In "Orb"it


I moved out of the "Friendly Backpacker", in central Melbourne, and caught the tram down to St. Kilda, the hipper bit of the city. It's by the beach, and has the feel of a Camden-by-sea, with less crappy indie kids around. That's because thay all seem to wear black. In the pub last night with Rob, and we were seemingly the only two in there not wearing all black or having black hair. Bizarre. Anyway, on the tram down I got talking to some old bloke who tried to convince me that Maggie Thatcher has some strange crippling disease because of her Viking blood, and that France was on the verge of a revolution as a result of a balance of payments problem. Ok old geezer! Though in his defence, he did tell me which tram stop to get off at.

I moved into a backpacker's called "The Coffee Palace" and they've got cable tv! This is a vast improvement over the last place at which 3 channels were viewable, of which 2 were abysmal quality. Not that I've been glued to it, not that I've been watching stuff such as a documentary about a canoeing expedition down the Andes river in Nepal (this morning). But I had to do something relaxing after going out until 4am last night. As I said, Rob and I were sitting in the "all-black" pub, the Candy Box, and then went to a wicked pub/club called Revolver. There was a strange tribal/beats/bongo/Brazilian band playing, which were excellent, and a DJ called Spacey in the other room who was playing lots of ambient techno, and lots of stuff from Warp Records. It also turns out that Alex Patterson, of top techno outfit The Orb is playing at Revolver next Wednesday night. One big reason for me to stay in Melbourne. Another one is that the night before, the Victorian finals of the Internationl Turntable Federation DJ championships is being held in Melbourne, which will be a wicked night of hip-hop beats. And also next Tuesday the hostel I'm in is doing a tour to Pinnock Close (aka Ramsey Sreet), so I'm going to make the pilgramage to the holy site and watch Neighbours being filmed. I may even get the chance to chat Helen up!


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