**************************************************************************** ### # # ### ##### ## # # # ## ## # # ### ##### ## ### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #### ### # # # # # # # # # ## # #### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ### # ## # # # ## ## ## ### # # # # # ### ____________________________________________________________________________ # # ### #### # # #### # # ### #### ##### # # ##### #### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #### ### ### ##### # # #### ##### # # ##### ### # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # ### ### # # # # #### # # ### # # # ##### ##### #### *******NUMBERS 411 TO 415*****************************BY DANIEL BOWEN******* *****Please note, some of the quoted addresses within this file may no***** ***longer be correct. Please email info@toxiccustard.com for information.*** "Departing Toxic Custard" ******* ***** * * ***** http://www.toxiccustard.com * * * * * * Number 411, 30/8/98 TOXIC*CUSTARD*WORKSHOP*FILES* **** Written by Daniel Bowen -----*-------*****----*******--*------------------------------------- Sun 30/8/98 - Departure day looms... I must admit that now, with about 36 hours until I stagger with my backpack through the big glass doors of International Departures at Tullamarine for my big trip overseas, the excitement of travel is starting to mix with the trepidation of missing (and being missed by) my family while I'm gone for the month. The idea of going off backpacking around Europe as part of a catch-up on the things I didn't quite get around to in my early twenties seemed like such a good idea a few months ago. I still think it'll be fun, and who knows, it may turn out to be an advance scouting mission for a later holiday or even long term go-over-and-live-for-a-while operation involving everyone later. I'll just have to shoot plenty of video so they get to see what happens. I have to admit that the packing, as such, hasn't actually begun yet. Oh sure, I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm taking, and most of the supplies, such as power adaptors and so on, are ready. Most of what I didn't already have, I got for my birthday (which was last Thursday). John spent some time this afternoon pulling, prodding, stretching, testing and adjusting some of the seemingly endless number of straps on the backpack I've borrowed, so it now approximately fits me - rather than my sister, who used it last. So now I can carry my body weight in luggage in it, and I won't break my back doing it. I might stagger around a fair bit, but I won't break my back. So in the next few hours, I'll start loading it up, ready to go off and see the world. Oh yeah, and today's news of a Federal election on October 3rd is great for me. This means I get to exercise my voice in deciding the leadership of my country. But since I'll be away for September, I won't have to sit through any of the political crap! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - While I'm away during September, there will be no Toxic Custard transmissions by e-mail. It's hard enough getting the bloody thing out from home, let alone from on the road. But thanks to the 90's phenomenon of cyber cafes, I'll be posting some regular updates onto the Web, at http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1998/europe/ So stay tuned. Once I'm back home, pictures and more will follow. If for any reason you'd like to send me mail while I'm away (it seems unlikely to me, but there's enough twisted people amongst you that it might happen), send it to dbowen@mailexcite.com - one of them free Web-based e-mail accounts - which I'll check about once a week-ish. So, I hear you ask, what will you do every Monday when you'd normally be reading your Toxic Custard? Well, here are just a few of the lesser-known sights on the Toxic Custard web site for you to waste your time at: * Read all about my last big trip, to the USA in 1996. See me immersing myself in the local culture by wearing a big hat and waving a shotgun around. Read about the horror of Coke cans that are 20mls smaller. http://www.toxiccustard.com/usa/ * Thought history was boring? Well okay, sometimes it is. But not this version. It covers every milestone in the history of the human race. Well, maybe not *every* milestone, but certainly most of them. Discover for yourself how Attila became leader of the Huns by winning a breakfast cereal competition. http://www.toxiccustard.com/history/ * Since almost every election campaign is identical, why stay up to date reading the newspapers during the current one, when you can re-live this parody of the last one? It's the Toxic Custard Political Circus... featuring the Great Debate, how to deal with people handing out How To Vote cards, and which political leader has the least realistic hair? http://www.toxiccustard.com/features/circus/ * Most of you have read it, but now you can read it again from the start! Yes, the whole earth-shattering, gravity-defying, spectacle that is The Year 2031. http://www.toxiccustard.com/features/2031/ * Experience life with Ron and Jeff, two slobs whose idea of initiative is to get money for beer by offering people rescue from eternal damnation and a really good vacuum-cleaner. http://www.toxiccustard.com/ronandjeff/ * "Beware the ides of March"? Just what is an ide, anyway? Shakespeare as you've never seen it before. Unless you *have* seen it before, of course. http://www.toxiccustard.com/shakespeare/ * My all-time favourite Toxic Custard, and a must for anybody who's into sci-fi, especially the long-running TV show "Doctor Who". See the Doctor do battle with the Unrealistatrons of Mothball 6, and their deadly Pathetibomb. http://www.toxiccustard.com/drwho/ And there's plenty of other stuff on the Toxic Custard site to keep you busy all month. http://www.toxiccustard.com/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Comments? Abuse? Queries? Reply now! To get off this mailing list, do NOT reply: send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject "remove". If you have friends who would like to join the list, get them to mail request@toxiccustard.com with the subject "subscribe" (Note if you send requests after Monday the response may take longer than the usual 24 hours or so to come back. Please be patient.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1998 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed free of charge provided no modifications are made and all credits remain intact. Support the creation and distribution of free humour by preserving author credits. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail during September: dbowen@mailexcite.com ------------------------------ Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Break while on holiday in Europe, September 1998] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Toxic Custard. (Yep, I'm back.) Note if you're not expecting this mail: Congratulations. You have managed to get onto this premium quality subscription-only mailing list, because someone (maybe you) added your name. For how to get off the list, see the note near the bottom. ***** ***** * * ***** Number 412, 28/9/98 * * * * * **** Written by Daniel Bowen *OXIC *****USTARD *****ORKSHOP *ILES http://www.toxiccustard.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm baaaack! Actually I'm back a bit early. Just in time to put up with the dying gasps of the last few days of the election on Saturday (my local member really expects me to vote him back in with THAT beard and no moustache?!?), and no hot water or gas cooking because of a statewide gas shutdown. Okay Sydney, I'll stop joking about your water now. No more jokes about Auckland's electricity either. As far as the election goes, I've heard so much for and against tax reform and the GST that I'm just about at the point where I don't really care any more. But what I do remember which most people seem to have forgotten is the government's position on greenhouse gases. Check out http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1997/10.html#27/10/97 if you need to refresh your mind. And as for the gas, there's a silver lining. Melbourne was subject to a minor (3.8) earthquake this morning. At least there was no possibility of fires due to ruptured gas pipes. The fact that Australia absolutely blitzed the opposition in the Commonwealth Games makes up for the doom and gloom at home. This was something the British press managed to mostly gloss over while I was away. You could watch an hour of Games coverage on BBC1, and they'd manage to show every single Briton with even the remotest chance of winning bronze, but not once show you a medal count. Over the next few weeks I'll be writing up my travel diary properly, and grabbing pictures to go with it... here's the first installment. DIARY - 1/9/98 - Just going to London The check-in chick asked me "Just going to London today, Mr Bowen?" Ahem. JUST London? Isn't that far enough to be going? It's halfway around the world for heaven's sake. Perhaps being booked to go on to Portugal via Greenland and Luxembourg might have made her job more exciting. Leaving my family at the doors to International Departures really underscored to me what a bloody stupid idea this trip was. It seemed sensible enough a few months ago: go travelling, have a break, avoid feeling tied down, avoid dragging small kids across the world in confined spaces... But when it came to saying goodbye for a month, how much I was going to miss them all became blatantly apparent. Although I booked with Qantas, thanks to the oddity that is code sharing, I actually ended up on a British Airways flight. There's only one thing I don't understand about code sharing, and that is: Why do they do it? Why bother? The moment you lay eyes on a BA plane, you know it's not really run by Qantas, so why even pretend by giving it a Qantas flight number? It just seems to complicate things by having two separate flight numbers for the one physical plane. The BA crew seemed pretty jovial, but they would be; each crew got off the plane each time we landed. Apparently none of them were really up to the prospect of 25 hours flying time from Melbourne to London. Probably just as well. If they fell asleep on the job it would make a terrible mess, one way or the other. I spoke to a friendly Liverpudlian on his way from Sydney to Bangkok. We commiserated each other on the state of the Australian dollar - he'd been working in Australia for months, so it was all he had left. What a time to go on holiday in Europe. Or anywhere, for that matter. Gleefully opening my duty-free bag on the plane, I discovered that the camera I bought the day before appeared to be missing its manual. I eventually worked out what most of the buttons did, but I made a note to chase them down when I got home. We stopped in Bangkok for just long enough for me to lose my new jumper - which I'd never actually worn and had brought along in readiness for the freezing cold of the Scottish highlands and the not quite freezing cold of a 747 cabin at night. I thought I'd left it in the Transit Lounge, but when I realised I didn't have it and went back, I couldn't find it. All the officials were very helpful, but couldn't actually give it back since it hadn't been handed in. After extended periods of walking around looking for it and quizzing Lost Property, eventually I gave up on it. And then about ten minutes after take-off, I remembered where I actually left it - on a railing upstairs from the Transit Lounge. D'oh! And since I wouldn't be flying back via Bangkok, there was no chance to pick it up on the way home. I can only hope that it eventually found its way to somebody who can use it. We were told that the flight path would take us over India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Eastern Europe and Germany. The prospect of flying over Iran made me feel a little nervous to tell you the truth, but as the lights of exotic and unknown villages, towns and cities passed below us the nervousness gave way to curiousity about life for the locals down there. I had got a window seat. The good bit about being in a window seat is that you can watch as you pass through the world. The bad bit about being in a window seat is that you have to disrupt two other people if you want to go to the toilet. This does wonders for exercising the bladder, since you really don't want to disrupt your neighbours unless you really have to. But who could be distracted by matters such as toilets and lost jumpers when the prospect of a few weeks' exploration in a new land beckoned? More of this diary will go online soon... you can see the whole collection and the pictures - (well okay, just one for this entry) at http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1998/europe/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Comments? Abuse? Queries? Reply now! To get off this mailing list, do NOT reply: send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject "remove". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1998 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed free of charge provided no modifications are made and all credits remain intact. Support the creation and distribution of free humour by preserving author credits. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Mind the gap! It's Toxic Custard" ====== ||== || || ||=== http://www.toxiccustard.com || || || || || ||== Number 413, 5/10/98 ||oxic||==ustard||=||=||orkshop||iles Written by Daniel Bowen Well, that's another election over and done with. Thank goodness that unbearably whiney Hanson has been denied a seat in parliament. Maybe now she'll shut up - though I wouldn't count on it. TRAVEL DIARY - 2/9/98 - Arrival The plane touched down at some ungodly hour of the morning (I'm not sure exactly when; my brain doesn't quite grasp the concept of time before 5am). There had been a terrific view of London from the plane - but only for the people over the other side. And trying to get a glimpse out of a tiny aeroplane window from nine seats away has never really been my forte. We disembarked from the plane, that usual slow shuffle you do when there's several hundred people in the aisle in front of you, each struggling with slightly more hand luggage than they can comfortably manoeuvre in a confined space. The inky blackness of the early morning and the gleaming lights of the airport was all that I could see as I walked up the ramp to the terminal building. Having gained my British Right Of Abode by virtue of my mum being English , I got to whiz through the British passport holder's queue at Immigration, though I almost got sent back to the slow lane when the bloke saw I had an Australian passport. I opened it for him at the appropriate page and said "I've got a..." and he looked at it and said "Oh, one of those" and waved me through. Around a corner and down some stairs to the luggage claim. Why is it that at every airport in the world, they let a few dozen people completely clog up the view of the conveyor belt with empty trolleys? Couldn't people get the trolleys after they've pulled their luggage off the belt? It's not like they're ever going to be short of trolleys. My borrowed backpack eventually came, and I skipped off through the green channel to freedom: the arrivals lounge. Found the ATM and got some of the local currency, phoned home to let them know I'd reached terra firma in one piece, and found somewhere to brush my teeth, lest I inflict my truly hideous morning breath on any of the locals and get arrested for chemical warfare offences. Then I headed for the tube station. I could have got the faster, more scenic, more expensive Heathrow Express, but the prospect of seeing some of suburban London without it being a blur appealed. And besides, as old friends who remember my teenage obsessions with things English know, I'd wanted for ages to ride the tube. When I was growing up, most kids wanted to go to Disneyland. I wanted to go to London. They wanted to ride rollercoasters, I wanted to ride the Piccadilly Line. A train covered in United Airlines advertising arrived, and I boarded. I'll talk more about the tube later, probably in mind-numbing detail, but for this particular trip the most notable and amusing point worth mentioning was the driver's tendency to announce that "This train is for Cockfosters". See, it's the little things that you notice. I got off the train at Green Park (change here for the Jubilee and Victoria lines; and while you're at it, mind the gap) and made my way up the exit stairs and out into the open air. By this time it was about 8 o'clock, and when you step out onto Piccadilly in the middle of peak hour having just arrived in London for the first time, it really really really hits you. Wow! LONDON! Shit! I stood on the pavement, aghast at the reality of the red phone and post boxes, double yellow lines, double-decker buses and black cabs whizzing past, while less surprised people dodged around me. Suddenly it was real. I had arrived in England. It was like television in 3-D, honestly. In a bit of a daze, I walked through Green Park, probably enjoying its simple pleasures infinitely more that the commuters scurrying through it. On the other side of the park I found Buckingham Palace, and once again the reaction was Shit! It's Buckingham Palace! And not just on the telly! Complete with two bobbies on the gate wearing those funny hats like on The Bill. A tiny Panda police car went by, and I peered through the fence at the whatsername (Grenadier?) guards, whose stilted poses could very well be a symbol for that cliche of English stiff-upper-lippedness. Continuing on down Buckingham Palace Road, and silently praising my brilliant sister for lending me her Inner London A to Z, I kept a lookout for the Internet Cafe which I had been told was down there. I must have walked right past it that day without spotting it, but I did find it later on the trip. What I did find that morning was a post office to buy some stamps and postcards, as well as Victoria Station, which is where I needed to catch the train to my grandparents' place near Bognor Regis. It was around 9am, and Victoria Station was utter chaos. Buses, cars and taxis were flying everywhere outside, and inside people were swarming off their trains, heading for work. After wrestling with the ticket machine (sure, it'll take your £10, but only on its terms), and confirming with a dwarfen lady railways employee in a funny hat which of the many carriages on platform 15 would get me to Bognor, I boarded said train and we proceeded at a frantic pace south. We zipped over the Thames and through London's suburbs, into the countryside. I thought the countryside looked disappointingly similar to southern Victoria (the state I mean), until I spotted a castle outside Arundel. Hmmm. Not quite so many castles in Victoria. More of this diary online soon... you can see the whole collection and the pictures at http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1998/europe/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Comments? Abuse? Queries? Reply now! So you joined this mailing list, but now you've changed your mind? Do NOT reply: send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject "remove". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1998 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed free of charge provided no modifications are made and all credits remain intact. Support the creation and distribution of free humour by preserving author credits. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Give way to Toxic Custard" ==+-- ==- | | ==-- http://www.toxiccustard.com | | | | | |=- Number 414, 12/10/98 |OXIC |=--USTARD |=|-|ORKSHOP |ILES Written by Daniel Bowen TRAVEL DIARY - 2/9/98 - Arrival (continued) The train seemed to have an oversupply of Connex employees on board, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if they outnumbered the passengers. We passed through stations with such delightful names as Three Bridges, Pulborough and Christ's Hospital. The train got to Bognor Regis just before midday, and I wandered around the station and found a phone to ring my grandparents to be picked up. They soon arrived in their little Fiat, and we set off. My sister said before I left "England is like being in Legoland. Little roads, little cars." Never truer words were spoken. Just on that trip back to my grandparents place, I discovered that a main road in an English town is about the size of an Australian side street. This is, I suppose, because most of the towns have grown and developed over the centuries, and they'd prefer not to knock down large sections of them just for the sake of building roads. Fair enough. It also helps explain why most of the cars are so small. That and the fact that petrol is almost three times as expensive as in Australia. English roads also have a plethora of roundabouts. They have heaps of yellow lines indicating where you can't park, and the narrow streets also mean that many towns have complex networks of one way streets. All these things together make we wonder how on earth tourists manage driving in England: I know I'd probably have a coronary from the stress of it all. Not that riding in the back of my Grandad's car is necessarily stress free. He's not a bad driver, my Grandad. His use of indicators is better, it would appear, than most English drivers, who seem to have a dislike of them. In Australia even the most senile elderly Volvo driver uses indicators all the time. Well, okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. In England they only seem to use them if they really have to, and if they do, it's at the last minute, so anybody relying on the signal to give them any kind of advance warning about what the other vehicle is going to do is, essentially, out of luck. My Grandad is not a perfect driver, however. He's wasn't quite down to the standard where I got the feeling that he and Gran might have a deathwish of any kind (and bad luck to any young relatives in the back seat), but it did get a little hairy at times. On that first trip to their home near Bognor, we went through a roundabout, and as we did so I noticed another car coming from the right which we should've given way to, and it would've hit us if the driver hadn't slowed down. It must be an English thing, but he didn't honk his horn, and he didn't look like he was going to get an attack of road rage. He just looked confused. And just as this death-defying manoeuvre through the roundabout was being completed, Grandad said, and I kid you not: "I suppose you have the give way to the right rule in Australia, too." After driving along for a little while, with all sorts of sights being pointed out along the way (most of which I promptly forgot the names of) we made it back to their place intact. It's a huge house, two storey, masses of bedrooms, big garden, right by the sea. Grandad gave me the grand tour, including, just as my sister predicted, more detail than was strictly necessary about how to flush the toilet. We sat down to eat shortly afterwards, a filling meal of roast chicken, potato, cabbage and peas, with the first of many fat-free Tesco's yoghurts thrown in as dessert, not to mention the first of several million cups of tea. I probably drank more tea in the next few days than I have in my entire life previous to that, though to be fair, I rarely do drink tea. (And I never drink coffee.) The rest of the day was spent exploring the house and surrounds, writing postcards, eating dinner (which consisted of white bread and butter, fish fingers and brown sauce. Mmmmmmm...), drinking more tea, a little chatting and TV, and finally sinking into a relatively early but well earned slumber. More of this diary online soon... you can see the whole collection (at least, what's been written so far) and the pictures at http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1998/europe/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DIARY - Sun 11/10/98 - Reunion For those who share my age of 28, this year is the tenth anniversary of leaving high school, which means it's reunion time. Mine was last Wednesday night; a chance to get a look around the school to see how it's changed, and to catch up with a few people that I haven't seen since that fateful last day of Year 12. Some people are fatter, some greyer, some with less hair. Some looked identical to how they looked in 1988. Most certainly seemed to be wiser. A few still at university (some with no prospects of escaping - and loving it). Lots of professional computer geeks like me. A cop, a photographer, a physiotherapist... a bit of everything, really. Of the 300-ish of us who left in 1988, about 100 turned up, which is not a bad number. And as I gazed around the room during dinner, I came to the conclusion that people at peer group reunions fall into four categories: * The people you knew who you've kept in touch with * The people you knew who you haven't heard of in ten years, and so are subsequently surprised to see how much fatter/balder/thinner/greyer/the same they are * The people you recognise because they were well known in the group, but whom you didn't actually know * The people you recognise - but don't know why * The people you don't recognise at all because it was such a big group After dinner, a few drinks, a few anecdotes (one day I'll have to discover the full truth behind The Box Hill Incident), and yes, some fairly rowdy singing of the school song and various other ditties, I was left wondering where my co-conspirators in our last day prank were - and whether or not anybody else remembered it. It involved water pistols, bean bag beans, and an unprovoked and fairly messy attack on some otherwise innocent teachers during a junior assembly. Perhaps it's a subject to be raised at the next reunion. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Don't forget you can leave your mark on the Toxic Custard web site... View and join the Official List Of Timewasters at http://www.toxiccustard.com/guestbook/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Comments? Abuse? Queries? Reply now! So you joined this mailing list, but now you've changed your mind? Do NOT reply: send mail to request@toxiccustard.com with the subject "remove". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Copyright (c) 1998 Daniel Bowen. Excerpts may be distributed free of charge provided no modifications are made and all credits remain intact. Support the creation and distribution of free humour by preserving author credits. -- Daniel Bowen, Custard Communications Pty Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ---------- E-mail: dbowen@custard.net.au ------- TCWF information: info@toxiccustard.com Waste your time here---> http://www.toxiccustard.com <---Waste your time here ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Travellin' Toxic Custard" ====== ==== || || === Number 415, 19/1/98 || || || || || ||= Written by Daniel Bowen ||oxic ====ustard ====== orkshop ||iles www.toxiccustard.com DIARY - 3/9/98 - Nosing around Chichester I don't really know what time my Grandparents usually wake up, but I'm guessing it's pretty early, because when I awoke sometime between 8 and 9, they gave the impression they'd been up for a while. I had my first shower and shave in a couple of days, and discovered that I don't think I like English showers any more than I like American ones. As I was to discover in the coming weeks, the Brits aren't great ones for streaming hot showers. The water pressure is simply not up to the standard of your average Australian shower. But no matter, when it's been two days, you take any shower you can get. After breakfast, which consisted of Grandad and Gran's particular mix of breakfast cereals, sultanas and low fat milk, we headed out to look around. We stopped in a little country lane for a look around the place where my mother grew up, and some of the massive greenhouses that they've built recently in the area. I was left wondering what they do in a really bad hail storm. Then we went on to Chichester. Australia was settled by Europeans about two hundred years ago, and in the big cities where most Australians live, there are not too many traces of life from before that time. If we see a building from the 1850s that's still standing, we're impressed. "Wow", we think "that's old". So it's a bit of a shock to the system when you go to somewhere like Chichester, which has a cathedral 1000 years old, and sections of Roman wall that date back to 50AD. I took a deep breath, put my hand on the wall to feel it, and marvelled at the workmanship. Because let's face it, anything man-made that has lasted almost two thousand years has got to be pretty well made. I dare say your average picket fence around a front garden won't still be around in two thousand years. The funny thing is, this was no museum. It was just a street in Chichester - actually a very boring street with a factory on one side and a carpark on the other (well, over the wall, that is). No plaque, nothing really to distinguish it. Just a two thousand year old wall sitting there, being wall-like. We walked along to the cathedral, stopping to admire the big Cross in the town centre, where the main streets meet. (I forget the exact name of it; it might have been the Market Cross.) This is probably where they came up with the word crossroad, and I suspect how the roundabout was invented. When something as big as that is slap bang in the middle of the road, you've got no choice but to go around it. And the Cathedral itself was pretty impressive, too. With all sorts of gravestones and memorials and trinkets and things reminding you that it had been there for about a millennium. It was so old that when they built the bell tower, they apparently hadn't thought of putting it on the top of the church - instead it was a separate building. We looked around the shops, which when first glance at them and look at the names, look interesting and foreign, but turn out to be camera shops and chemists and supermarkets and greengrocers, just like at home. The Chichester McDonald's is in the 1700s Corn Exchange building, but as we walked past I peered in, and was not astonished to see that inside it looked just like every other McDonald's the world over. Leaving Chichester by a highly confusing network of one way streets, we made a short stop at the family burial plot, in a churchyard somewhere between Chichester and Bognor Regis. There several Bowens (and de Bowens; my Grandad decided to change the family name) have been laid to rest. We then went on to Bognor to visit some very much alive relatives: my Uncle Kevin, his wife Liz, and their baby son Luke. Uncle Kevin has truly obtained legendary status in his role as an Uncle. "UK in the UK", as my sister and I knew him when growing up, always sent the most humorous and interesting letters, the best presents, and the funniest cards. This is the kind of guy who even though you've never met him face to face, you just know you're going to like. And I did. Luke and Liz were delightful too, and we scoffed down tea and biscuits and generally had a merry old time. Having made a date to go out on an excursion later in the week, I headed back with my grandparents for lunch at their home, followed by a stroll along the beachside path. I reached as far as a town called Felpham, along the way consuming an icecream (which seemed cheap until I realised that with the pathetic Australian exchange rate, 70p is more than $2), and spotting rabbits hiding underneath some of the beach huts. I took my time getting back, and that evening we settled down to the TV to the news of the Swissair crash off Canada, which made me glad I had already arrived, and wasn't sitting at home about to fly out, watching the story and dreading the journey. The British TV news is a bit odd, I reckon. In Australia, a half hour bulletin might cover ten or fifteen stories, both major and minor. Some will get several minutes, some will get just a few seconds. But in the space of the fifteen or so minutes dedicated to news (the rest might be sport and commercials), you get a fairly good idea of what's going on in the world. But not in Britain. Their TV news's all seem to go in-depth on just a handful of stories - maybe only three or four. They'll have live crosses, computer simulations, background information, expert analysis, public reaction... it left me feeling utterly bored of just about every major event that was happening, and wondering what else was happening in the world. I got more information about Bill Clinton's illicit bonking in the three weeks I was in Britain than in months of watching news at home. And there was even more about Clinton while he was in Ireland, including one news broadcast where they kept crossing to some little town in Ireland because he was about to get out of his helicopter and go for a stroll around. In fact apart from Clinton, Swissair, Ireland and some Fujitsu factory closing, I honestly can't remember seeing any other stories covered in the dozen or more news bulletins I saw over there. Anyhow, we wrapped up the evening with multiple cups of tea and Cool Runnings on ITV. More of this diary online soon... you can see the whole collection (at least, what's been written so far) and the pictures at http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1998/europe/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DIARY EXCERPT - Sun 18/10/98 - Bay in a day We set off bright and early, something we achieved by vowing not to open the Saturday Age before leaving. Once the paper is open, there's so much of it that reading all the sections and supplements can swallow the bulk of the day. See the rest of this entry at... http://www.toxiccustard.com/diary/1998/10.html#18/10/98 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Comments? Abuse? Queries? Reply now! 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