A Blaze, a Belly, and a Box trailer

Today I went to work. At 3.30 am.

Quite early, but the more so since last night we went to see Ian's team (that he manages) the 'Gold Coast Blaze', play 'Brisbane Bullets'. These are basketball teams, and neither of us had been to a basket-ball game before. Quite an interesting experience. It was a good atmosphere and I enjoyed it...even going beyond myself as our team began to lose to scream 'Come on the Blaze', and 'Come on Ref!!!!!' and 'YESSSSSS' and.... well I'm sure you can imagine!

After the carnage was over, we went out to a local Turkish restaurant, which was fantastic. Fantastic food, fantastic music and fantastic BELLY dancer:



She was really good, both at the dancing, and at getting the diners to get up and have a go. We were very impressed.

Ian had booked a suite of rooms at a posh hotel for the team members, (its a professional team) and some of the team had elected in advance not to avail themselves of the rooms. Daile and I had the best one, from which this was the view.



Shame that I had to leave it at 3.30 for the Gold Coast Convention centre - and my first proper work since I left Complete Fabrication at the end of August!

I got there a little late, cos I couln't find my way out of central Brisbane, a maze of one way streets and drunk party goers (including young girls out alone and in pairs!). When I got down there, I found that they were struggling with a short order of joists that go under the floor of the stand that we were putting up. I ended up cutting up joists into blocks to get the thing down, and made a reasonable impression it seems, whilst working up a proper sweat, so that it was literally dripping off my nose.

A fair start me-thinks.

When I got home, I finally got around to painting the underside of the trailer that I'd made last week. Tomorrow I'll get it registered, or at least start the process.



In Australia, the trailer has to be registered like a car is...and it has its own number plate, and..... guess what? You have to pay road tax on them! Aaaah they got me again! This system gets you in lots of strange ways, whilst the actual rate of taxation is officially lower than in the UK. On balance, I think its still less than the 50% that you end up shelling out in Blighty.

Oh, and by-the-way, Labor won the election yesterday if you hadn't heard. Many people that were at the job today were very pleased about that. I suspect however that the growth that Australia has enjoyed for the last 10 years is not sustainable, and that when things turn, the voters will too, blaming the changes on the government and so we'll probably see the Liberals in again next time. Such is the nature of the fickle vote. ...enforced or not.