stop press: erin loves australia

i know i know, i am a citizen of the world, the working class has no nation, yadda yadda. i have not renounced my views on the fundamental equality between human beings irrespective of borders. However, i did "aussie-it-up" the other night when the socceroos played ghana in shepherds bush, and i dont regret a thing. i havent been one of those typical australians that come over to london and proceed to only hang out with fellow aussies, which made the experience all the more enjoyable.
after a cruisy day of work at the pain clinic at st. mary's hospital, i donned my brightest green top (one has to draw the line somewhere - i dont do 'gold') and set out for 'little sydney' aka shepherd's bush. my excitement grew as i ordered a bite to eat at subway, not a well known australian establishment granted, but the others in the line were also ordering their sandwiches with 'capsicums'. i went to meet troy and craig at the aussie mecca, the walkabout bar, but having nowhere to sit we quickly moved on to some other typical english pub with a few grumpy old locals looking miffed at the entrance of some youngens into their territory. craig asked how my job was going, and before i could really answer began a big story about the last time he was in hospital, involving pus, blood and a finger up the bum. i didnt bat an eyelid of course, but poor troy looked rather pale throughout. anyway, next thing we knew we were surrounded by a sea of gold jerseys, a lot of 'yeh mate' and some chick who spilled her beer on craig. oh wait that was troy.
kickoff was at 7.45 so we joined the procession of thousands of loyal aussies, to cheer the socceroos. we sat right behind the goals and got a lovely view of the mighty schwartzer in the first half, luckily he wasnt perturbed by the drunken louts in the first row who kept trying to start up a chorus of 'my dad picks the fruit... that goes to cottees..' we dominated the first half and scored from a penalty making it 1-0 at half time.
they dont let you drink in the stands here (damn football hooligans ruining it for everyone) so we raced down to the bar and troy was about to be served, until somehow he managed to move backwards in the queue. luckily i stepped in with a wink to the barmaid and got us some beer, before we headed back up to the stands. the second half was more of an equal contest, especially after bresciano was replaced with some freckly neville nobody. ghana scored after a goal mouth scramble, and didnt the ghanians fans celebrate! the whole other end of the stadium was jumping around, they had somehow snuck in a band complete with trumpet, bongos and various other exotic instruments and made so much noise they put us to shame. our crowds rendition of 'happy little vegemites' just did not compare.
anyway before we knew it the game was over without even a second of extra time played, so the end was a little anti-climactic. but its was a great night out and now i'm not only hooked on the socceroos but also watching live football, its so fun to watch! i've agreed to go with troy to any westham game he wants, though i dunno if i'll join in his aspiration to become head hooligan. but you never know, i did surprise myself by singing the australian anthem for the first time in probably a decade, so who knows what strange turn erin will take next?

climate change day of action

I went along to a climate change rally last week it was great, theres a bunch of groups here but the best one politically is the Campaign Against Climate Change, which organsied a rally at the American Embassy.
The speakers were great, and gave the crowd a heavy dose of politics to ponder, including some quite good explanations of Contraction & Convergence, widely seen as the fairest model of resitricting Co2 emissions where countries have targets based on their population rather than their historical privelege/industries or bullying power. Other speakers tore apart the myth that Tony Blair is doing any more than waffling a lot of hot air (though he's still streaks ahead of Howard of course), and the need for people to take matters into their own hands and use mass action. To quote George Monbiot, president of Campaign Against Climate Change what is needed is "MOBILISATION, MOBILISATION, MOBILISATION"
After the speeches a march set off to meet the I Count rally in Trafalgar Square. Having no contingent to be a part of I let loose my inner hippy and danced along with this great drum section - not your typical rally drumming, but really tight with a conductor like an orchestra. They were fantastic! I stopped to take photos thinking I'd eventually see the end of the march but it stretched oin for blocks so i gave up. A bit of the energy was lost when it joined up with the comparatively dull, peak-body-stage-managed (ala ACTU) I Count rally. There were some popular bands and a weird mutimedia montage on a big screen involving the reversal of melting ice sheets. There was one speaker near the end (trying to find out who) who spoke about the role of british corporations in climate change and got a rousing response when he suggested re-nationalising Shell. But unfortunately the overwhelming message was "go home and write to your MP"
All in all though, more and more people are getting interested and mobilising around the issue, which I find reassuring. And you got 100,000 in australia - woohoo!