Happy ‘Stralia Day!

HOORAY FOR AUGIE MARCH getting number one in the Triple J Hottest 100 this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! One Crowded Hour is an amazing tune by an amazing band that I have loved since the early Sunset Studies days of 2000. Will never forget their set at the BDO that year – they were nearly first on the bill on the RRR stage! And then seeing them at Meredith – that unforgettable Meredith with Dan & Sav!!!!!!!! Brilliant stuff.

Notable mentions: Red Riders with Slide In Next To Me came in @ 96, Bloc Party with The Prayer @ 65, and Sarah Blasko with Explain @ 79 and Always On This Line @ 58 - go team!!!!!

I’m sitting at work streaming the Hottest 100 and pretending I’m in the backyard at Kew having a BBQ and drinking refreshing alcoholic beverages. Can’t believe how much I miss home today and the grand Australia Day public holiday!!!!!!!

Anyway, back to reality – here is what has been happening in London of late;

Well the slogan ‘It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over’ we have been using on the new Rocky movie campaign has honestly rung true! Sly Stallone was over here for the UK Premiere of the movie and oh my goodness – the whole country has gone mad for him!

I was looking after ticket requests for the premiere and was being bribed left, right and centre for tickets to the event which took place last Tuesday 16 January. Being the diligent employee that I am of course I didn’t take any! I did manage to get some tickets for Ant and his mate Russ and also my school buddies Matt and Dave. Matt and Dave accompanied me to the after party where they both successfully nabbed a pair of boxing gloves each! Good score lads.

Matt has now taken off out of London and is on his way to spending 3 months in South America before heading back to Australia – be safe my friend and have a ball!!!

A notable event during Rocky week was my boss being asked to fly on Stallone’s private jet from London to Liverpool for Stallone to make an appearance at the Everton v Reading match. This is exciting for two reasons 1) Ian is a huge Everton supporter and 2) a trip on Stallone’s private jet??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The trip happened as Robert Earl who part owns Planet Hollywood with Sly also is a major shareholder in Everton! Stallone walked on to the field at half time wearing an Everton scarf and the crowd went mental. Afterwards my boss was given the Everton scarf!!!!!!! That would be worth more on eBay than my annual salary I’m guessing! We are going to have it framed with some cool signed photos of the day etc.

Well more exciting news, it snowed in London on Tuesday night, the first time since I arrived!!! So strange to see a city covered in white – but let me just say, it was an improvement on the normal drab grey of London! I felt like a big kid when I opened the curtain and found my window sill chockers full of fluffy white snow, and all of the cars in the street was absolutely covered – it was like a winter wonderland. Very cool view from the top level of the double decker bus on the way to work on Wednesday too. I actually saw it falling on Thursday morning but it just melted as it hit the ground. Exciting stuff when the freezing temperatures actually result in something pretty and make it worth the frostbite!

James and I have booked our flights – we arrive in Melb on Sunday 18 March at around 8pm and depart again at midnight on 1 April so it’s actually 2 April. Hopefully Melbourne turns on the heat for us, I am the palest I have ever been in my life! I hate it but James assures me it’s good for my skin! It’s strange to be in a country where you look at the weather report and see the UV index marked as ‘low’… Can’t bloody well wait to get home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I’m hitting the big 3 0 next month and to be honest I’m not having a breakdown or anything like that like I thought I would be – I’m not particularly happy to be at the end of my 20’s but I’m pretty proud of how many gigs/ parties I managed to attend during the past decade!!!!!!! At the same time as climbing those first difficult rungs of the corporate ladder. It’s weird – I still feel like one of the ‘youngies’ in whatever workplace I’m in even though there are clearly younger people around… Perhaps it’s my immaturity??? My boss nearly fell over when I told him my age the other week – and said ‘oh, so that’s why you are so mature…’ I still don’t know if that’s a compliment or not!!

I’m getting my hair cut for the first time since February 2006 tonight… Brendan – if you read this please take this compliment, I’ve been too scared to let anyone else near it!!!!!! And how can I get my hair cut by someone I don’t go to gigs with? Doesn’t seem right really. Anyway I was walking back from the copy shop yesterday and took a short cut down D’Arblay Street W1 and stumbled across this great place called Fish Hairdressing – I did a double take just like I did when I found Tribe and Brendan, except no one was getting dreadlocks and there was no cute staffy called Ned wandering around the salon. But anyway – it looks pretty cool so come 6pm this evening we will know if I made the right decision! Chris (the hairdresser) better not make me regret it! It is too long and annoying for me to cope with anymore…

Anyhoo the weekend is nearly here – got a bit planned. After getting my hair done tonight I may trek out to Waterloo to catch Dave and some other Aussie folk at Duke of York to celebrate ye not so olde Australia Day. James will come to London tomorrow and we will probably go to Camden Market in the afternoon and forage the vast vintage section. Sunday we are going to help out at the charity premiere of Notes on a Scandal – Ewan McGregor is confirmed as attending so please check in next week for tales of me stalking him!!!!!!!!

ENJOY RAINBOW SERPENT EVERYONE THAT IS GOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Be safe and have a blast - very jealous!

Happy Birthday to Sav and Poinwah who both marked the start of another exciting year on earth this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over and out xxx

Seasons Greetings!

One of my New Years resolutions is to get to more gigs, the other is to keep in touch a little more regularly than I have been! I hope you all had a really great Christmas with your families and New Year celebration doing whatever you did. Read on if you want to hear what I got up to!

Christmas

I went to Rugby in the Midlands to spend Christmas with James and his folks. We took the speedy Virgin train from London to Rugby on Christmas Eve with bags full of presents and arrived to a lovely dinner. Afterwards James and I braved the cold and tried to hit a few of the local drinking holes - only to find giant queues at all of them! After attempting to stand in a squashed corner of one establishment we gave up and hit Threshers (bottle shop) and got some cider and headed home to drink it and watch Dig - brilliant music doc about the rivalry between The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Woke up Christmas morning and Santa had certainly been advised of my whereabouts - I was absolutely spoiled rotten by James and his folks! After a scrumptious bacon breakfast and phone calls from all my family (apart from my badly behaved brother!) we headed to James' cousin's house to spend a few hours with the relatives. They are all so nice and welcoming and we all enjoyed a few beers and ciders despite the early hour! His aunties gave me some really cool fingerless gloves that fold over to become mittens and a gorgeous photo frame and some Jacob's Creek wine!

We then headed back home and proceeded to open an absolute mountain of presents each. I was so overwhelmed. James gave me an original Fools Gold by Stone Roses on limited edition gold vinyl - it's my favourite track of all time so you can imagine how happy I was! He also found me a 'Maximo Park: A Certain Trigger' banner SIGNED by each and every one of the band members!!!! It's brilliant. There are just too many other presents to list but I was very spoiled.

We had a beautiful turkey dinner which was absolutely divine and then finished off the night watching It's a Wonderful Life together in front of the fire. The only thing that would have made the day better would have been to have all of my family and friends there!

Boxing Day

After a mammoth sleep we all piled into the car and headed off to the Cotwalds which is about an hour away from Rugby. We saw a few areas including these;

http://www.the-cotswolds.org/top/english/know/villages/bourtononthewater/index.html
http://www.the-cotswolds.org/top/english/know/villages/stowonthewold/index.html
http://www.the-cotswolds.org/top/english/know/villages/moretoninmarsh/index.html

It was magic!

After our day out sightseeing, we freshened up and went for a walk into town for a great curry and a few drinks. All in all it was a great Christmas and Boxing Day - completely spoiled and thoroughly enjoyed!!!

New Years Eve

After much pondering we finally settled on going to Herbal (cool drum and bass club in East London) for a good old Hospital Records night. The line up was pretty classy and included the likes of my favourite High Contrast, London Elektricity and Cyanitic. Great tunes and I got to home-boy style touch knuckles with London Elek - nice!

Before we headed to the club we went up the road to The Alwyne (guess who we saw Pointi??) and also dropped into The Baring for old times sake (Jason still works there can you believe it??).

My head had definitely felt better than it did on New Years Day but I pretty much just lazed around and watched episode after episode of That 70's Show, Scrubs and Extras! Bless freeview digital set top boxes.

So... looks like the festivities are all done and dusted for a little while. Got my birthday coming up soonish and we are heading to Birmingham for the weekend before to see Bloc Party!!! And then we will be back in Oz in March for a two week break. Hope to see you all then!!!!!!

Take care xxx

Update I was meant to post on 18 December!

Hello hello hello

Firstly I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and wish you all the best for 2007. I know that a 'White Christmas' is meant to be tradition but I miss the long lazy warm nights leading up to the main event and also the terrible advertising on Australian TV eg. surfing Santas wearing board shorts and black sunglasses!

Once again it's been far too long in between emails/ blog updates so I'm going to back track! I'm not sure if it's because I'm so far away from everything that is comfortable and familiar, but my highs and lows have been so extreme since leaving home. I have been through so many just in the last few weeks as well – it's exhausting!

One of the exciting things that has happened in the past few weeks was I got to attend the British Independent Film Awards!! It was held at the Hammersmith Palais and I had to go along to organise cars for the producers/ cast members who had been nominated from the indie arm of Fox aka Fox Searchlight. We sat on a table with Dominic Cooper who stars as Dakin in The History Boys which I'm sure you have all by now guessed is my favourite film of 2006! We also had Damian Jones one of the HB producers and some agents etc. sitting with us. It was such a brilliant night and I was surrounded by stars such as Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent (he played the father in Bridget Jones' Diary and the ring-leader in Moulin Rouge), Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office!), James Nesbitt who hosted the night and Mick Jones from The Clash presented an award! You can check out winners/ photos etc. here: http://www.bifa.org.uk/news_story.php?news\u003d27\

The week of the awards was the start of the rollercoaster of events that at times made me want to pack it all in and come home! Probably the thing that impacted me the most in the last while was saying goodbye to Miss Pointi. We shared so much of the joy and pain of setting up life in London together and the thought of having to continue in the tough city without her was slightly devastating! I'm so happy that she is now home where the weather is warm, the people are friendly and is surrounded by friends and family for Christmas!!!!

Pointi – I will value so much the time we had here together and am so grateful for your friendship and all of your support in this crazy city! I miss you so much!\n Can't wait to hang out again when I come home for a holiday bella xxx

It was a pretty sad week that followed Pointi's departure. I suddenly felt very lonely, was working really long hours and also trying to avoid being at home due to an awkward living situation – but that is ok again and no more needs to be said about that right now!!!! I was just exhausted and awfully home sick! Thank goodness I got over that horrible patch in a few days.

For around the past month I have been working very hard and for many hours on ticket requests and guest list for the World premiere and after party of the new fantasy film, Eragon, which was held last Monday 11 December. It was a huge event in Leicester Square and we had many members of the cast attend including Ed Speleers, John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons, Robert Carlyle and Sienna Guillory. It really was an amazing event and the after party was something else – held at The Royal Courts of Justice on The Strand which is a huge Gothic building that was opened in the 1800s. Spectacular architecture. My staff pass allowed access into the VIP Area so James and I guzzled outstanding champagne and wandered past the likes of Mr Malkovich and Mr Carlyle! Had a sore head the next day but made it through another mammoth work day anyway!

On Thursday of the same week we had our Fox Christmas party. Seeing as I had already endured one weekday hangover I thought I'd do the right thing and book myself a car home for 10.30pm. This was good in theory. Turns out Fox thought it only fair to give us an open bar seeing as we had all worked so hard! The bar stocked my beloved Magners and I ended up supping quite a few of those along with vodka & lemonade… I ended up having to catch the night bus home and was finally tucked up just after 2am and somehow once again got through work the next day… It wasn't easy! People in the London really know how to celebrate...

Had some lovely news from my boss this week – he has offered to sponsor me if I want to stay in the UK. I'm not really ready to think that far in to the future right now so I thanked him very much and said I would let him know. Honestly, nothing happens by halves here!

I am absolutely hanging for Ant to arrive on 30 December! Losing Carms and Pointi to the sunny side of the world has really impacted on me and faces from home are worth squillions over here. Ant – I will meet you at Kings Cross when you arrive and deliver you safely to your new abode!!!!! It's quite close to where I live which is great. Hope there is a suitable leaving do in the pipe line! And I would like to see some photos of it too!!!!

Carms and Claire phoned me on Saturday night (soooo good to hear their voices!) and I was able to tell them then that the weather hadn't been as horrible as I had imagined but the very next day I think winter well and truly started! James and I spent the afternoon/ evening in Greenwich yesterday with my friends Matt and Dave. It was beautiful but freezing!!!

I'm even colder now that I have looked at the BBC 5 day forecast;

Mon: Max 7 Min 3
Tues: Max 5 Min 1
Wed: Max 5 Min
Thur : Max 6 Min 2
Fri : Max 6 Min 2

Brrrrrrrrrr!!!!

It's hard to believe there are very serious bushfires happening in Victoria while I'm freezing over here. I really hope the weather turns the right way and the fires calm down it sounds terrifying. Hope everyone's friends and families are all ok.

I would love to hear what you are all up to for Christmas and New Year so if you have time drop me a line and hope you all have a lovely Christmas with your families and if anyone sees my little Keiser don't forget to wish her a happy birthday too. She is turning 9 this year!

I will be spending Christmas Eve through to Boxing Day in Rugby which is in the Midlands with James and his family – it will be lovely. New Years is still very much undecided but James and I may get all dolled up and have dinner somewhere very swish and then we might head to a house party which is doubling up as Matt's farewell. I'm sick of saying goodbye to people!

Miss you all very much.

Take care and lots of love,

Ren xxx