum that was stashed in the skip-bin next to the hall. My olfactory senses were in perfect order and I soon discovered a dead possum on the doorstep. Hurrah.

And lo, they shall call it Possum Lodge for it was there that they found a dead possum.

I started cleaning the house on Saturday to make way for the girls (considering the state of our abode that seemed fair). A generally fun task giving me an enormous sense of well-being, until that is, my 2 other housemates returned and trampled in crap everywhere. Honestly I don't know why I bother, and all they did was whinge.

A 9 o clock meeting cut short the cleaning, and then 10 o clock for the village working bee (plus free scones). I proudly took up the job of building houses along with Tim (the guy with the stripey jumper). Apparently all the people with experience and muscles were busy so they took us. Henk later regretted his decision because it turns out that Tim's drilling is about as straight as a deranged hippie boomerang, and I have an unfortunate knack for destroying power tools with my very presence. Still. by 4 o clock we'd done some good work - I'm not sure how much exactly I helped or hindered the process but all in all I had fun at least. Pictures included.

Home for some tidy up and a snooze - we working types like to nap. Sunday came and the move went on. A deadline of 3 pm fast approached but due to incredible amounts of experience over the past year my skills were well up to the challenge - transforming a disgusing hole into a clean haven of tranquility. [Alas the same could not quite be said for Possum Lodge.] I removed myself from 20 King street and went to media training then TNT training. On my return to number 3 PL I discovered a curious thing: My door is the only one with 2 handles. This is significant for one reason: it is the only door that expands and contracts with cold and freezes the locks so that at night you can't get in or out. I'm not entirely sure if it would have been worse to be locked inside or out. So there I stood in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt at 11 o clock at night freezing my goolies off and unable to get into my house - which by the way has been likened to a toilet block in appearance.

However if ever we needed even more proof of a God it lay in the house next door. We are allowed to use the lounge and kitchen there until ours is built (I have high hopes). In said house I investigated the available bedrooms. My choices were uplifting and I spent the best nights sleep of my stay in the Po - photos under the 'stuff' category on flickr. Alas in the morning I only had my grubby clothes and temperatures approaching absolute zero for company. I ended up so cold that I couldn't grip my pen during our quiz. A sucessful fail I am sure.

The sun finally shone and my door warmed up enough to be opened, at which point we ripped out its mechanical guts to ensure that no one is ever again caught by such trickery. Then I built a fire pit from 'boulders'.

I look forwards to my continued stay in said accomodation.

"Suffering before Justice"

2006-03-17T06:09:00.000Z

A day in the life of.......cpn_justice

Despite having written a whole lot of rubbish on several subjects many people reading this blog may have no idea of what my life is like. In all probability I suspect that people may be generally bewildered by me anyway, no matter how well they know me.
And so I have decided to create this day in the life summary of me - it is unfortunate that I have chosen to do it on one of the more bizarre days of my life in the Po, but perhaps this will give you an idea as to why life here is a little intense:

Tuesday night: go to bed.

Sometime Wednesday morning: wake up from worst nightmare of life unable to distinguish reality from dreams. Spend some time lying awake too scared to move or go back to sleep. [I suspect that the quiche we had for dinner is to blame].

7 am - wake up again. Decide that after my awful night of 'sleep' I am not getting up early. Go back to bed.

8:30 am - wake up and get breakfast. Shower. Stumble round in haze but quickly leave my house (the scene of said nightmare). Wander round for a small while, turn up to class later than normal.

8:55 - arrive at class and sit in a different seat - many people express concern at my sudden change in routine. Little do they suspect.

8:56 - Penny arrives and choses to sit next to me. An unfortunate event because she was one of the people in my dream trying to bring about my total insanity and death. I try my best to be nice.

9:00 - class starts with Hebrews - no not a bunch of ancient Israelites but a study of the book in the bible. I find it hard to concentrate because of the high volume of adrenaline running through my veins and the fact that I am physically shaking because I am still actually scared from the nightmare. Emotional pressure begins to build until I feel that my head is about to explode.

9:30 - still scared, pressure high.

10:00 - time to go for morning tea. We are late and I should be doing the PA. Run up to community hall and set up sound desk. Tea happens, I pay somewhere around the zero attention mark.

10:40 ish - a stumble back through the sunlight to class once more.

10:50 - Class starts agin with Old Testament survey 3 (of 4). Fear still present.

11:40 - 5 minute post/tea break. No post, I elect to have tea to make up for it.

11:45 - class begins again with more Hebrews. My brain is turning to mush with biblical overload. Am resisting the urge to break down or kill Penny just in case she really is a witch and trying to kill me.

12:40 - Class ends, have spent a lot of time staring at the desk. Stealthily leave and avoid human contact.

1:00 - eat lunch. I can't remember what I had. Go to shop and buy milk, clean up, play some guitar and sit quietly for a small while rocking back and forwards.

1:35 - walk back to class. Get more tea. Still no post.

1:45 - Class begins on adolescence. Possibly most frustrating part of day as we cover the same ground several times over. Upshot is that by halfway through I am so annoyed that I have stopped being scared and the nightmare's grip is gone. We then spend some time making a collage (spelling?) out of old magazines (who said C4 was hard work?). My favourite magazine is 'truck and bus' and is most representative of my teenage years - at least from the choices available. I also take half a girl magazine and cut out random quotes and pictures of people I think are attractive.

3:40 - break time. More tea, some more cutting and sticking because I am having so much fun.

3:50 - one more lesson on Hebrews. Time for a little more engagement with subject, but a lot more tiredness. I have probably now invented half the message of Hebrews by only having a small proportion of my mental faculties available to me, if anyone ever asks me to write the bible down we'll be in trouble.

4:30 - class ends. Argue with Penny - possibly due slightly to my emotional turmoil. First argument with class mate, a threshold is crossed. Go home and journal on fieldwork/nightmares. Play guitar. Meet with Kelly.

5:00 - phone call from Penny to apologise/make up. Intriguing if not totally satisfying.

5:50 - community tea. Wander around village looking for correct house, am rescued by someone else from my group. Eat lots of food, including chocolate pudding (called self-saucing pudding here, a ridiculous name and one I am trying to have changed to 'magic-pudding').

7:30 - leave community tea after washing up and go for our evening tutorial: a sex education video. I'm not sure quite what they're trying to teach us but we all try to look interested - there is a 15 second segment on the brain which I enjoy but is over too quickly. At least it's presented by Winston.

9:00 - leave tutorial. Meet with Glen about TNT, recount dream and watch possums running around. After a short trip back to my house I discover that in the dark it is scary and go back to pray with Glen for half an hour.

Somehow time disappers between this and about 10:30 when I go home and do some assignment work. I drink more tea, eat several biscuits and work until about 11:45 - then I decide that today has been strange enough and go to sleep.

All in all a fairly average day. You might call the process of living in the Po being 'tenderised'. Right now it certainly feels like it - I can only hope that at the end of it I am less tough and chewy and more like magic pudding.
Now I go to return to my odd version of reality once more.

2006-03-14T08:57:00.000Z

One large hill and a small amount of pain

It has been a little while since I posted last - a great sadness to all my readers no doubt. In that time many many things have happened, too many to possibly recount - an excuse which allows me to not have to put in the hard work of thinking and remembering.

It has been pointed out to me in that time that I am unable to spell the word 'the' and more often end up typing teh. Should that occur throughout the process of this masterpiece please bare with me, every true genius has their blind spots.
However the most significant event of recent memory - a memory which is being fast turned into mush because of a strange but unavoidable process of mental degradation inherent in life in the Po - concerns a certain breakout that took place last weekend. Anyone who hasn't had to take a breathe during that last sentence is doing well. Everyone else: you should work on your lung capacity.

Over the last week we have studied several very interesting subjects....all of which escape me. Oh wait, biographical studies. Biographical studies is essentially a lesson in which we listen to radio productions from the 70's on famous people, all of which sound like gothic horror radio plays. No doubt my dad would approve - from the sounds of things they probably had moving scenery. In actual fact it was a great subject and I would highly recommend it.
The very best subject that we have done however was Hosea. Taught by the half bald man from a local town (for local people I shouldn't wonder) I would have to say that it is incredible how you can make the word of the living God quite so dull. I only barely survived by consuming a lot of sugar, distracting myself by looking out the window and inventing haiku poetry on the subject of irradiated badgers (and their detrimental effect on the world ecosystem). I am considering publishing a book under the stage name of Bernard Wiebretchtenstien and donating the proceeds to greenpeace.

After a hard week of biblical study (all of which paid off when I failed the test on Monday morning) I was ready for youth cafe. I honed my backgammon skills - still in fine working order and ready to take a certain Mr Richard B. Stamp to Chinatown and back when I return to the UK - played several random games and created a masterpiece of art on today's culture of mixed-up love. Midnight came, and 6 hours later I was awake and ready to spring into action for our 3 hour bus trip to Strahan. Thanks to an incredible amount of windy roads I felt sick on the way there. It was fun.
Our arrival at the Strahan sand dunes (the biggest dunes I've ever seen in my life) we climbed a hill whilst tied together, had lunch and got into our small groups - in reverse order. A certain amount of sun tanning, hill jumping and activities later we rocked up to Ironballs Mackensie for our final activity of the day. It came and it went.
And then one of our small group said: hey there's a huge hill here that we can jump down. I said: "well ok. But be careful." A short conversation on timing followed whilst my group threw themselves over the precipice. At least I thought they threw themselves over it.
So I looked at the dune and thought: I can run down that. When I hit the ridge in the middle I'll slow down and then when I hit that small ridge at the bottom I'll run up it, jump off it and fly through the air like a bird. (see fig 1)

There were several flaws in that plan as it turned out.
The first flaw was that the hill was slightly steeper than I anticipated. This was ok, I am fairly good at cliff running and so I took it all head on. Hurtling toward the first ridge I think: man this is steep, gonna have to keep running to keep balanced. True to form I keep running. As I near the first ridge I think: wow, that ridge is smaller than I thought and the hill below it is steeper than the first bit. Again, this was ok and I conclude: think of the cool air time I will get from jumping out at the end. Pain, after all is fleeting.
My plan of action is now modified: (fig 2)

As I near the bottom I become aware that perspective from 30 or 40 metres up is slightly misleading. The ridge at the bottom is slightly larger than I had thought and I muse: hmmmmm, does that look steeper than I first thought? Optimism prevails once more - score one for cheerful enjoyment - and I decide that in any case I'll just stuff it a bit and we'll all laugh as I fly like a concrete elephant. It will at least bring joy to my group and that's more or less my job as a leader. The plan is modified with a happy result: (fig 3)

I am now travelling very fast. Not quite the speed of sound I note as I make a quick physics calculation based on the space between group members interspersed down the hill and rate at which they pass my field of vision, but nevertheless fairly fast. It occurs to me at this point that many of my group are in fact not this far down the hill havign stopped at some point. I think: that's strange. As my attention is brought back to my death defying leap at the point at which I would normally shout: hey watch this, (but they were already looking with some strange expression that later turns out to be horror anyway). I think: damn that ridge really is big. And steep. In fact it's not as close to the ground as I thought either. I update my plan: (fig 4)

If my calculations are right I can still make it over the ridge and fall down the gap causing some pain and much hilarity. Unfortunately this is precisely the point at which my brain and body are no longer connecting in the way necessary for me to make any coordinated movements. I think: jump now! My body fails to respond. I think: at least it's a sand bank and will be soft: (fig 5)

I'm no physicist to be sure, but somewhere in my brain a part of me knows that impact has something to do with how fast your going when you hit a big object. I'm also now fairly sure that the hardness of the object you strike has some kind of multiplying effect.

At the last second my neurons fail to fire and I hurtle at a velocity in excess of a cheetah on speed into a large sand bank, perfectly parallel to my body and considerably larger than I am. I also discover that the effect of years of sand compacting turns an apparently inoffensive dune into something resembling a large amount of concrete. Ironballs Mackensie and several other spectators claimed that the sound of the impact was "like smacking a mattress with broom" and could be heard all the way across the Henty dunes. I expect that it looked something like this: (fig 6)

If ever we need proof that there is a God it probably lies in the fact that if I had made it over the ridge I would have been falling 10/15 metres to the hard almost rock forest floor - another small miscalculation on my part. I didn't, and so I didn't die. Next to that at the las second my body flailed all my limbs out to absorb as much of the impact as safely as I could - saving me from a broken neck and either total paralysis or that tricky state of affairs we like to call death.

A short climb back up the hill and I was able to evaluate my wounds - later to develop into one of the stiffest necks and backs I have ever had. I suffered only minors injuries and a face-full of sand. Pride was actually boosted because of the tremendous obstacle I had overcome - viz. near death. And from then on I received many acclamations from the people who were there. It also turned out that my group hadn't run down it because they weren't stupid - which was why they weren't at the bottom.

For all the official pictures please follow the Flickr links to the right.

Other stuff apparently happened on the breakout but my memory is a little hazy.

Until next time people - love ot you all

2006-03-01T07:01:00.000Z

Zero hour…..

The time has finally come, the hour is upon us, and a horror of biblical proportions has been unleashed over the land. I speak of Tasmania National Moustache day.

At a slightly unfair advantage by being blonde Tim and I nevertheless rose to the challenge to join the Father of Mack, Michael George Parker – the bare chested bear beater, Greg “let me sell you a used car” Alexander, and ‘Handlebars’ Townsend for a week of beard growth. Folk lore has it around these parts that at the turn of the 19th century there was a legendary law man known only as ‘The Garvinator’ who cleaned up local town of Dodge (now a ghost town after the infamous hydro-nuclear-electric explosion of ‘72). The Possum gang ruled Dodge and the surrounding farmsteads, and could be easily identified by their overly large moustaches and love of Tim-Tams – then a local delicacy made from kangaroo meat and dutch sugar. For a year they had run the town, bribing local officials and forcing man to slave labour. Enter lawman Garvinator. In a matter of months he had rounded up every member of the Possum gang save one and they had been tried and convicted of crimes against the state including the ownership of biohazardous facial hair. The single escaping member is rumored to have gone underground vowing to take revenge on Dodge at the appropriate time. In honour of the great exploits achieved the local citizens declared 1st March as National (let us hope one day international) Moustache day. Since then every year there has been great rejoicing when local simple people grow moustaches and eat Tim-Tams to commemorate Tassie’s most famous home-grown hero.

And so it was that this year we unearthed the legend and decided to take part. Ultimately Tim cheated by dying his moustache black, but since he also dyes his hair we couldn’t complain – and it was so funny that it all seemed worth it. The prize for the day (a free 24 hour supply of Tasmania air) went jointly to Handlebars Townsend and the bear beater who displayed great zeal and excellence in the matter of moustache growing.
I am definitely never growing a moustache ever as it is disgusting.

In other news my luggage has disappeared once more into the ether along with Maya who apparently has been suffering from a sort of inverse were-kangaroo affliction such that 3 days in every lunar month she turns into a kangaroo in the day. She was last seen hopping down the main street wearing my rucksack – any attempts to bring her in should be non-lethal. Enjoy the new photos people.

Ps life here is the same as normal, more lessons, fieldwork starting soon, weather hot, lots of sun, cool mornings and evenings. I am well.

2006-02-23T07:01:00.000Z

Small update

Coding begins.......new information available to Justice mainframe. Please enter security passcode and follow links for further briefing on international affairs. Message ends......

2006-02-22T06:16:00.000Z

----A warm summer's evening----

.....some time after 2200 hours........lower pacific........a little known island called ********..........covert mission status: blue. Message continues - security clearance Bravo Echo Romeo November Alpha Romeo Delta 7

Armed with my wolf hat and a mug (much have I learnt from the chronicles of riddick) I leap from rooftop to rooftop of our village avoiding detection by the evil forces of the 'normal police'. Their mission: to bring everyone into normality alignment. I shall never surrender.
As the wind whips my face, my keen eyes watch the landscape for any sign of movement. They have become tricky these past days.
My mind wanders back....
.....to earlier. A short relaxation by the pool. Again the wind blows across our tanning (by which I mean cooking) bodies after a cooling swim to calm our savaged minds.
I enjoy the warmth of our solar radiation, intensified by the lack of ozone layer and feel the irritating courseness of my newly unshaven beard. Now 5 days after our acceptance to grow beards in honour of national moustache day (1st March) I begin to suspect that the year of the dodo has brought its first downfall. I am pleased with the current state of beardedness I possess and yet an emptiness within my soul haunts me - is this all I was created for?

A very real dilemma grips me. Why am I here? There must be more than this - surely? I search amongst my triumphs and trials of the past weeks and uncover a basic disatisfaction, there is something out of alignment that tears at my soul little by little. I dive deeper into the murky water of my mind......
....and emerge. Spluttering slightly and wholly disatisfied with the taste of natural 'gorge water' after having thrown myself off a 10/15 meter rock into what turned out to be warm but greenish water. We had driven many miles from our home (home? a curious word for such a place when everything we know is left so far behind) The Po to make a daring excursion into The Cest. Our deeds are upsettingly easy to accomplish - some thermal wear later and a trip to try on dresses (other people's not mine) and we leave for the gorge.
The gorge it turns out is some kind of natural.....gorge.... located on the outskirts of The Cest. A veritable slash in some kind of volcanic rock face it is a quiet paradise tucked away amidst what is already a quite beautiful country. Expecting to have to pay a hefty fee for entrance I am pleasantly surprised to enter a huge area lined with trees, miniature waterfalls, a pool and lake, and changing area bathed in sunlight - all for the sum of precisely no earth pounds. God bless the australians, they haven't yet devised some evil money making scheme like the natural trust to suck your money away in return for an amazing day out. In a place like this you could easily believe that values and fun are still open to us without the use of social narcotics or biological enhancements.
We walk across a small rock bridge up through trees and around to follow the course of the river. Trekking along the side of the gorge we come to a bench and have arrived at our destination of: the rock. Not The Rock of course, we are not mad. To Pinny and Tem's delight we have been beaten there by the Tan-Man - a boy of approximately 16 years with gross fake tan and a died blonde (read:yellow) streak in his hair. We notice also a girl whom we encountered back in the Cest [with the dresses] -it's possible that she is a foreign agent and stalking us, but no she got here first- who I have upheld as a shining example of beauty and fashion sense. Tim is not convinced. She leaves almost immediately so perhaps she wasn't too impressed with us anyway - no doubt our pasty complexion wasn't a winner compared to the magic of the Tan-Man.

An afternoon of swimming, diving and dubious rock climbing ensues until our tired bodies force us to return to watch movies back at home - via a trip to the Mac to sample the Oz burger or whatever it's called. We leave with some distress, swapping a magical cove of natural beauty for the badly (if not cheaply) woven entertainment of Hollywood, and sink back into a world where values assault us on every side, tempting us to live a way that strips our spirit of its life. And so we drive back (plus music courtesy of Mr Rowe).....

.......the pool swims back into focus on the canvas of my mind. How do I describe The Po? It is a curious place as young people have fun in front of me without even a hint of competitiveness, exclusiveness or spitefulness. Young and old they are at home with each other, and those who are younger than even my class mates offer a hand of friendship and hospitality in genuine warmth. It is amazing to be somewhere with so many broken people coming and going, where even now I find emptiness inside me whilst being surrounded by comfort and truth, where there is such a respect and love. I find strangely that as I open myself to the possibility of brokeness, to have my mind reorganised around a village that seems so strange and bizarre and alien, that in some ways I have come home and that there is a great well to draw strength from. And so broken inside we hope that this sunlight might yet pierce what's going on and make a difference.

Things have not changed, the tear in my soul remains - disatisfaction and emptiness have not been filled. And yet a new perspective is dawning which threatens to comfort and heal, and to turn upside down everything I once knew. I will never be ready for it. Perhaps that is the best part, just to live.

.....My thoughts disturb and yet calm me. Perhaps not many will understand the things we bare. My task for the evening however is complete, a connection has been made that brought space back for just a moment and allows me to breathe this mountain air. The normality police have been evaded and their evil leader has been dispatched to the far corners of ********. For a time there is peace once more.

Transmission end.
Security coding complete.

2006-02-19T03:58:00.000Z

Time runs away with ourselves

Very profound I'm sure. Life has been somewhat busy since last I managed to scrape my 3rd millenial cave paintings onto this global communications grid.
I have done a lot of swimming - in the morning, in the clouds, at night (technically probably against the norms) - and a small amount of dubious diving (1 successful attempt, 1 half way attempt, and 1 slightly painful stomach plant - what possessed me to leap from a 3 metre board after having dived twice in my life is well beyond me).

The year of the dodo [the dispassionate and obstinate disregard for obstacles] continues in fine style. It has led me to take several more risks than I would normally. I fear that one day I too will become extinct like our finely feathered friend and probably though some act of immense stupidity. Until then I shall enjoy leaping off diving boards and somersaulting off 10 metre cliff faces (camera clip to follow) - only slightly less dangerous than the child who backflipped off, or the one who nearly missed the water and landed on the rocks after our advice that he might want to try a safer jump. Apparently young people never learn.

Last week 2 of my very good friends left The Po (henceforth all names will be obscured for legal reasons). Zoc and Branwyn have scattered to further corners of the globe to pursure other ****** endeavours back in ******* and *********. I now have less friends here and no one to go early morning swimming or later night walking on the golf course with. Tim is proving to be an ok substitute for morning swims but the pink bikini top just doesn't suit him quite as well.

Kemar has left to go to ********* which is something of a relief. There is now much more space in our room and you can get up in the morning without listening to a cheerful jamaican singing the same 1 line of a song for 40 minutes (off key I might add). Yes we miss him really, but my own desire for personal space is currently winning out over my hospitable nature. Brondan still shares with me although he has disappeared over the last day and taken his duvet with him (called a 'doona' here for some weird reason). It is possible that he has gone walkabout, or that he has been captured by the vicious and infamous possum gang that roams the darkened streets of The Po. Secretly I suspect that he may himself be a mafia boss so perhaps he is otherwise engaged in some strange mission. Still, life continues as normal so we don't worry too much.

According to sources there is a 'cafe-style' church nearby that supplies its guests with a plentiful amount of tea and cookies and so I have decided to take the moral choice to go and check it out. After a hard day of fasting and praying I felt that it was only right to go and be blessed by them - and in turn to bless them by my presence and with my outstanding singing voice. I am sure that the Lord is approving my decision.

We have started a sort of informal worship gathering of a sunday evening led - apparently- by me. The quality is dubious but as with all things slightly vineyard-esque it is a good excuse to eat chocolate (cake is still my preference) and play some music. By which I mean I hit these 6 metal spaghetti type things stretched along the body of a curiously shaped piece of wood, and we all attempt to impersonate a dying kangaroo. It is also fulfills my desire to be a tortured artist as people are forced to listen to my new songs. It's a good job that God is our father otherwise he would probably come down here and tell me to get some lessons before I do any more giving of a musical nature. Still.

I shall save my travel log concerning the gorge (2 picures are now available on flickr - see the links to the right of this page) and the report concerning national moustache day until later. Suffice to say it's harder to be charming when you look like the wild man of the north's scruffy younger brother. More crazy pics and a video will follow.

I can't think of much else I might say without going on forever. Life here is still amazing with sunshine and beautiful places, plenty of craziness and people, and a touch of work in between. I'm probably going mad to be honest but I think that's more or less expected here.
In recent trips to The Cest I have seen no more llamas, although I have found the addresses of the local breeders so I shall go inspect them soon enough.

Last night we watched Crocodile Dundee and The Man From Snowy River (no snow and no river) with our C4 class. Notably with Tim our emo (not to be confused with emu) friend and Ironball Mackensie - the Father of Mack. We just about made it through thanks to the magic of TimTams and no small amount of pirate impersonations - if you will insist on putting a one legged man searching for gold in what do you expect?
Other than that I still miss everyone and will try to write more frequently from now on - a good solid week of going partying was necessary I thought so e-mail was scarce.

Rock on Justice dudes, I love hearing from you so feel free to write - I'll even accept things from My Stamp even though they'd be almost guaranteed to be offensive. If you could all stop having children or doing other extremely significant activities til I get back that would be wonderful.

Catch you on the flip flop (by which the australians mean: thong)

ps I haven't checked this for typos and because I write in white you can't see what you've written until you post it - just in case anyone thought my university education was oing to waste

2006-02-05T05:52:00.000Z

Time for some introductions

It is now an indeterminable amount of time since I left England - days sort of seem to blur together here and I haven't managed to work out how to use a calendar yet. I can say with some degree of accuracy that today I wasn't in lectures and I was in church - of course that doesn't guarantee that I shouldn't have been in lectures and should have been in church, only that I wasn't.

Assuming that it's Sunday I have now completed my first week of official C4 lectures, been into the nearest big town (aka the real world) and had a weekend off. I have recovered marvellously from my illness thanks to the healthy Tasmanian air and lack of ozone layer, and I'm looking forwards to doing my first test tomorrow morning on the book of Haggai - true to form I haven't begun studying yet but I reckon how hard can it be? I have however completed a gruelling and rigorous set of investigations to share some facts about my southern hemisperian experiences:

1 - things in Tasmania are a lot cheaper than things in the UK - a fact somewhat lessened because I can't work whilst I'm here and so have less money, rendering the strength of the pound in the global economy somewhat irrelevant.

2 - people in Tasmania do not (despite certain vicious rumours) have more than one head or the incorrect amount of limbs. At least not the ones they allow out on the streets anyway.

3 - I attract a bizarre amount of strangeness - as yet there is no evidence to suggest why this might be.

4 - Austrlians have something they call 'chicken salt' (salt made from freeze dried chickens perhaps?)

5 - I have approximately a 50% golf swing/ball connection rate, a fairly good power to mass ratio, and absolutely no ability to aim.

6 - uploading photos to Flickr from this conection takes a little time.

And so on to other things whilst I wait:

The reason I like Tasmania (pop quiz): is it because golf here is (almost) free and no one minds if you can't play? Is it because the swimming pool is free and the weather is currently around the high 20s? Is it because Kemar has stopped getting up at a ridiculous time in the morning (in exchange for getting in at a ridiculous time in the evening)? Is it because the native animals here are cool? Is it because when I went to Launceston I found a park with monkeys in it? Is it because just before that I discovered that I had come half way around the world only to meet a dutch man called Ludo in Launceston high street leading an alpaca called Pablo by a leash? Is it because I live in some strange village with almost no contact with the rest of the world? Is it because Poatina normal tap water is in fact natural spring water?

Or is it because Poatina is a village sat halfway up the side of a mountain with amazing views - so far - great weather, lovely people, good food, great teaching and has houses that come equipped qith open fires and a plentiful supply of wood - what we like to call the bush.

Or last but not least is it because Australians (especially the women) are often suckers for a british accent and will often give you free things or be nice to you just because of the way you say things like 'scones'?
(The men by the way have an inferiority complex and so like to rip it out of you - but that's ok because I lived with Paul Lewis for a year and so my sarcastic wit has been sharpened in preparation)

Anyway, my photos are nearly uploaded now and so this blog entry must draw to a close. There is something important that I've forgotten to mention but I'm sure it will come to me in time.
Oh, and my luggage turned up in the end at Manchester airport - strange story apparently.

Alas my mind is still a blank so whatever it was can't have been that important or that funny. Check out my flikr page, there are now some photos on it. Love to y'all

2006-01-31T07:01:00.000Z

The crazy skills

Since dinner is just starting this will be a very short and quite boring blog - sorry.

As soon as I take some pictures I'll upload them to my flickr page and you can see what this mental place looks like. Currently I have no pictures but soon all of this will be mine.

If everyone can e-mail or text me your home and mobile numbers that would be great - phone is still dead - oh and my e-mail is cpn_justice@yahoo.co.uk

(and yes I'd love those letters or anything else I've left back home - although post appears to take about 6 million years to get here - thanks)

love to y'all, the hunger calls me

2006-01-28T06:00:00.000Z

Apologies

To all who tried to convince me with no success that Poatina was a strange Christian cult village where they suck out your brains and turn you into robots - it's all true.
My main piece of evidence for this is that everybody not only claps during worship but also 'dances'. And by 'dances' I mean: throw themselves around in an ungainly and uncoordinated sweat inducing frenzy.

Anyway that aside today is the first day off since foundations started, as predicted the days ran from 7 am until around 11 or 12 at night and have left me a miserable and gibbering wreck. Everyone else on C4 did adult foundations which means that they've had a lot more free time than me (ie more than none) and they look fine. Judging by my housemate's response to the way I looked earlier today I probably look something like a mutant malnurished goblin. That was just after I'd managed to climb back to the top of my bunk bed having thrown up all my stomach contents after a profitable night of zero sleep.

It is possible that a number of factors have contributed to my current less than human state. The first is the aforementioned foundatiosn course which I was thrown straight into approximately 2 minutes after arrival, the fact that I had a youth leader to train during said course, the fact that it is way too hot over here, the fact that some bugger has stolen most of the ozone layer over Tasmania so you get burnt at some ridiculous rate, the fact that I participated in 'The great Tasmanian wheelbarrow race' and then got up at 6 am the next morning to go swimming with Bron (she was so cute I just couldn't resist). And a certain amount of strange meat last night.

For those who may hold some scepticism concerning the wheelbarrow race allow me to expand: 4 people with less than the normal amount of sanity form a team; 1 of them sits in a wheelbarrow and the other 3 push said wheelbarrow along a 3 kilometre course through a mudhole, a river, over a fallen log and then up what is affectionately known as 'heartbreak ridge' - by which they mean a 1+1/2K stretch of hill in a temperature of something around 30 degrees. If you're really clever you also choose to do it with a team mate who has injured her leg and so can't manage to do much pushing.

Needless to say I decided to take part and then promptly nearly died. I am so stiff that I can hardly move.

I think a lot has happened in the last week but I can't really remember much of it. I've already learnt more than I probably would in a month of living in Oxford (including the hassles of my Jamaican roomate who was nearly killed this morning - saved only by my inability to move), and had some amazing times with the young people in my group. That said I miss everyone and everything about England and feel generally awful. Time is still a premium but hopefully will get better soon.(?)

To anyone I haven't managed to e-mail or text my apologies. If you could e-mail me with your numbers that'd be great since half my luggage is still missing and so I don't have anyone's number. I haven't even managed to phone my parents yet so you may not want to hold your breath for a call.

God has already said a lot of stuff, Matthew your stones picture seems to be pretty dead on the money, and it does certainly feel like I'm being hit with a meat tenderiser so if someone could tell Emma and Jude hopefully they will find that funny.

love to you all

2006-01-19T06:44:00.000Z

The blankness of my tiny little mind

unfortunately prevents me from thinking up a better title than that. This post however will concern my flight from the UK to the land of Tasmania - anyone who finds me a little bizarre or strange when it comes to reading these may want to stop now because I've been up for a long time since the last time I wrote and that was weird enough.

So it all began on Monday, except of course for the weekend of packing, saying good bye and a valuable trip to the Na-na's of poo. Thanks to everyone who was nice to me over that time.

So Monday morning I get up, apparently I'm having lunch with my dad, going to school to see my mum, going to winchester to see my gran and then leaving to get to the airport by 3 o clock. Checking my diary it appears that I hadn't planned for any of these things and so I rapidly repack my bags, go to the post office, buy a new watch and prepare for some craziness.

All of which was nice and completely normal.

On arrival at Gatwick I am informed by my dad that there is a chapel there (which was very thoughtful of him and I'd never have found it if I wasn't looking hard for it). So I decide to take a few moments of precious solitude. Or so I thought. I expect that it was punishment for cheating the baggage check people when they forgot to weigh one of my pieces of hand luggage and i neglected to mention it to them, but as I walk into said chapel I notice a lovely old lady sat across the room. I pick up a bible, am surprised to find several other non-christian texts in the catholic chapel (maybe there wasn't a big C?), and go to sit down. At this point I assume that said lady is praying out loud as I become aware of a sort of persistant murmuring - the sort of sound a hamster chewing through wood might make. So I look over at her and smile.
And then life goes funny.
She stares. Raises her right hand. And very agressively gives me what from my rock and roll background appears very much to be the pagan sign for warding off the devil.
I am a little surprised.
So she continues and I catch the following:
blah blah blah....contamination.......sinners.....people out there.....something something something.....you are the devil....he's the devil......(at this point I check just in case I've grown a tail and some horns, but apparently not)......that's it I'm leaving I can't stand even being in the same room as this filth, contammmmmination.....[she stands and starts to leave]....good bye satan...[exit].

As she leaves the room and she glares through the glass at me I do the only thing I can think of.
I smile and wave.

Then said lady tries to get me arrested for following her around the airport (which is almost true because I thought it could be fun).

I get searched for looking suspicious and asked if I'm carrying weaponry - I think it was because I was the only person smiling and being nice to the security people. I wander around for ages, turns out Gatwick is a bit rubbish and play naff music. We get on the plane, I'm sitting between Ben (aka the man bear, possible problem with showering, definite problem with the english language) and Nicky (aka I'm quite attractive but not really interested in acknowledging your presence so please don't even try to speak to me). To my joy the mad woman walks onto the plane screams at some poor unsuspecting man who is in her way for more than 2 seconds and then takes a seat somewhere too far away for me to drop by and say hello.

Planes flies, it's hot. It's longer than I thought was possible for a mere 7 hours. It is probably what will happen when people get consigned to hell - ie they'll be piled onto a similar flight.

By the time I reach Abu Dhabi I'm ready to go mad - partly also because it's 5 am with an outside temperature of 16 degrees. Fortunately someone has designed the terminal there with something between the ritz and a horse-racing course in mind and so I am so overwhelmed that I forget how rough I feel. The bathrooms are marble (complete with courtesy mosque, Ralph and Joy would have been having a field day with my life) and very nice. Investigating my state of mind I discover that brain functions are high, I'm unsure if it's 5am or 11:30 but stuck in a slight mental rut and unable to rid myself of 1 line repititions from a sample of some very annoying songs (mostly picked up from the awful choral renditions of famous musical songs played on panpipes at Gatwick terminal). Alas also anything I hear goes through my mind over and over so I spend 5 minutes hearing the announcement for our boarding pass. As punishment for this I decide that I will steal everythign I can from the plane including the inflight blanket and pillow - I later decided that the pillow wasn't worth it.

It is with some horror that I re-board the plane, but to my joy the girl next to me has purchased a bottle of jack daniels and consumes quite a lot of it so that she becomes instantly more likeable and friendly. We spend a significantly more pleasant 8 hours flying to Singapore during which I think I slept for an hour or two. Ben has now managed to say approximately 15 words - an impressive rate of almost one an hour.

.....and so dinner time is upon us, after which begins a week of 15 hour days doing youthwork. Suffice to say that Singapore is amazing but curiously full of 15 foot water features and more space than I've ever seen in any one place. The people are nice, crazy woman has disappeared (the poor muslims). Sydney is horrible, everyone is miserable, it's 6 am and 22 degrees, I get searched again, discover the buggers have lost half my luggage, discover that the airport transfer will cost me 5 dollars (cheapskates that they are), discover something around 2000 australians, no information people and only 1 cash machine - what are they playing at? And then like the holy grail appearing I rounded a corner and found a krispy Kreme store. A dash for the cash machine got me a breakfast doughnut, airport transfer, macdonalds (sorry Dan) and a lovely 3 hours in the Virgin blue room (executive lounge) - within which I tried my 'I'm British, love me' routine and got 2 towels to have a shower and free drinks. With 2 dollars to spare and a conversion rate that meant I'd spent less than 8 pounds I felt better.

Another hour of flying and an overly friendly Beagle (Tasmania's version of airport security) and I was home free. Sunshine and 18 degrees, 27 + 1/2 hours of flying, up since Monday morning - I felt great. Until 8:07 when suddenly my body stopped working.

Which leaves me with only the question: why does my roomate Kemar feel it necessary to get up at half past 5 in the morning and do press-ups, and why can't he do anything quietly? Should I appear on tv wanted for serial murder you'll know why.

Oh, and my first meal in Poatina:
"Do you guys need lunch?"
"Yes please"
"Do you eat meat?"
"Yes. But not fish"
"What?"
"Oh nevermind, anyway what's the likelihood that it's fish?"
"Pretty low I'd think"
"Yeah"

Lunch: Tuna pasta.

2006-01-15T23:22:00.000Z

The magic of Elton John.........

I was half touched and half disturbed to find that someone had apparently been playing 'song for Guy' in my honour his weekend - a sentiment that was tarnished by the fact that it's about his gay lover as I recall, and so not something I'm entirely comfortable with.

Anyway, the point being he said that: sorry seems to be...blah blah blah.

In my humble opinion he could have been talking cobblers. After this weekend I am fairly convinced that one at least as hard if not more so is the word goodbye. Don't worry I haven't turned into some soft southern lad; but I have discovered through the medium of no small amount of packing, a not small enough amount of singing, one 'angry dragon', something that had some kind of baracrdi in it, some probably 'best forgotten' dancing and some definitely not 'best forgotten' friends that the art of saying goodbye is a tricky one.
It boils down in my estimation to this: you have a finite amount of time to see a certain amount of friends, during which you need too unfold all they ways you love them, assure them that you'll miss each other and that you do love them, and fight the desire to make some grand but slightly odd gesture from a heart which is probably (at least slightly) broken, and yet in line with your real self.
Which basically means you can't. Part of the amazing thing about loving people and being part of their lives is that you almost get too close to see them anymore or to be able to describe what it is you're part of. All you can do is try and look at one bit at a time and put together that sort of weird but beautiful picture of them in words and actions. Tough you might think.
So anyway, as the fact that I'll miss everyone I love is beginning to dawn on me I thought it appropriate to yell into the void that I love them and hope that somewhere it sticks. You all gave me more than I can say over the time I knew you. If you're reading this that probably means you.

So in my time of reflection this evening I came up with this equation to explain the problem of goodbye:

let U = the unfolding of time, G1 = having Good friends and g2 = feelings arising when G1 is absent(¬G1), time (T) is proportional when going away to busyness (B), r=real self and E = and existential expression

and so: business contracts time's passage proportionally to the amount of good friends you have, which is in turn balanced against ¬G1 which is partly dependent on an expression of love relative to your real self. Or:

BU"G1-><-g2 ER

2006-01-09T13:27:00.000Z

Miracles the first

So there I was. A little over 1 week to go and so far I don't have a visa, don't have all the money I need (as though God ever works that way), still don't really know what's going on, and have what feels like six million things to get done in the space of about 2 minutes. It is possible that a late night session of battlefront with my house mate and a small amount of disorganisation-induced stress have made me slightly unreasonable, but I don't think anyone has noticed yet.

The next big problem as Daniel Haigh so marvelously pointed out was that if I tried to enter a country on a one way ticket without a visa of any sort it would be entirely possible that I'd get arrested. Normally I'd stubbornly carry on, but the prospect of sitting in a jail cell indefinitely doesn't fill me with any significant amount of joy. As it happened I'd just managed to apply online for a student visa - thanks dad - with a minimal amount of fuss. Alas the fact that I had been told by a faceless internet system that it was good idea to attach the 'necessary documents' when I was under the impression that I didn't need any documents really hadn't helped matters. Anyway, with 5 and a half working days to go and an estimated processing time of 5-10 days (delays expected over christmas/new year period) it would be fair to say that I was depositing a certain amount of bricks, and looking forwards to a nice stretch of fasting.

It was with no small amount of surprise then that I checked my e-mail on Saturday evening (just after aforementioned 'illegal entry into the commonwealth of Australia' conversation), to find an e-mail confirming that the lovely Australians in Perth had granted me permission to enter and bring havoc to their country. Not only that but the cunning devils had done it overnight on a weekend - proof if needed that either slave labour is still enforced in our former colony or there truly is a God. Is an 8 hour overnight processed international visa an unlikely occurrence, or just run of the mill madness? Frankly I don' t think I mind, at least I wont get arrested or have to do any fasting. (A foolish thing to say - for those in the know).

And as if that wasn't enough I've been given almost a third of what I need (nevermind the flight) over the last week by some lovely people - you know who you are and I'm amazed by your generosity.
And I won at settlers - you losers know who you are too.

2006-01-06T15:54:00.000Z

And so it begins......

So there I was, sat in a coffee shop in Headington just minding my own business and enjoying a slightly overcooked croissant (it's Ox-foord darling), when the combination of The Lord and His agent Marty Woods grab me by the huutzpa and demand my attention.
"So essentially in 30 days you want me to leave the country and go to Tasmania for 6 months? And it's going to cost in the region of £3/4000 and I have approximately absolutely no pounds?"
"Yes basically."
"Ah well, just so long as we're clear - I'm in."

The mission

Should you choose to accept it is to go to a village called Poatina, in Tasmania by January 20th and undertake what we commonly know as C4 - and by commonly and we I don't mean plastic explosives. Whilst there you'll be put through a gruelling timetable of learning youth and community work with some of Australia's finest (and on this point for once my sarcasm is suspended), do battle with some of the most poisonous animals in the world (reinstated), and come back not only a different person but also a quasi Tasmanian. I gather you'll also be taking part in community running of the village (read: manual labour), conflict resolution and community living (apologising for the near death argument/chaos you just started), and an uncertain amount of psychology, sociology, mentoring and biblical study.
Ah yes, and for those of us in the know: memory verses.

The Problem

1 - I know nothing about Australia.
2 - I know nothing about visas, travel or insurance.
3 - I have no money.
4 - I have 30 days (which by the way include christmas) to get organised - a feat I haven't yet managed in my illustrious career of 23 years.
5 - I know nothing.

The Solution

After a week of weighing up what I want, thinking through what I have to do and praying like a frantic gibbon the following conclusion is reached:

I want to go.

I have some amazing friends who will support me no matter what I choose or where I go, I know people who can help me through the next 30 days, miracles occur and I just happen to know a little bit about the person who authors them. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that God wants me to go and that other people hadn't said they agreed, and also if I didn't say that was the most important thing.

So What?

So someone offered to pay for a flight, an amazing couple offered me their love and support - and about £600 - my family gave me their blessing and support too, I got confused, scared, excited, overwhelmed, angry and weird, and then I decided to write this blog so that people can catch up with a little of what I'm doing. I expect it's also a touch of narcissism.
So if you happen to want to keep up to date with a little of my life and join me in this here craziness - take a look around.

Much love to you all