Australian Adventure

Episode 11

HOME >> WRITING >> AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURE

Links:

...in which our intrepid hero, ably assisted by his new wife, experience the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and a rather soggy barbeque, and ponder the curious nature of web page design.

Ey-oh funsters (as I understand the Teletubbies might say - those of you who didn't need to be told either have small children, or far too much spare time on your hands). I'm starting to get the "come on then, next installment..." messages, so I thought I'd put flesh to keyboard while an opportunity presents itself.

So, why so quiet for the last month? Life too exciting to spend ten minutes at a terminal and rattle off some more of the usual nonsense? Married life so much more busy than my old bachelor days? Nah - remember I said I was looking forward to a few days of doing nothing after the excitement of the wedding? I got a bit carried away and had four weeks of brain down-time, and loved every second of it.

Actually that's not quite true. Spurred on partly by Eve enrolling for not one but two college courses, and partly by that little voice that talks to you when you're trying your hardest to do bugger-all, I figured that it was about time I stumbled into the nineties as far as computing went, and began to digest some of the literature. By the end of the week I should (if the cover notes live up to their promises) have designed an entirely new social contract for myself in an information-elightened age, remodelled myself as a pool of creativity in the workforce, and found out which American companies offer the best geriatric care schemes for aging relatives. I'm pretty sure that last book morphed in the carrier bag on the way home - I'm pretty short on aged relatives (Mum and Dad will be glad to hear), so I'm not sure why I picked it up.

I've also waded into HTML. For anyone who doesn't know, that's the language that web pages are written in, and I'm going by the advice which says that I shouldn't use a web page design tool until I can do it from scratch. To tootle on my own trumpet for a moment I seem to be making some progress, and have some reasonably creditable efforts to bestow upon the net community at some point in the near future.

It did bring to light something of a dilemma though. You've all heard of the web, read the hype, and maybe even dabbled with the idea of creating your own web home-page, but when it comes down to it you have to decide what you're going to say. In some ways it's like the scrap-books you made when you were a kid, except that they don't stay buried in the back of the cupboard - once they're out there anyone can see them. Even, and this is a bit scary, people you don't know, who happen to stumble over them en route to Busty Betty's Bra Page. And who might not see the subtle irony in your collection of scanned pictures of interestingly shaped vegetables. Or your "I love the Bay City Rollers" link collection.

So I started off by applying a set of social acceptability filters to anything I thought might not be appropriate. And then I got a bit worried as all I had left were my wedding photos. So I took a look at a few other peoples' homepages, and most of those just had wedding pictures too. Or baby photos. I harbour a suspicion that 99% of web traffic before 9pm consists of either the same joke circling the globe via email, or wedding shots of people you've never met, but take a look at anyway. After 9pm, of course, you're back with Busty Betty again...

So, for those of you with the inclination, or perhaps a dearth of Teletubbies videos, take a look at http://www.mda.com.au/index.html which contains (for now) my wedding photos and the previous ten of these ramblings. But be warned: I've ditched the social acceptability filters, so any time now you'll be exposed to the full spectrum of my innermost thoughts. Or a baby picture, whichever I get my hands on first. Cara

Then there's always the International Gourmet World of Cheese site... And I'm thinking of developing some sort of colourful shirt theme.

Friday night a few brave souls turned up for my BBQ washout. I'm thinking that I used up a lifetime's worth of outdoor activity luck on the wedding day, and that every BBQ I ever have from now on will be a washout. Hohum.

Saturday cleared up long enough for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardis Gras ("Fat Tuesday") to be a huge success. 270 floats in the parade, thousands of marchers in costumes ranging from the gloriously excessive to the entirely inadequate (memorable quote "What went into the making of your costume?" - "One small handkerchief and a rubber band"). With every wave of scantily-clad fine-bodied male dancers who passed, the group of girls behind me were swooning with lust, and bemoaning the fact that they were all so unavailable. So were the group of men in front of me, but only the first bit...

All in all a complete hoot, with a good bunch of serious messages that didn't go unnoticed either. I was surprised to find that homosexuality was illegal in Australia until relatively recently - 1984 in New South Wales, 1990 in Queensland (which almost counts as a joke), and, incredibly, 1997 in Tasmania. Even frumpy old Britain begain to change the laws back in the fifties.

Most memorable were the Fred Niles Head Onna Plate (Fred being a fervent anti-gay reverend and MP), Pauline Hanson rap-float (playing the highly edited right-winger homophobe's confessions of homosexuality, set to a rap beat (banned on all radio stations by court order)), and the award winning "Gayviation" - about 200 gay Qantas employees with an entirely new slant on the in flight safety presentation. And a giant jumbo jet that may or may not have blown bubbles... 750,000 spectators at full scream, fireworks, funky lights, and oh yeah - 120 marching Xena warrior princess lookalikes - none of them transvestities to my inexpert eye.

Phew! So a good dose of software testing was just what the doctor ordered to bring my blood pressure back down again. Seems to be going well too. Helped along by the continuous supply of muffins maybe...