Yesterday, I went into town again. This time, I remembered to take my camera, and was sure I put it in my bag . . . but no, I still managed to leave it on my dressing table.

On arrival, I headed towards the Crown Casino, where they were allegedly showing "Thunderstruck". On the way, I happened upon a shop called Metal Mayhem, which turned out to contain an utterly amazing quantity of extreme CDs and merchandise. I was v. good and just bought one album, but I fear it's going to become a regular haunt.

The Crown Casino was weird. It was incredibly clean and elegant, but so dark the lights of the shop hurt my eyes, and had an atmosphere more Asian than that of Singapore airport. When I finally found the cinema, it turned out that either melbourne.citysearch.com was lying and "Thunderstruck" wasn't on after all, or they were keeping very quiet about it. I watched the ornamental fountains and light show for a bit, then escaped back into daylight.

I wandered along the south bank of the Yarra for a while, where I encountered a man riding a ten-foot-high unicycle, while juggling knives and kicking a Nemo fish into a fishbowl on his head. I went shopping streetswards, where I noticed a book shop I hadn't seen before and had a browse, checked out "The Haunted Bookshop" (complete with black cat), then headed for another cinema to see "The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind". Twas odd. I liked it.

Int evening, I went to a metal night. It should be pointed out here that when the Melbournians say "nightlife" they mean "allnightlife". When I saw the bands last Friday, at t'end of t'night, a bloke spoke to me and he said it was a shame the event had finished so early and did I know anywhere good to go next? This was at 1.15. I told him he should think himself lucky, for an event of this nature would have ended at 11 in England. As for the nightclubs, the standard thing appears to be for them to go on til 7am.

The night was good. I was rather wary at first, since they played "Head Like A Hole" and "Linchpin" and "Jesus Built My Hotrod" and other classic tunery in the first hour. The same thing happened when I went to Star in Leeds, and if that was anything to go by, things would quickly take a turn for the emo or hiphop or plain bad. But they didn't. I went upstairs for about an hour where a classic metal band were playing (who were mint!), but over the course of the five hours I was downstairs, the music stayed much the same: the industrialler end of nu metal, with a smattering of grunge and thrash. Beercart music. Not what I listen to at home for the most part (that would be The Smiths, New Model Army, death metal and mid-90s indie-dance), but music that's fun to dance to and brings back many a happy memory.

This took me til 5am. Since the trams don't start running til 8 on a Sunday morning, and I couldn't be bothered to fork out for a taxi, I moved on to a goth club (and how rock 'n' roll did I feel!), which allegedly stayed open "late". It was free to get in, which I didn't expect, and indeed it was open til "late". I left at 8, and they still weren't showing any sign of stopping the music. It felt more like a pub with goth music than a club night, since there was only a tiny dancefloor, but the atmosphere was friendly and the people were pretty and the music was quite good. Although they played "Sickness", for unfathomable reasons, and the same terrible remix of "Closer" as the metal night did.

Oh, and it was historic occasion. I have been to Slimelight many times and there, I have never once managed to stay fully awake all night. Here, I didn't drop until 7.30, which when Slimelight closes. w00t!

As for today, yeah right. After Slimelight, I can usually only get a couple of hours sleep, but this time I slept until 6, and spent the whole evening feeling incredibly drowsy. But twas worth it.