Tea and Sydney

Today I went to Sydney to meet with all five of the reinsurance companies we deal with. I needed to introduce myself as the new reinsurance manager, and generally schmooze. Sorry . . . "network".

And also drink an extraordinary amount of tea.

I caught a 6am flight from Tullamarine, and my first cup of tea was served on the flight.

A tailwind for the flight and light traffic into the city meant arriving at 7.50 for meeting no.1, which wasn't until 8.30. So I had a second cup of tea while waiting.

After meeting no.1 I had an hour to kill, so I called Ty. A third cup of tea (and a nice catch up) and I headed off to meeting no.2. This was held in a cafe, hence a fourth cup of tea.

Meeting no.3 was actually the obligatory free lunch, which included a very nice riesling and was followed by a fifth cup of tea.

That was pretty much the limit. I'd had enough of tea by this time. It was water for meeting no.4 and juice for meeting no.5 before heading back to the airport for the 5 o'clock flight home.

That's quite enough tea. Time for that nice lie down.

The Wedding of (the second half of) the Year

Yesterday was Sarah and Greg's wedding day.

It all began at about 10.30am when Kate and I went around to Sarah & Greg's for a soothing beverage to kick things off.

Suitably chilled, Sarah and Kate went off to do whatever it is that chicks do on their wedding day (I'm not sure I need, or want, to know) and Greg and I did what guys do. We went to the pub for lunch.

We were soon joined by our erstwhile MC Shannon, father of the bride Russell, father of the groom Ross, Greg's brother Micka and brother-in-law Michael.

We discussed the arrangements and activities for the day, which turned out to be a reasonably short conversation. It was pretty clear that all we had to do was show up sober and on time. Not too hard.

The ceremony was to be in Moonee Ponds, at the house of Honey family friend Therese, and a stone's throw from where Kate and I used to live in Dean St. Official starting time was 5.30, but people were arriving from 4.30. Well, no-one wants to be late, do they?

The ceremony was beautiful and charming and etcetera and not too long. Our Reverend Budge really does do an awesome service.

Following more drinks and food, Shannon gathered the crowd around for the speeches.

Greg's dad Ross welcomed Sarah to the Loney family (there was some speculation on the name-changing issue . . . not sure what the final decision is there) and then Jill and Russell got up to speak.

Those who attended our wedding earlier in the year will remember that the speeches went for longer than the ceremony. It was again the case here. But as before, they were oh so entertaining.

Russell reminded us (again) of the erotic power of the living room floor in Mavis' Forest St house, where Sarah was conceived. Once the laughter had died down, Jill spoke beautifully about Sarah and Greg's love and friendship.

The party kicked on until about 1. The newlyweds had misplaced their house keys, so ended up getting some of Greg's colleagues to bring his spare set from the station. They were then taken home in a cop car with the lights flashing.

A perfect end to a perfect day.

The great thing about this wedding was the love that was there for all to see. During the ceremony, Budge spoke of what an honour it was to preside over the marriage of two friends, after having the opportunity to see their love grow. In her speech, Jill spoke about Sarah and Greg's ability to balance both deep love and a wonderful friendship.

For me, it's great to attend a wedding where both the people involved are dear friends; these are people I love both individually and as a couple.

Four weeks from today, Kate and Shannon and I will be leaving for a European holiday with Sarah and Greg. When you're planning to spend weeks in the company of these people, and genuinely looking forward to it, that really means something.

I'm fond of saying that a wedding was successful if they ended up married and no-one was injured. Well, this wedding was successful. And then some.

And now here's some photos:

Early morning preparations


The Bride: Before


Making it all up as we go along


Posing in the Ponds


Callie and Reverend Budge


Shannon doing an awesome job as MC


The Father of the Groom


The Parents of the Bride


Em and Justin and Vesa


Opening the pressies


I sadly wasn't able to get any pictures of the ceremony, being somewhat involved at the time. It was a very well-recorded event, however, so I'll source them from somewhere and post them soon.

P.S. Happy Birthday Greg!

Pending Wedding

This week has been a little hectic, hence the lack of updates. Apologies to my avid readers. Both of you.

Starting the new job, without really finishing the old job (or at least, not having anyone to hand it over to) has meant a couple of late nights at work.

My lovely wife has also had a nutso week, with a bunch of buyers in house making demands and a bunch of design orders coming through all at once.

And it's also been the week leading up to Sarah and Greg's wedding. Which is tonight.

Speeches have been written, playlists have been organised, food and drink has been ordered. It should be a blast as long as I can stay awake for the duration.

Tomorrow I'm reserving the right to turn into a small puddle on the floor.

It's all about the lunches

Following my last entry, I have suffered the accusation that I'm talking too much about where I sit, and not enough about what I do.

Well then. Let me set the record straight.

As previously mentioned, I am now the reinsurance manager. I manage a small team responsible for the administration of the company's reinsurance contracts.

Now, the main purpose of reinsurance is to generate lunches for its participants.

Make no mistake. These reinsurance contracts cover millions of dollars worth of transactions annually. They are very complex, very detailed, and very difficult to administer correctly. It is therefore critical that an insurance company maintains a good working relationship with its reinsurers.

Hence, the lunches.

For example, we met with one of our reinsurers for lunch at midday today, and I got back to the office, lightly toasted, at 3.30pm. This is normal and expected. In fact, my manager saw me returning and wondered why I was back so soon.

We didn't even talk a great deal about, you know, business stuff. The conversation was mainly focused on the menu (which was extensive) and the history of the Crystal Palace soccer club.

I've decided I really like this job.

Later this month I'll be travelling up to Sydney to meet with all five of the reinsurance companies we deal with, in one day.

God help me.

Week one almost done

I've been doing my new job for four days now.

So far it's been much the same as my previous job, mainly because my previous role is yet to be filled and I foolishly agreed to "finish a few things off". In fact, the first two days were identical to my previous job, because I didn't even move desks until Wednesday.

But it's been fun. So far.

My new desk is up on the 11th floor. Which means I'm back working amongst the guys and gals I cruelly abandoned for the mysterious realms of the Project Office last December. Happily, they bear me no ill will. In fact, it was a little like coming home.

The company's policy is that it's all open plan seating, so there's no spanky corner office for me. I do, however, have a window seat facing south to the Yarra and Crown Casino, and such spots are the prime real estate. Sadly, most of my river view is blocked by the building on the other side of Flinders Lane, so I can only see a sliver of brownish water on one side, and part of the Crown forecourt on the other.

I can also see out to the ocean if I squint a bit.

It definitely beats a window seat on the north side, where all you see is the grey tops of buildings across Collins St and you get fried by the sun every afternoon.

Conveniently, I can see the Crown gas flares from my new vantage point . . . hourly from 6pm. They're my cue that I've stayed too late and it's time to go home.

My new team is good. They seem very competent. They're certainly very quiet and very industrious. I have yet to find out precisely what it is they do, but I suppose I'll work it out eventually.

Rewind: The Night Before

With all the excitement of seeing The Cure, I've neglected to talk about last Saturday night.

Saturday afternoon was spent over in Lara with Robb, continuing work on a video clip we're making for Tahoe (which, incidentally, is currently sitting at No. 7 on the Triple J Unearthed Roots chart).

It was quite the intensive afternoon, so I was a bit weary by the time I got home and prepared to go out.

It was Adam's 30th birthday, and Anna threw a surprise party for him at the Lincoln Hotel in Carlton. It's a great little pub, and the open fire and spicy food was welcome on a chilly winter night.

We met some very cool people from Adam's lab, and some of his friends all the way over from Sweden. Not sure if they only came for the party. Probably not, but if they did . . . awesome.

It may have been the four pints consumed in the space of two hours, or it may have been the strange Swedish chewing-tobacco that was being handed around, but at some point I started feeling a little unwell.

I suspect it was the tobacco . . . those crazy Swedes. And I wasn't the only victim of this strange Scandinavian concoction.

Admittedly, it may have been the combination. The upshot was that we ended up leaving a little earlier than expected.

Still, it was a great night. Happy birthday Adam, and welcome to the 30 club.

Greg, you're next.

The Cure

Kylie and I went along to Rod Laver last night to see The Cure. I will admit to some bias, being a very long-term fan, but they were frickin' awesome. Stripped back to a four-piece after brief flirtations with five- and six-member lineups, they rocked.

The last time I saw them was way back in 1992, again at Rod Laver (then, of course, the Flinders Park Tennis Centre . . .  ah, nostalgia). I had an oddish moment last night when their opening number was the same one they played way back then. (Side note: the song in question is the appropriately titled Open. Natch.)
 
In their three-hour set (featuring three encores) they did at least one track from each of their albums, with the exceptions of 2000's Bloodflowers and oddly, 1980's Seventeen Seconds. Their signature tune from that album, A Forest, is a common show closer and notable for its absence.

Having recently dropped their keyboardist Roger, the songs tended to be drawn from the relatively-obscure-but-hey-awesome-guitar-riff bucket, like Push from 1985's The Head on the Door and If Only Tonight We Could Sleep from 1987's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

For the keyboard-heavy songs that couldn't be avoided, like Inbetween Days and Lullaby, the keyboard riffs were played on guitar. It mostly worked, but results varied. I found it a little irritating because their guitarist Porl has played keys for them before, so they could have arranged some of the songs differently.

Still, that's a small price to pay. The lack of keyboard meant the set generally concentrated on their earlier material, back when they were a guitar-bass-drums three-piece. In fact, the last encore was entirely devoted to their very earliest songs: 10:15 Saturday Night, Jumping Someone Else's Train, and finished with the venerable Killing an Arab. Talk about retrospective.

The crowd consisted mostly of thirtysomethings who probably would have had makeup and teased hair back in the day, but not so much now. Shame. Still, black was de rigeur and I did see one "Goonies" t-shirt. Which was nice.

Lock up your calculators

Our company actuarial dinner was held last night at the Westin hotel in the city. The purpose of this annual event is to celebrate those who have completed their actuarial exams in the past year, and to welcome actuaries new to the company.

These poor unfortunate souls are "celebrated" by being required to provide the entertainment for the evening. In the past, this has included recreations of films such as Star Wars and The Da Vinci Code, some occasionally inspired but generally lame comedy, and more than a little cross-dressing.

Last night the entertainment took the form of game shows, namely The Rich List, Spicks and Specks and The Amazing Race. All rendered with a unique actuarial (read: nerdy) bent.

Eg for The Rich List, we had to list the digits of π. One person could actually recite 17, and no, it wasn't me. For Spicks and Specks there was a rousing game of "Actuary or Serial Killer" and for The Amazing Race . . . um, well I'd kind of stopped paying attention by then. It was some kind of charades thing, I think.

Anyway, after a couple of hours it was about as raucous as a room full of actuaries tends to get. Which is, you know, not particularly.

Having said that, I'm told the dregs were kicked out of the downstairs bar at around 2am. And on a school night too. Tsk tsk.

Slack Weekend

I managed to do precisely nothing this past weekend. And it was great.

If not for watching a bunch of episodes of Family Guy, completing a few missions on Grand Theft Auto and having breakfast on Sunday with a bunch of attractive young women, the weekend might have been a complete waste.

It's just as well, though. There's quite the big week coming up.

As it's my last week before commencing my shiny new job, there's all the usual handover shenanigans to get through.

Then there's our annual Actuarial dinner tomorrow night (always a blast), on Saturday night we have an engagement party, and on Sunday it's The Cure live at Rod Laver Arena.

That's enough to make anyone crave a cup of tea, a chocolate digestive and nice lie down.

Tom Black Unearthed

Our tunes are now available on Triple J Unearthed.

Here you can listen to us, download us, and tell the world how much you love us.

Go on. It'll be fun.

Shiny New Job

I've got a new job.

After being in my current role for all of 8 months, I’m dipping out to do something else.

I'll be the reinsurance manager.
Not just a reinsurance manager.
The Reinsurance Manager.

What will I do you ask?
Well.
I’ll manage the reinsurance, you see.
If there's any reinsurance that needs managing, I'm your guy.

And what is reinsurance?
It's insurance for insurance companies.
It's on-selling the risk.
It's sharing the load.
It's spreading the pain.

And believe it or not, it's actually much less interesting than it sounds. That is, until you start really delving into the mathematical and statistical detail.

At which point it elevates from mind-numbingly boring to only slightly tedious.

But they’re paying me, so . . . meh.

Cloverfield

Nerds the whole net over are in a lather at the moment over the latest viral marketing campaign.

It all started with this trailer which was shown before Transformers in US cinemas.

The movie's title isn't revealed, just the release date of 18 January 2008 and the fact that it's produced by J.J. Abrams (of Lost fame). IMDB.com lists the fake working title as "Cloverfield".

There's an official website at www.1-18-08.com, which has a pile of snapshots, gradually growing, that you can move around. As I write this, there are four pictures sitting there.

It's all prompted a ridiculous amount of commentary. One early theory was that it's a new Godzilla movie, until someone pointed out that Sony owns the rights to the big G, not Paramount. Another theory is that it's based on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. There's also some interesting (if convoluted) theories here.

At some point the mania was linked to www.ethanhaaswasright.com, a nifty little site with some cool flash puzzles to solve. But J.J. has officially denied any relationship between his trailer and this website. According to the erstwhile Harry Knowles, the Ethan Haas thing is promoting the role-playing game Alpha Omega by Mindstorm Labs. It's just a case of When Viral Marketing Campaigns Collide.

Back to the trailer. One of the guys at the party is wearing a "Slusho" t-shirt, and the other official website relating to Cloverfield is www.slusho.jp. This site has some odd Japanese flash animation promoting the drink Slusho, a bizarre history of the company, and the engaging tag "You can't drink just six!".

If you send a feedback email to Slusho telling them you're happy (they ask, you see) you'll get a response saying "Slusho! loves your mails!! You Can't Drink Just Six!!!". Cute. Presumably there'll be more emails coming.

Word is that the title of the film will be revealed at the San Diego Comic Con this coming weekend.

It's all very intriguing. Stay tuned.

Tintin in the Adults Section

Borders bookstores have made the decision to move the book Tintin in the Congo out of the kids section and into the adults section of their stores.

For those who haven't read it, this is the earliest Tintin to be published in the familiar book form, after first appearing as a serial in Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle. First published in 1931, it tells the story of intrepid reporter Tintin's visit to the Belgian Congo on a hunting trip.

It's easily the most violent and racist of the Tintin books, featuring scenes of animal slaughter and some genuinely shocking colonialism. Africans are portrayed as naive children, desperately in need of the guiding hand of enlightened Europeans to achieve something resembling civilisation. While this is a genuine reflection of European attitudes at the time, it's definitely not for kids.

The thing is, I think similar charges could be made about all the Tintin books, or at least the vast majority of them.

The portrayal of Africans in Tintin in the Congo is a racist and offensive caricature, but portrayals of Chinese people in The Blue Lotus and Native Americans in Tintin in America are not much better. And these are just the most obvious ones. The Tintin books regularly deal with Arabs, Jews and Eastern Europeans in less-than-flattering terms. The only ones that get off scot-free are Western Europeans.

Hergé even has a go at white America, showing it to be full of gangsters and money-obsessed buffoons. But really, that's just funny.

The more I think about it the more I wonder, was this stuff ever really just for kids? It's cut from the same cloth as the Hardy Boys and the Famous Five, with gun running and drug smuggling two of the most common plotlines. But Tintin is much more upfront about the subject matter. People are regularly shot and killed with the guns being run, and the drugs being smuggled aren't just nameless "packages" being moved in the dead of night . . . the drugs are used as poison, or to knock people out. And even to get high. The book Cigars of the Pharaoh, about a narcotics smuggling ring, makes no bones about what this stuff is for, with some really wacky psychedelic imagery. And this was way back in 1934.

So move them all to the adults section, I say. The kids of today's iGeneration surely aren't interested in this stuff. Let's face it, the only people still buying it are boomers and Gen X-ers on a nostalgia trip.

Not that that's a bad thing.

Ying Tong

Last Friday night Budge and I went to see a play called Ying Tong. And as it's been a slack weekend, I haven't gotten around to writing about it until now.

The play is based on the history of The Goon Show. For the benefit of those living under rocks in caves with their fingers in their ears, The Goon Show was the 1950s BBC radio comedy that introduced the world to Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers and the one and only Spike Milligan.

The story of Ying Tong (the title being a reference to the Goon song "Ying-tong-iddle-i-po") is centred around Spike, who is credited for writing the bulk of the Goon Show episodes. The story takes place variously in a recording session for an episode of the show, in the psychiatric hospital where Milligan was having one of his many nervous breakdowns, and in a surreal Goon-like world in which Milligan is visited by characters from the show, as well as their later incarnations, such as Sellers' Dr Strangelove.

It's a very strange play in a lot of ways, with nonlinear storytelling reminiscent of the Goon Show's famous lack of structure and stream-of-consciousness rambling. This was presumably deliberate. Much of the play is done in flashback, with the implication that we are seeing scenes of Milligan's drug-induced hallucinations while hospitalised. The visions range from simple recollections of conversations with Sellers and Secombe, to psychedelic visions of leprechauns and morris dancers. Yes really.

It's all done in a very post-modern way, though, with Milligan pointing out when another flashback is coming on, and Secombe and Sellers making constant reference to their imaginary status.

The play is mainly concerned with Milligan's breakdown towards the end of the show's run, and the impact it has on his marriage, his friends and his work. But through all this, we actually learn very little about the man himself. There's a lot of history bundled into a reasonably short piece, but it's all the stuff of public record, such as Milligan's war service, his injury and (first) breakdown, meeting with Secombe and Sellers and the pressures of writing the show. As a big fan of the Goons, I got a kick out seeing these things recreated, but I didn't learn anything new.

What surprised me was the quality of the performances. A couple of times I got so immersed in it that I imagined I was watching the real Milligan, Secombe and Sellers. For Jonathan Biggins, playing Sellers, this was particularly extraordinary. Biggins managed to pull out flawless renditions of many of Sellers' famous characters including Bluebottle, Crun, Grytpype-Thynne, Major Bloodnok, Dr Strangelove and Inspector Clouseau. The other actors also handled their complex, and occasionally frenetic, roles very well.

In summary, it's a must for fans of The Goon Show and (probably) very enjoyable for those unfamiliar with it.

Now, if you happen to be one of these unfortunates who are unfamiliar with it, then take my advice, and sit down and listen to a couple of episodes. Preferably three of four.

The first one will seem very strange, somewhat incomprehensible, and you won't find it funny at all. Sometime during the second episode you'll begin to get into the rhythm of the show, and it might raise a giggle or two. The third will have have you in stitches and by the end of the fourth you'll be ready to strap on your chocolate euphonium, don your extra-strength knees and join the Goon parade.