Post 4: What do trawlers do around Sellafield?

Nuclear fishin'

Being as it is so close to Christmas, this post is first and foremost a joyous Christmas greeting wishing happiness and good fortune upon all who happen to read it. That is except for the one person on the mailing list who I secretly hate. I don't wish YOU a happy Christmas at all! And if you don't realize that it is to you I'm talking to, you will soon - watch those funny tasting mince pies. he he he...

As it happens, I had this blog post half-written for ages and now that it's Christmas time I feel kind of annoyed that I didn't kick it off with a home-made crap joke with a bit more relevance to the time of year. However, I will grace you with one that I (I admit) did not make up, which combines the themes of Christmas and lawyers. These are two of the most topical issues for me right now (working in a law firm and all).

If Santa & Mrs Claus had a baby, what would they call it?

a Subordinate Claus.

Sorry. Just had to get that out of the system.

It will be interesting spending Christmas in Oz. I've maintained that the barbeque must feature prominently on the day, and we've got a whole turkey that I maintain will not see the inside of a conventional oven. Mix these unreasonable convictions with a case of beer, and it should make for an interesting meal. However, as long as plenty of booze gets drank and lots of photos are taken of the event, I'm not sure if I particularly care whether or not we completely cremate the stupid thing.

I have a few weeks off work to enjoy this sunny festive season of course. As I mentioned I'm working in a law firm (more accurately, a patent attorneys). It's great experience, and have come to rely on certain websites an awful lot more due to the nature of the work here. Wikipedia, for instance, is a saving grace as it is a fount of all sorts of knowledge. It is often used in the course of work when I need to educate myself as to the particulars of some technical concept, but it is equally useful for whiling away lunch breaks as a source of completely irrelevant yet strangely captivating military history. I have also used it to improve my knowledge of English punctuation; in particular, how to use semicolons. Of course, even if Wikipedia is my main net destination at work, it is impossible to escape the ubiquity of google. Their little tools are incredibly handy. For instance, the google search toolbar is installed in the top of my browser and now it has predictive text - it will guess what you're typing in the search box before you've finished, based on commonly searched phrases. Which is great. But the other day I wanted to search the phrase "is christmas a paid holiday?". Getting as far as "is c...", google got its own ideas what I had in mind - the first three suggestions being "is ciara really a man", "is ciara a guy" and is "ciara a hermaphrodite". Someone, somewhere, obviously has issues.

Traveling around here is fantastic, I have to say. Melbourne has a very comprehensive tram network, that amongst other things, picks me up right outside our flat, and deposits me on the doorstep of work. A questionable feature of the system however, are the tickets. You buy your blank ticket in any newsagent, get on the tram, and timestamp it in a machine on board. Your ticket is then valid for 2 hours. Of course, it could happen that one 'forgets' to stamp their card when they get on, and are lucky enough to be sitting beside one of the stamping machines when they eventually 'remember'. In this case, by the time the ticket conductor (who just got on and who was the reason such people remember to stamp their ticket) reaches these people, they will have a perfect, valid ticket like any other respectable citizen (or legal alien/tourist). I would like to emphasize that I am not one of these people - as I am an upstanding member of society - and that the culprits are mainly locals.

I'm not sure that even if you were caught that there would be much of a problem. The Aussies just don't seem the officious type. It's interesting comparing the place to the states. Everyone here picks up on the accent straight away, but unlike the US, everyone places it as well. And yes, they are friendly too. The only thing I can't get my head around is how they all use the greeting "How are you going?". It just doesn't sound right. I mean, it's either "How are you DOING?" or else "How is IT going?". Their greeting sounds more like an enquiry into your travel arrangements. To which of course, the answer should be "By your free bloody trams, of course!"