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December 2009

darling harbour sydney

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old boat

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newer boat and secret submarine (shhhh, don’t tell anyone)

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xmas tree in the thirty degree heat.

the office xmas party

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we had our office xmas party yesterday.  the theme was wild west. 

my desk-neighbourhood went as characters from Outrageous Fortune, which is a top NZ TV show.  i was munter (if you can’t tell from the picture)

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the party wasn’t actually in the office.  but here’s the scene before the departure.  just like a normal friday afternoon.

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the party itself was very good actually with people dressed in all sorts of comedy costumes doing comedy things in a nice friendly kiwi manner

finally meeting andy

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i finally got to meet Andy in Auckland.  He’s a friend of good friends in the UK and has been fantastic at ‘praying us in’ to New Zealand over the last year. Including one moment when i was in the NZ embassy in the UK where an admin error threatened to derail our visa process.  Andy was at that moment on Twitter and a few arrow prayers later, everything was sorted ! 

anyway, it was great to meet him in person and find he lived up to my expectations as a thoroughly nice/jolly/welcoming chap !

xmas auckland style

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here’s a man adjusting the polystyrene bits in the snow globe.  it’s the second time i’ve seen polystyrene bits in the last week – last sunday night i lay on a bean bag looking up at the underside of an umbrella at sydney observatory.  we had to lay on bean bags on the floor looking up at the rather basic start display projected on to the underside of the umbrella

when we got up to leave there were polystyrene bits all over the floor due to a leaky bean bag.  but it looks like little stars had escaped from the planetarium

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oh, and here’s the 20 foot santa where i met a friend for morning tea yesterday.  you can see a much better photo of santa and a bit of history at this excellent website here

the best seat in the (opera) house

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i’ve been in australia for the last few days, but i’m back home in auckland, new zealand again now which is good.  Australia was hot – mid/high 30s and >75% humidity.  NZ is mid 20s i think, so a welcome relief.

anyway, expect an explosion of Sydney picks over the next few weeks !

that very scarey mannequin

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this is a close up of that mannequin in the local mall (maul) which i’ve photed before.  she’s definitely not right

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my lovely wife jane

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i’ve been publishing our family pictures elsewhere so funkypancake is now less autobiographical.  but anyway, here’s a picture of jane with an egg benedict (i think).  a popular local dish (the food, not jane)

jarvis cocker

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i finally got to see jarvis cocker in concert on monday night.  i missed him by a day in both wellington and auckland due to being in the other place on the other night.

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so when i discovered he was playing in Sydney 2 minutes walk from my hotel i was excited.  but gutted when it was sold out

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but luckily i got a return ticket from the box office and enjoyed a marvellous evening.  and was transported back to the time when i was a vague aquaintance of the great man in sheffield.  in fact i once gave him a demo tape, which he lost, but apologised and said he had been looking forward to hearing my song ‘the death of bernie winters’

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both of us from sheffield to sydney.  slightly different routes.  but there you go

AirNZ running on linux

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here’s the in flight entertainment system on the plane.  the person’s in front of me crashed (a plane crash no less) and the attendant reached under the seat to reboot it.  and up popped a friendly penguin and a linux restart procedure.

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classic street seats

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great to see chairs in the street in new zealand (outside the police station in case you were wondering)