The unabridged bizarreness that was my last night in Sydney

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo, I rocked up to the Winery at about 10pm, and then hung around and then one of the managers bought me a glass of wine (2006 Joseph Cattin Pinot Blanc - thank you Amy) and we had a few beverages and then we went to Kinselas which is a slightly skanky pub around the corner from work which the Winery crew has a tendency to frequent, particularly on a Monday or (as this was) Tuesday evening.

When we rock up, I bump into this guy at the bar that I knew(ish).  Quick back story: about two weeks prior I had been working in a relatively quiet section of the restaurant when four guys rocked up and the Maitre D' told me to look after them because they were, apparently, the Silverchair boys.  I don't really know who Silverchair are.  So I got chatting to them and the only guy who was actually from Silverchair was a guy called Daniel Johns, who is apparently their lead singer but was actually there with a producer and two guys from a another band, who are currently recording their album.  During the course of the three hours they were dining at the restaurant, with me being sufficiently charming (read: facetious) and having a good laugh with them, we built up quite a good rapport, which is just as well since after work that night I went to Low 302 (awesome cocktail bar also on Crown Street and a favourite haunt of the Winery crew on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights) and, lo and behold, there they all were.

The conversation and banter continued and I pretty much thought no more of it until one of them, Sam, rocked up to the Winery again for lunch the following week and was in my section.  So it was all good and by this point we sort of had spoken enough and met enough times to know each other by sight.  Well, would you believe, Sam was at Kinselas on Tuesday night.  This was all well and good and I was at the bar and literally turned to my left and there he was also at the bar and I said hi and I bought my drink and he bought his and we were chatting so I happily sat down with him for what I thought would be a five minute chat.  Five minutes turned to ten minutes and then I mentioned that actually the whole of the Winery crew were there sort of as a goodbye to me and I wanted to join them.  So he followed me.  It was a bit odd, especially since I was with someone who was apparently famous but who actually isn't famous at all.  Oh, I should mention here that when we were at the bar he was properly giving it the name drop crap with things like talking about having played at Reading and Leeds festivals last year or 2008 or something and how the lead singer was hanging around with Lily Allen the whole time and name dropping left, right and centre.

So after about thirty minutes of his hanging around and my getting increasingly frustrated, I buggered off outside, hoping that he would go back and join the group that he'd arrived at the bar with.  Which he did.  Then I came back in to join the Winery guys and he appeared again.  By this point, it's getting odd and I'm wondering how to get rid of him but because of my overwhelming politeness and inability to say no and my slight fear of telling him where to get off, he continued to hang around and I continued not to say anything about his hanging around like a bad smell (which is funny and a relevant point later on).

About another 20 minutes later, I went back outside and he came out and asked me what I wanted to drink.  I didn't really know what to say, said I was fine for now.  When I went back inside he was sitting at a table directly opposite the door with a couple of friends, pointed to a drink that he'd apparently bought for me, and beckoned me over.  I didn't really know what to do, manners got the better of me, I went over and grabbed my drink, he introduced me to his friend, we talked for a short while.  Luckily (or so I thought at the time) Amy at this point left so I ran outside to join her and we chatted for a good ten minutes, interrupted twice by this Sam guy who by now is, admittedly, creeping me out ever so slightly.  I had a conversation with Amy (before the first interruption) about how I didn't really know how to get away from him and she said she had the impression that I was just fine.  After the first time he randomly came out to sort of fetch me back inside she, I think, slightly understood my position.  The second time induce raised eyebrows from her and, I would go so far to say, a marginal look of fear.  She totally got me.

Time progressed, lots of people left, not including, unfortunately, this Sam bloke, who persisted in staying.  I kept pointing out that I should be with the Winery guys saying goodbye because I had less than 24 hours left in Sydney and I wanted to say goodbye to my colleagues and he was quite drunk and should probably go home.  It was at this point he started saying that I should go home with him.  To this, I was really quite surprised.  I had not given him ANY suggestion that I was even slightly interested, given him every indication that I wanted him to bugger off without saying the actual words.  Actually as I type this it occurs to me that I was really quite stupid given the circumstances, ie that he was coked off his face and anybody who has ever gotten high knows that coke gives one a feeling of invincibility and also does away with any even slight ability to understand when somebody is politely hinting something.

Anyway, he kept persisting with making me go home with him, with my increasing assertions that this was not, in any way, going to happen.  Then he really started to piss me off with throwing all this batshit, 'I'll get my assistant to come and pack for you;' 'I've got millions of Qantas frequent flyer points and I'll pay for you to fly business class to Melbourne;'  'Come with me to New Zealand, we're going there this week to promote our album, I'll fly you out;'  'I'll get you access all areas passes to T in the Park next year;'  blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  I had run out of ways of telling him no way, no how and to do one so I just walked off and joined my friends.  After about five minutes, he came over, hugged me goodbye and left.  THANK GOD.  By the way, when he hugged me goodbye (eugh!) he wreaked of body odour beyond anything I've ever before come across.  It was disgusting, I can't even begin to describe it.  Then at like 7am he started calling me, trying to get me to go to his place, me saying no, him hanging up then calling me back and repeating the question.  This happened three times before I got him to stop.  Then, at about midday he left me a voicemail saying something along the lines of, 'Hi Elizabeth [long pause] ... it's your friend Sam... [long pause].... hope you're ok.... [long pause].... hope you have a good trip to Melbourne.... [long pause]... See you around... [long pause]...' and hanging up.

All in all, very, very strange.  And wrong.  But mainly creepy.

I had hoped it was some sort of practical joke on New Zealand

On the trip back to Auckland, we had the radio on and I heard something that I did so hope was a joke but then I got here and BBC News verified it.

BARACK OBAMA GETTING THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE?!?!?!?!?!?!

Is this for real?  Well yes, apparently, it is.  I'm livid.  Truly.  What the hell do the Nobel Prize committee think they're even beginning to play at?!  He's done nothing, nothing to warrant any prize, let alone peace prize.  Actually, he could win a prize for bullshit rhetoric - he's brilliant at that.

I'm astounded at this decision.  It's not even like the Nobel Committee has to do anything for political gain.  Isn't the prize ceremony in Sweden?!  That's basically a politically neutral country!

Frankly, I think it makes a mockery of what was, up until yesterday, an awesome recognition of some amazing people, like Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa, Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Aung San Suu Kyi (a personal heroine of mine) and, of course, Nelson Mandela.  And Barack Obama even begins to deserve to be on this list?  I am flabbergasted.  Yes, really.

Do I look like an idiot?!

I just have to get this off my chest.  So, obviously, I have met a LOT of people and, of course, quite a few of them are Brits.  So you do the usual, 'Hi, where are you from?' and they say, 'Britain, you?' and then you say, 'Oh, yeah, British also,' (apparently my accent does not give this away?!) and then you ask them whereabouts in Britain they are from.

WHY is it that they seem to feel a need to assume that you don't know where something is?  Except this awesome couple I met from Manchester, who said they were from Manchester and felt that this needed no qualification, I have had someone say to me they were from near Bristol (It turns out this place near Bristol was Bath), then I had somebody say they were from Lincolnshire and then he asked if I KNEW where Lincolnshire was?!  Today the gem was from this guy who said he was from Cheltenham, in the Cotswolds.

Now, I don't know if I have this over the top aversion to being patronised or something, but if I've got an English accent and I come from Britain, it's a pretty safe bet that I know where places in teeny tiny little Britain are.  Especially England.  Why do people assume that nobody knows anything?  I'm thinking I must either look like an idiot or most Brits don't have even a fundamental knowledge of the geography of their own country, which is then ironic because Brits love to mock American ignorance.

I find it really frustrating.  And, I think, rightly so.  Seriously, why not assume some degree of intelligence, say the city and then explain when ASKED?!  Grrrrrrrrrr, nanny state, grrrrrrrrrrrr inability of people to think for themselves.

Also I got annoyed earlier that there were these white guys going around preaching to people about Maori culture/history.  That's so hypocritical, not to mention idiotic.