Melbourne has a population of roughly 3,500,000. in the two-and-a-half months I've been here, I have only observed one of those people (besides myself) use a computer in "my" office; and judging by the gigs I've been to, a very very small proportion of Melbournians are into death metal.

Nonetheless, a guy in a band I saw on June 5th came into "my" office today and used the computer next to mine. (And asked me about the bands I'd seen and gave me a flyer for their next gig.)

How bizarre, ching ching ching, ching ching ching! No, wait, I mustn't sing that, as it's from New Zealand, and as a temporary Melbournian, not only am I obliged to hate Sydney and support an Aussie Rules football team, but I believe I must also regard New Zealand as Evil. When I told my landlady my brother was thinking of visiting New Zealand, she essentially replied, "What does he want to go there for? There's nothing there! Tell him to come to Australia!"


Wednesday 28 July 2004

Oh dear. I seem to have got seriously into POWER METAL! I suspect POWER METAL! (capital letters and exclamation mark obligatory, as that's how it's pronounced) may considered slightly laughable and wussy in the metaaaaaal world, but I've never been overly fond: though I like the music, the typical accompanying vocal style makes me feel like I'm in a generic late 80s cartoon, where it's always December and I must summon all my Courage and Strength to fight for Justice. Which, as you can imagine, isn't a situation I much care to be in. However, since I'm going to Bloodstock, where there will be lots of POWER METAL!, I decided to attempt to overcome this neurosis. Well, it worked, but I now have new favourite bands I'm really not sure I should admit to liking, if I don't want to be impaled on my own collection of excessively spiky things by the BLAAAAAAACK METAAAAAAL mafia. Oh well. There are worse ways to go.

In other news, my landlady, who works at a theatre, got me a free ticket to see a play called "The Daylight Atheist", which was mint. Bizarrely, while I was waiting in the foyer for it to start, a woman came up to me, and asked how I was managing with my crutches, because her daughter had them too. Not only was the woman a fellow Brit, but it turned out said daughter also had a marching fracture, and was in the third week of her six-week recovery, just like me!