All's Well in London-town!

It is important to remember that this was my very first trip to London without being insanely hungover, and it was brillant!

We arrived in early afternoon and promptly went to meet up with one of my dear friends Z. We met in Paris and haven't seen each other since a super crazy highly memorable pamplona experience in 2005. I'm sure none of you will be surprised to hear we didn't miss a beat! She has a charming town house in Notting Hill with a very pleasant (illegal) rooftop terrace where the three of us passed a fantastic afternoon drinking screwdrivers. One of my favorite things about English summer, is that is stays light until about 10pm so afternoon generally lasts until 7.

About that time, we hopped a bus to Mike's mate's place, in Chiswick. To be fair chiswick is a bit out of town....but it is right on the water and the train station is very close....so it worked out quite well. J and H made us feel right at home and even welcomed us with a BBQ....Z came along too since she was off to birmingham the next evening and we wanted lots of catch up time! Dinner, drinks and convo were all spectacular and fun was had by all.

The next day we went back to Z's where I made yummy brunch accompained by my signature bloody mary. We had a nice slow morning and we were off! After saying goodbyes-Mike and I commenced to wandering! We had very firm plans with a strict itinary, however as often happens we got caught up in the wander and much was missed! We did in our ramblings end up at Churchills war rooms, which were very cool as they have remained virtually untouched since the end of the war.

London was a lovely mish-mash of sightseeing and catching up, as Mike spent a number of years there. His oldest friend, is a fabulous artist, and you should check him out his stuff is awesome AND he took us to a fantastic viet resto in brick lane...which is traditionally where you'd get curry...but apparently living there you get sick of it quite quickly which is understandable! He also had a fantastic rood terrace, this one legal, where we all enjoyed drinks and sunsets =)

One of my favorite London experiences was absolutely the Tate Modern...I've been a bit intrigued by modern art for awhile ( it grew from disinterest) but the Tate was fantastic! It's in an old factory so the space is spectacular, but the exhibits were really stunning....there are some pictures, look for them on picasa soon. But the highlights were defintiely the VW sculpture art and the Andy Warhols. The Warhol room begin as a total mind fuck-there is color and light everywhere-classic warhol screenprinting as wallpaper with warhol screen printing portraits behind....but once you warm up to it-it is really stunning.

Our last night in London we watched the US play Ghana and a classic english pub-I had fish and chips for dinner and then we went to a late night comedy show. The comedians were hillarious, even when they were taking the piss outta things I didn't understand, I suppose that was mostly because they hada funny accents! Late night comedy is not entirely conducive to an early start which is exactly what we had the next day boarding the euro-star to paris!

xxx

music and censorship

What a great friday!! I went to the Xavier Rudd concert with some girlfriends and it was AMAZING!! I don't think I've ever had the privilege to see someone in such a small venue before, about 700 people! Not to mention that we were thisclose to him. No zoom on that one! I was absolutely amazing. And the great thing about small venues, as far as I'm concerned, is the artists get really into it as well. They can feel the energy and excitement from the crowd and they just feed on it. He played for 2.5 hours! I couldn't ever believe it. It's also pretty powerful that he's essentially playing in his hometown after being on tour for months and months. All and all it was probably the best $50 I ever spent!

The opener was pretty stellar as well. She's called Dallas Frasca and she's also from Victoria. She's got just the most amazing voice....you should definitely check it out! She was so powerful and had such a great vibe, I'm not sure they could have made a better pick in terms of artist energy opening for xavier.

You can't really ask for more in a concert :-)

On a very different note, it turns out the Australian government is trying to apply a filter to all Australian ISPs etc in order to moniter and control what website people in the country go to...it is of course all in the name of saving the children. But I'm sure that is the responsibilty of the parents. I don't have any children, I don't see why I should be monitored because people can't be trusted to look after their offspring. Not to mention that this filter would slow down all internet traffic by about 20-30% NO THANK YOU!

So, we went to a protest today on the steps of Parliment house to try and keep the internet censor-free...you know me, I love a good protest! It turned out to be among the most poorl organized protests I've ever been to and we decided to do something about it! So, along with about a dozen others we grabbed a beer and started brainstorming. We have committed to organizing another protest at the end of November, which gives us 4 weeks to organize...should be good. So, you are reading one of the first posts on the Melbourne Anti-Censorship Protests! If you're in melbs, please mark you calanders and make it out! This affects everyone and if we don't take a stand against censorship now where will it end?
Power to the People!