Monday, April 24, 2006
Scotty, if you call it "Soccer" one more time...
... What is happening? it's surreal enough im actually here but to see that... Gives me plenty of pre-ashes banter to give them tho dont worry bout that, and dont they love it.
Been a pretty quiet week, well ok thats a lie.
Wednesday night i went and watched some live soccer, no not premier league, Aldershot VS Raines Park. Kind of our version of Bridgewater VS Gagebrook - interesting is all i can say.
Friday was the club golf day, and they didnt believe me when i said i was crap... ok so maybe the ball travels further in England... but they soon realised how bad i was and put me with the 3 good players. haha, well didnt i pull some birdies and pars outa my arse to get our team over the line by 40 points (Stableford for those in the know). Had a couple of quiet ones at the Hogs Head pub, after we had drank ourselves silly at the course, i made friends with a nice little croation girl who loved my accent probably as much as i fancied hers. Hogs Head, excellent venue, get around it. Still smoking in pubs here, it goes out in November, but I am living with it for now.
3 things not to say in front of an Englishman I have learnt are "im going to put my thongs on", "can we watch the soccer" and "give it a rip". Oh yeah, and fair dinkum. the ladies love it but the blokes take the piss big time, I love it tho lets be honest. Great bunch of blokes here.
Saturday we watched the "Footy", yuk, Spurs VS Arsenal. Good game, 1-1 after 95 minutes. BORING. No cricket yet, not because of the weather but because our oppositions change rooms had asbestos in them and so did everything else. YUK.
And today is Monday, my first working day, well afternoon, 15 pound an hour to coach under 11's. Oh, life is sweet.
English Breakfasts are awesome too just quietly. And Pints are taking me down...
Stay Tuned for my next update, and oh yeah some pictures going up today hopefully of the area that i have taken. Its a beautiful place it really is. Missing everyone but wont i have some stories when i get back.. Or will they all be blogged? Possibly!
Stay Classy and keep in touch,
Scotty.
P.S. I have adopted the nickname, Big Mac... yep, excellent!!! AND SOMEONE PLEASE KEEP ME UPDATED ON THE KANGAROOS PROGRESS!!!
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Welcome Kansas 'Coz Your Not In Toto Anymore...
you would all be currently cuddled up in bed, its 7pm here, and is 4am at home. Slept well on the flight so today I got here at 6am (excellent flight, meals have something to live up to but excellent excellent cant fault it at all), cruised through customs and have so far ventured in and around my home village of Farnham (its so, I dunno, old and just really awesome, not crappy old but actually beautiful old - Monopoly looking old - I'll upload some photos in the coming days).
The Yates's (My "family" for 5 months) have been great and i have my own room and study bit, oh yeah and my own balcony. not bad for £60 a week.
Checked out the ground with Chris Jnr (he is Chris Snr, bloke i live with's nephew) and yes boys and girls it is as small as on my blog shows ( www.myukadventure.blogspot.com ). even smaller. It could be triple figure sixes and thats not being sarcastic! Beautiful little ground though (and they have got a square with no less than 16 wickets) and some tennis courts and stuff and its just all so quaint and quiet and i love it so far everything has been awesome and everyone has been great. Starting to feel really tired now though, I guess its natural ive been up for well over 40 hours or something (craving a bed, oh yeah, i got my own queen size too).
Played a round of golf at Bairstow, just a lazy 9, and went down, yes, i lost to a pom. only by 6 shots though - let it be known 4 birdies does not compensate for finding a lake 6 times in 1 hole, thinking that cost me. Weather is very much like Tassie, on and off, changes a lot, im adjusted to it and plus its summer nearly here so yeah, all good on that front.
Then went down to the nets for a hit, good little session and was good to roll the arm over, and get a decent hit out. we have a practice match on saturday, so be interesting and will let you all know how that one goes (and how many sixes i get hit for also).
Well people I shall be off, gotta go down to the pub (one of 15 in a street believe it or not) for some welcome drinks, and well, I dont think im going to even consider refusing those.
Be in touch.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Magpies End of Season Dinner
It’s finally starting to sink in I’m leaving everything I know and have always known for 5 months. It’s a bit surreal, but yeah, you can imagine how excited I am at the moment.
My blog today anyway will be about our end of year dinner for the Glenorchy Magpies held on the 8th of April. My first obviously for my new club and it was a top night. MC Brett Geeves kicked off proceedings by giving us all a quick rundown of the evening’s events, and thanking the life members and in particular Emerson Rodwell and his lovely wife for attending.
Egg then gave a very emotional speech about the late Noel Diprose. Now I didn’t know Noel, but from the way Egg spoke and the way everyone responded to his speech said that this guy was extremely well respected. Later in the evening Emerson gave a speech about his good mate Noel, and also presented the Noel Diprose medal to Elliot Maher, a kid with bucket loads of potential as long as he keeps working on his game and keeps his head screwed on. Plus he is a Magra boy so he gets extra kudos from me. He also took home Outstanding Junior, and the Under 17 Bowling Award, which he gained by taking a club record 42 wickets in a season for the Under 17’s.
After Egg’s speech we ran through the batting, bowling and fielding awards, Best Clubman award (won by David Maher, Elliot’s dad), and the President’s Perpetual Appreciation Award (Sladey Struggled with this one) won by Steve Absolom – top bloke old Steve and well deserved by all the winners.
We then had our meal, an excellent feed I must admit; thoroughly enjoyed by myself I give you the red hot tip.
We then moved onto the novelty awards. I was sweating at this point – 3 ducks in a row at the start of the year and it looked like I would be ribbed at some stage – but I was lucky to escape this time. The “DC” award for intellect of the year was won by Snooksy, quite obvious choice there. The best eater award was a hotly contested prize, eventually won by Michael “Beaver” Knight, our captain from last season, well done Beav well deserved there. The last Novelty award was the Inaugural Egg Appreciation Award, given to Brett Geeves. Now, I don’t know if Geevesy would have survived the night as Egg had a little story about when he was painting out Geevesy’s house. Now, his girlfriend was in attendance so one assumes Egg did water down this one – I won’t tell the story but let’s just say it had something to do with a young lady thanking Egg about the nice shade of Brett’s room – and it wasn’t his girlfriend thanking him, lets just say that!
Egg then finished with a little diddy called, “the pub at the club with no beer”, and had some nice little jibes there at some of the blokes at the club, some of the classic lines included something about Kelby’s goats, and another about Beaver and his salad rolls, and something about dishing them for pies. I can’t remember how the song went, but let me assure you it was classic and apparently topped Egg’s effort last year.
It was then announce Glen Hughes would be club coach next season, excellent news for us players who really rate Hughesy in that department and hopefully can guide us to some more Premierships this season.
At the end of the night, my youth league boys made a presentation to me. It had a card signed by them all, which was great, a toy Moose (going straight in my bag boys, good luck charm right there), and a Kangaroos Polo top – after a 69 point drubbing during the day, I wasn’t keen to get this one out and show it off. But those lads were an excellent bunch, and obviously they must think I’m an alright kinda bloke, and hopefully a half-decent super coach in the making. Those boys have bucket loads of potential, and I have no doubt they have long futures in the game. Look out for 3 names in particular, Chris Iles (batting award), Damien Butterworth (bowling award) and Alex Triffitt (fielding award) – These boys have got something, and I know if they stick at it could play a lot of top-grade cricket in a couple of years time. Not to say the other lads wont of course, back them in to make big improvements next year, great bunch of kids (I’ll upload a team photo shortly).
Well there is a wrap for the evening, we all proceeded to go out thereafter, I chewed everything I drank due to the huge amounts of beer I drank on Friday night with Paul (can drink, can drink) but all in all had a terrific evening, and hope to have many more with the Glenorchy Boys.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Pity Da Fool
Follow the link and keep up with this fella's progress and the story behind it. Basically, he bet his girlfriend that if he could get 2 million hits on a website he created, his girlfriend would have a threesome with him and another girl. Suffice to say, he has tackled this head on, and to date has 1.3 million hits - go on, help the bloke out, you know you want to.
http://www.helpwinmybet.com
Stay Classy.

Mr T approves, you fool.
***UPDATE - AS AT 11:30 PM THIS EVENING OUR GOOD OL' MATE JUST MADE 2.4 MILLION HITS! BANG GET AROUND HIM!!! GO FOR GLORY SON!!!***
Pre-Flight Nerves and Bratislava
....Apparently thats "my end". Bets for the amount of maximums during my stay? This could be very, very interesting...
... Have most of my stuff organised now, not much to go, gear arrived last night which was excellent (Good on ya Spotty, big thanks to you mate), so all that is left is for me to get there. Got the email from Ricky which said "There is a big bag from Australia here for you" So it has to be my gear, because I'm sure my old college Sociology teacher didn't get wrapped up and sent (although she could be looking for her 2 fingers which were missing - yuk).
How good is an e-ticket tho? No having to wait for paper tickets, just need my passport and away I go. Makes life so much easier, and now, apart from the stress of getting over there I have nothing to worry about! Maybe I stress too much, but you get that. Always been one to stress about the little things, I'm a thinker, and sometimes a little too much thinking goes on between my ears, it isn't exactly a bad thing, all the time. But thats it, I think all the time. Sure thats not too bad a thing, is it?! Ill have a think about that anyway.

Moving Along... Watched the worst movie in history, well one of them, last night. Hostel. Quentin Tarantino, what are you thinking? It's like a porno for the first hour, and then its just a guy drilling holes in American tourists and cutting their fingers off and stuff... The only thing I really learnt was that even though Bratislava seems to have some seriously hot chicks in hostels, its probably not best to go there. Now, no disrespect to Bratislava because it quite possibly be a lovely place, but yeah, if Hostel is anything to go by I think the village town of Farnham in Surrey will suit me just fine thankyou, my fingers are quite important to me - as are my achilles tendons (If you have seen the movie you will know exactly what I'm talking about here...)!
Anyway, just a few things to do before I go now. New toothbrush, some wax or gel or something for my fro' and away I go. Oh yeah, and some new wheels - I want something a bit different, like something multi-colouored that just look so stupid you wouldn't even think of wearing them. I'll find them and when I do I'll show you all a picture of how stupid I look in them.
And my phone, I think I need a new one, and i don't think I'll get a Sony Ericcson again, Software is crap! My tip? Go the Nokia 6280 or the N91 (not released yet) but Nokia is a safe bet, always has and will be in my books, and ask anyone who knows me, I know my phones, don't you worry bout that.
Well, I think I've said enough for today, had to get that out of the system. No doubt there will be more nervous ramblings from me before I go.
Oh, and yeah, I won footy tipping for the first time ever, 8 out of 8, and I'm even ranked # 1 in Australia - So of course I had to be going to England, didn't I.
Until Next Time....
Stay Classy.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Support
Take a look at the picture above. This was taken off of Rowledge's Home Page - How small does it look!!! I sent the picture to some of my closest mates who I knew were working, and here are their kind words of support. I definitely thought this was worth sharing - please feel free to leave your own comments below...
"THOSE HOUSES IN THE BACKGROUND BETTER BE INSURED FOR DAMAGES!!!"
"MULTIPLE AIR MAILS OFF THE MOOSE'S SLOW LEFT ARM NUDE NUTS"
"His only hope is if they introduce a "6 and out" law into the local competition other wise 5 or 6 a game is an option"
"Of course they will. Cricket at that level still have the "One Hand One Bounce" and "Tippety Run" rules. They only phased out the "Automatic Keeper & Slips" two seasons ago"
"I WAS THINKING 5 OR 6 AN OVER" - Captain M.Knight in relation to # of maximums per over...
"So you're saying that Mick Lewis' record of worst figures from 10 overs is under threat?"
"mate, thinking 36 an over so if you bowl ten overs thats, well 360 runs and well micky the dud lewis will be your best mate and as for the runs that your bat will make, i'd say let everyone in your team use it and you just bat with a fence pailing!!!!"
"oh moose. you're in barney mate!"
Shinboner Respect
I've read about a dozen blogs and random news articles on the web about the Kangaroos "surprise win" over Port. How was it surprising? Nothing in Round One is surprising, really. All clubs have a clean slate, everyone starts afresh. Why is it so so difficult to give them some credit?
Harvey, Grant, Simpson, Thompson, Wells, Archer, Rawlings, all pretty much unsighted in the first quarter. Josh Gibson, elevated off the rookie list, and Hamish Macintosh another young gun dominated and pushed on throughout the rest of the match. Our Youngsters stepped up to a full-strength Port, albeit minus Warren Tredrea, who really is a stagnant forward anyway and we would have negated.
The Kangaroos are strugglers financially, but we are improving. Membership is on the rise, and re-development is occurring around Arden Street. But, even though we have no outright superstars, we still compete each week no matter who the opponent and push them to their limits. Sure, we have bad days, but our good days are regarded as "playing out of our skin", and the bad days are judged as "a normal day".
This will probably always be the way, but you have to be one-eyed to not at least give us the credit we deserve. Those people who don't like the Roos are the ones who hated Wayne Carey and the fact he tore their side up, week in week out. Move on people, That was 5 years ago now, Wayne has long gone and the new generation is here. Get used to it, and give us the respect we deserve.
Respond, if you like, and let me know your 3 reasons for not respecting, or rating, the Kangaroos. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
Moose.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
My First Ramble

Well, my first "Blog". Interesting concept is Blogging, and I particularly find the word "Blog" quite funny. I'm sure it'll wear out. But, anyway, I guess I should tell you all about how I have been feeling lately.
In a word, Buggered. All the running around I have done to get everything sorted before I go, well I originally thought it wasn't so bad, but gee whiz hasn't it.
First up was the passport, that wasn't so bad I guess except for a knob at the Passport registry or whatever they call themselves giving me a bloody coronary by saying my application was "rejected" - theres goes close to 200 scobes down the drain. I will just call this guy "knob" because 2 (yes, two) days later my passport arrived. Yee Har get around Scotty and his passport. Next, the Visa, of which was my fault because I forgot to put in half the stuff I needed, but yeah you get that because as you will all know I have the short term memory of a Tin Can. I think, well I cant remember *bad pun*.
But yes, Visa sorted eventually, then airfares, then travel insurance... Why is it so expensive all this stuff? I felt like hiring a dinghy and floating over there, by my calculations if I get a good tail wind it would only take me the best part of 12 months to get there. But, maybe not a good option as open water kinda freaks me out. Yep, call it "Jawsphobia" or something, whatever you like. Water just freaks me when its in a great abundance, not ideal when you live on an island but yeah, thats "The Moose" for you.
The Picture you see is actually only seven times off the full size of Tassie. Yeah, its small.
So there you go, bit of a "Blog" (still coming to terms with the hilarity in something called "Blog") about getting ready to travel. Obviously plenty more to come, hey, im actually liking this "Blog" stuff, I might just go write a couple more.
Till then, This is Scotty, aka "The Moose", signing off. Stay Classy.