A poem on the Underground Wall

A tale of two bakeries.

2010-08-18T20:04:00.000+10:00

I recently started a new job that requires me to work in Benalla, a regional city some 75 minutes drive from where I live. This requires me to wake at a seemingly ungodly hour and spend a far longer period of time in my tin metal box than I have had to in the past.

It's a bit of a culture shock in more ways than one, in addition to the 9-5 lifestyle, I'm now required to wear business casual attire. Do not be deceived by the word casual, I find the concept of wearing ironed pants and black shoes a very foreign concept. In my previous roles as teacher and professional geek, I have always been fine in jeans, boots and shirt. There's a fair whack of difference, and while I'm very pleased I'm not required to wear suit and tie, it's still going to take me a while to become accustomed to the fact. That said, being called 'Sir' at a lunch meeting may or may not be a coincidence. I am very very grateful I do not have to wear a tie, for on the odd occasion I have had to (mainly job interviews) I seriously question what kind of warped and deluded mind invented a fashion accoutrement designed to choke the wearer. What possible aid could such a fashion item be if it actually prevents blood flow to the brain.

I'm into day 4 of my driving now, and aside from mutterings and all too penny pinching calculations on petrol spent (it's considerable) I find I'm actually coping okay with the hours behind the wheel. Maybe this will change, but it's almost a return to a subject I've considered before. A long long time ago, I can still remember, when pre-18, pre driver's licence, pre-freedom, I spent a lot of time on (and waiting for) public transport. Getting to school required two buses. Getting to the shops required a bus. This is in the era when bus companies considered timetables a rough, illusory possibly entirely fantasy guide to times for running. So many a wait was sat (many a sit was waited?) on a bus stop seat, the extreme time around 40 minutes. This was a lot of thinking time. It was a lot of alone time. It allowed me to read, or think, or digest. This sort of time seems unwanted today - people are so very keen to fill every single second of their day with activity - Nintendo advertises the fact, a middle aged man at a bus stop reliving the excitement of his youth by playing some sort of video game on some sort of portable video game player.

For me, this time is almost a welcome pause, a period of respite. Previously, and something I considered a definite plus, my work environment was, in the 'best' scenario, 30 seconds walk away, across the road. No kidding. My furthest work location was thirty minutes away, but invariably I went there via an intermediary workplace 15 minutes away. (I had 10 workplaces if you're curious.) Now, with a guaranteed hour block at either end of the work day, I have alternately enjoyed silence and think time, or the opportunity to listen to some podcasts and literature. Some time ago (years) I discovered the richness of choice available in Podcasts. The BBC do a fantastic job at publishing Podcasts of their radio programs, and our own ABC has handsomely caught up - and turned a fickle (who ever tunes into something they want to hear on live radio on live radio?) medium into an awesome medium. In the few days I have been travelling thus far, I have listened to BBC commentary on current affairs, a summary of the current Education trend sand buzzwords in Australia,, a Brisbane town hall debate on the merits of new vs old ideas, and several tales of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. It's early days, but it looks like I will be able to embrace the idea of having two such dedicated hours available in my day - enforced if you will - to listen and think.

Arriving in Benalla on my first day of work, I immediately drove through the centre of town, looking for a suitable sustenance spot for breakfast. Being spoilt in my home town, my expectations of a country bakery are fairly high. Okay, stratospheric. But I was happy to settle for good to mediocre, and as I drove through town finding nothing at all, rapidly lowered my expectations to acceptable. I found an acceptable bakery... where the food wasn't bad, the service rather moribund, but the attitude cheerful. A toasted ham and cheese sandwich (usually a good yardstick for a bakery) was white bread with 3 slices of ham, 3 slices of cheese, somewhat warmed up in a toaster (not enough to add any colour to the bread!) but was quite edible, and quite reasonable for the price. This was bakery #1, and I went there again the following work day - and bought two of those pre-made sandwiches in those click together plastic pouches. Both sandwiches came to less than $9 which is a good sign. Sadly, they were a tad stale, and short on toppings, but none the less edible.

I decided to push my luck today, and delve further into town, looking for a Bakery #2. I soon found Bakery #2, further down the main drag - and thought initially I had wasted my first bakery visits in Benalla by not driving far enough! The bakery looked like a definite step up in the bakery scale (is there a star rating alliance for bakeries? I could begin one...) with classy wood finishes and open brick walls. I tend to be an impatient bakery shopper, so look first for the pre-made sandwiches and rolls, preferring these to the stand there and point rigamarole of having a sandwich made up. So I was pleased to discover, initially, several plastic wrapped rolls in a display counter, that looked quite palatable. Upon being served (that sounds like there was a queue, but actually it was just me, it just took them a minute to reach me) I asked what the rolls were. I was told haughtily they were gourmet foccacias, and cost $14 each. Clearly, rather than answering my question, she assumed hearing the price would put me off them. Well, she was right. Although they turned out to be smoked salmon, cream cheese and capers foccacias, I could have had (in fact have had) two for the same money in Melbourne. So, moving on... with nothing else ready made, I asked for a ham cheese and tomato sandwich. Fairly simple?

Ha. 10 minutes later, I have a sandwich (from which the first piece of cheese had been discarded, having some rather ominous white fuzz on it) and a scone, for which I have been charged $11. When I later come to eat the sandwich, the tomato is an inedible but incredible concentration of talcum powder in a red casing. So sadly, unless further exploration reveals a happy medium (positive clairvoyant) in bakery #3, I need to decide between cheap and cheerful bakery #1, and pretentious, so far up themselves they bake, bakery #2. I am of course trying to avoid driving so far through town that the McDonalds drive through becomes the breakfast - as no matter what you order from the Maccas breakfast menu, it tends to be bright yellow and taste the same.

October 2004

2010-07-14T22:17:00.002+10:00

Am home from rounds... alive, just. Got back from school on Friday arvo, everyone else was packing to leave, already felt lonely. Had to do an oil change on the bike, so rode out to Bunnings for a 17mm spanner for my sump plug, only $1 from a dump bin. Bunnings rules when I'm not near my mitre 10! Did the oil change, started packing, ready to go by 7. I empty whats in the jerry can into the bike... feels about half full, think to myself I'll fill up soon as I hit the reserve. Wash thoroughly the oven tray I used to drain the oil, put the oil in three bags tied up then in the bin. Drop luggage off next door, friend was bringing it down to melb for me. And head off down the highway.

Getting dark now, going down the Goulburn with trucks honking to overtake on the single lane two way highway, pulling into the bumpy verge to let them go by. Bugs splattering me, and I realise I should have brought my overpants instead of packing them as its getting rather cold. An hour goes by, I'm getting into a rythm. Am 14 k's out of Nagambie when the petrol runs out, no probs, I reach for the reserve tap. Uh oh, its on reserve... engine dead, I coast to the side of the road and check the facts. Hrmm, empty tank. Already on reserve. No fuel in jerry can. Dark. Whooooosh, trucks going by. $5 in cash. Not good.

Rang Ern for a collaborative brainstorm, after he'd stopped laughing... he suggested hitching, waving down a ute likely to have petrol, or ringing the RACV and joining on the spot. The RACV sounded the most appealing, so I rang them. 'Certainly Sir, you can join up on the spot, it will be $170.' Now after I stopped my turn for hysterical laughter, I asked if that was the only option, as I certainly didnt have $170 to spare. Very kindly, she put me through to the Nagambie racv dude, who was prepared to come out for $50 plus petrol costs... So half an hour later, he rocks up, empties a 5lt can into my tank. But I don't have cash, so I follow him into Nagambie and use the eftpos machine at his garage. Its now about 8.30pm as I again head off down the Goulburn.

Stomach rumbling, I ride across the Hume and into Seymour for some dinner at the KFC. Gobble that down, and then hit the Hume, heading for Melbourne. Bad mistake. Kept promising to stop for coffee at the next petrol station... the next petrol station was Kalkallo. Never been closer to a nasty strawberry jam imitation on a bike... trying my damndest to stay awake. Took a second for my eyes to refocus on the road after looking in the mirror. Took a couple of seconds to realise when the wind had blown you to the edge of the lane. Blinks started to take longer than usual. Stopped at a rest area to jump up and down and yawn. Kept going... helped when I started singing songs at the top of my tuneless voice.

Got to Kalkallo... had the worst cup of coffee and then took advantage of the 2 V's for $5. From then, fairly simple, just had to watch the traffic. Kept going up sydney rd... saw the strangest truck you can imagine... big, grey, followed steel tracks in the road, and instead of a horn, clanged a bell furiously. Bad driving too, you think it knew how to steer?! Nup, just went straight ahead.

Made it home, by now about 11.15pm. Collapsed into bed. HA, sleep? I wish... having told myself for the last 3 hours that going to sleep was not allowed... i slept very fitfully, often waking up with a start, wondering, 'am I on the side of the road?'

Saturday was a write-off... too tired to do anything. Started to feel a bit better today. But am still stressed by the fact that Shep was more exy than planned, so I'm $150 short on rent, and living off tinned food donations from my mum.

So, that's my exciting tale of adventure and foolishness!

Penny Drops

2009-10-03T20:54:00.005+10:00

Haha, those stupid Americans! Soda (soft drink, as we know it) in the US and Canada is sweetened using High Fructose Corn Syrup – HFCS. This is corn syrup that’s been enzymatically altered to near pure fructose, and then diluted with glucose. Commonly sold in concentrations of 42 and 55% fructose. Given what I am learning about the dangers of fructose, this seems criminally insane!

Parallels have been drawn between the increasing use of HFCS and obesity rates in the US, and a 2007 study of rats found it took only four weeks on a rich HFCS diet for them to display early signs of type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.

When I read this initially, I relaxed in my ignorance (it truly is bliss) laughing at those stupid Americans. We don’t use HFCS in Australia! We must surely be much safer! In Australia, our soft drink is sweetened with sucrose – table sugar! This certainly sounds far healthier and more natural than something created artificially with enzymes. Had I looked up at this stage, assuming for an instant that I was outside and not working on my screen tan, I might have seen a small brown dot hurtling towards me from high in the atmosphere. Initially indistinguishable, it quickly takes on the shape of a penny, dropping at a vast rate of descent, about to leave a crater in my cranium.

The penny drop is that sucrose is 50-50 glucose and fructose. Our sucrose sweetened drinks are no safer than those using HFCS in North America. As US Big Sugar is keen to tell all and sundry, there’s no difference in calorific content between sucrose (white sugar) and HFCS. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQi6bdUdPTw for a laugh.

The sad realisation is then that I will need to give up my habit of drinking soft drink! This proves easier in thought than action, as long held habits don’t die easily – it takes thought and deliberation now when visiting cafes and the like not to automatically reach for the coke or V! However will I get my caffeine intake without the super sweet, super calorific drinks like V, Red Bull and Mother (in a gloriously over the top 500ml can)! The saviour? Diet soft drinks! Three cheers for the wonders of phenylalanine, I can still drink sweet and fizzy concoctions without needing to revert to water!

Many diet soft drinks are available, and they are infinitely more drinkable than those I remember as a child. I remember once drinking ‘diet solo’ as a young child, and finding it more akin to stale cat’s urine than the ‘real’ solo. So it was with great joy that I found on special in the supermarket cans of ‘Solo Sub’ – a no added sugar version of solo that is actually quite drinkable!

One of the odd things I noticed about drinking Solo Sub and Pepsi Max was I was able to leave a can unfinished. This never happened with the full sugar versions, there appeared to be less compulsion to drink the entire can aside from thirst – better and better, I’m thinking by this stage – diet soft drinks will let me cut out sugar/fructose from my diet without TOO seismic a shift in my consumption patterns and habits.

However there lingered some old doubt, from past forgotten articles about the downside to diet drinks. I had always shunned them, and vaguely recalled negative reports on their causing the body to not absorb calcium. Also slightly concerning is the large capital letter warnings they carry about phenylalanine. But some brief Wikipedia reading (Wikipedia and Google will soon control the world) cast no hugely obvious stones against phenylalanine – the warnings are there for those who suffer the rare condition phenylketonuria. (Why don’t sugar-loaded products come with a warning for diabetics?) So I happily guzzled, and refilled my fridge with diet soft drinks.

At this point, my main added sugar consumption dropped to what I was adding into my coffee. Two teaspoons of white sugar were my customary habit, and dropping to one seemed doable if a stretch. My friend PG put me onto the next miracle! Splenda! This delightful product is an artificial sweetener, the active ingredient of which is sucralose – in contrast to the artificial sweetener of the current diet soft drinks Aspartame. I hurriedly bought some from my local purveyor of death (sorry, supermarket) and found it altogether an odd phenomenon. Sucralose itself is far sweeter than sucrose, so the Splenda product is bulked out with maltodextrin until it reaches a spoon for spoon consistency with sucrose/white sugar. Aside from an odd little fizz, and a bit of artificial crema, it made for a palatable cup of coffee! Surely this was greatness then, when I could drink diet, sugar free soft drink, and sweeten my coffee with a no-calorie Splenda!

I rested here for some days on my blissfully ignorant laurels, only to begin to hear again the slight whistle I’ve come to recognise as a penny descending from great height, at great speed. Joining a forum of like minded fructose converts, established by David Gillespie, I came across a study published by the American Diabetes Association regarding the consumption of diet soda. To summarise a research paper into less than a paragraph, consumption of 1 or more diet sodas daily leads to an elevated risk of 67% for type 2 diabetes. Oh, and it may increase your waistline too.

For those sugar sadists (of which I’ve become) who wish to read the full study, it can be found here - http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/32/4/688.full

Coincidently, David Gillespie responded to a query of mine, that consumption of 1 or more sugar-sweetened sodas led to an elevated risk of 83% for type 2 diabetes, based on a study of middle aged women – found here http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/292/8/927

So there goes my blissful ignorance / enjoyment of diet soft drink. As a friend on Facebook commented when I posted this nugget, “Stop researching – I don’t like what you’re finding out!”
Sadly, diet soft drinks and artificial sweeteners are not the panacea to my anti-sugar woes.

So what’s the good news? Reading further into the fructose convert sweet poison forums, I’m realising I should become a bit more specific in my anti-sugar crusade – fructose being the evil substance it is, there *are* sugars that are more or less acceptable (though still keeping in mind a sensible calorie intake) such as straight glucose – obtainable in the form of dextrose. That said, I believe I’m doing myself no harm by cutting down on all sugar intake, not just fructose. Just got to get through the cravings and withdrawals!

Nothing sweet about me

2009-10-02T21:35:00.004+10:00

So blog here is making it to post #2! That's a mildly exciting and unexpected phenomenon!

I've blogged once or twice in the past, only to find that after an exciting or memorable event, the blog descends rapidly into the dreary drivel of the daily humdrum. (Near bonus points for alliterative dribble there!)

I’m prompted into a 2nd entry by the armchair research I’ve been conducting lately (from a desk chair no less) into the evils of sugar. And I have to say, I’m a convert! No more sugar for me!! Well, given that’s nigh on impossible, I’m avoiding all sugary products and obsessively checking nutritional labels for sugar content.

Naturally, like many others who start diets, I am boring anyone within earshot about the evils of sugar, specifically fructose. I joke, but it may not be long before you see me walking the streets with wearing a robe and sporting a “Sugar is the Devil!” placard.

I started ‘researching’ (I use the word lightly) the topic of sugar a couple of months back, after a friend and I were discussing the origins of various types of sugar – a discussion that arose from my introducing him to the wonderful world of brown sugar and lemon juice on pancakes (a world I have now sadly absented myself from for the foreseeable future). Neither of us were sure what distinguished brown sugar from white, from raw. So I did a little Wikipedia browsing. If you were wondering, brown sugar has more molasses residue left in it.

This slowly got me reading into sugar in general. I did have some vague knowledge that the US used corn for their sugar, where we used Cane Sugar. Well, they use Cane Sugar too, but also get a lot of their sugar from corn – namely corn syrup. But they also use a highly scary product called HFCS – High Fructose Corn Syrup. HFCS is corn syrup that has been modified by added enzymes to increase the fructose content, and then ‘watered’ down with glucose to become a mix of fructose and glucose syrup – averaging 42-55% fructose. Interestingly, as part of this reading, I learn Europe’s main source of sugar (Since the UK losing the US to pesky tea-dumpers) is Beets. Yup, I had to look them up, usually Beets conjures up an image of purple slices in a can usually only seen on hamburgers with the lot – but no, they’re a genuine source of sugar (a different type of beet to our golden circle purple pickled concoction).

Further internet trawling (I’m quite the long line net trawler. Get it? Net trawler... lawl) brought me to a spectacularly riveting segment from our very own ABC – Radio National.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2009/2621415.htm

I seriously suggest anyone who has ended up in the strange dead-end nook of the internet to read/listen to this segment. I will repress my urges to copy/paste here what I think is relevant from that piece, as I inevitably would breach some sort of copyright by pasting the whole damn thing.
The author involved, David Gillespie, has a blog, which provides further fascinating reading at http://www.raisin-hell.com/ - I expect I shall do some copyright-infringing pilfering from there on further posts.

Simon and Garfunkel

2009-06-27T18:27:00.000+10:00

The morning began like many others, awakened unfairly from my slumber far too soon, and in the darkness of pre-dawn, with the very real fear that I would soon be mopping up cat urine and spraying carpet cleaner. Never a fun task, it is even less so at 4am, in your underwear, on a freezingly cold winter’s night.

Mrrr-OWWW! Came the cry causing me to sit bolt upright. A plainitive, loud hailing of imminent doom that my cats are so proficient at issuing, that it can raise me from a death like slumber that would confuse the average pathologist.

Sadly, the sound is just as effective from outside my bedroom window, as from any current preferred patch of unstained urine – and though my fears of needing to hustle a cat out of the building faster than Elvis ever could proved unfounded, I still found myself getting up (in my underwear on a freezingly cold winter’s night) to let the darn cat in.

There went the rest of my peaceful night’s sleep, and I found the excitement that I had been suppressing for weeks coming to a slow boil – today was the day I would be seeing Simon and Garfunkel in concert! I try to keep a lid on any excitement prior to such magnificent events, partly out of a fear of vindictive Karma or Murphy’s Law – that will take delight in spoiling my fun through some terribly random happening, and partly because allowing myself to get into unbound raptures of excitement, has in the past caused phenomena best described as hell – migraines.

To the extent of warding off vindictive Karma, I have been following a usual diet (to avoid any unusual digestive occurrences), have been checking the coolant and oil in my car (though that’s part of an ongoing story) and mentally calculating alternate routes should something befoul my chariot on its way to Melbourne, thinking aloud at usually inopportune moments, “I wonder how much a taxi from Wallan to Melbourne would be? Although I suppose I could just taxi to Craigieburn, and then catch a train, but it depends on the timeframe.” Usually this is greeted with such blank looks, or worse concern and a subtle reaching for the phone, that I need to concentrate hard on the task at hand! I had also prepared for an optical disaster, finding my old pair of prescription glasses, and carefully stowing them in my overnight luggage, “just in case” – I suppose it unlikely that a random pigeon might swoop and pluck my spectacles from my nose, but I’ve met Murphy’s law before, and wanted to leave nothing to chance!

So, awake alert alive enthusiastic, or at least two of those, I was off to work at the grey suit time of 8:30. This wasn’t in the original plan, which was a much more relaxed day off, sleep until lunch type plan. This was put paid to by two agenda items – one, network cabling guru arriving at work this morning, and two, the opportunity to order some thirty-five thousand dollars worth of computers. Given neither shows up that often on my agenda, I grudgingly allowed that I would work the ante meridian portion of the day.

The guru came, and it was soon apparent the guru wished he was gone. Instead of doing rigorous testing as I had been promised, he repatched one point, diagnosed faults with the point, the patch panel and the patch leads. From this, he was gone, with a suggestion he return during the holidays to complete the work that needs doing. Without much of a choice, and celebrating the small victories, I reflected we have at least one previously kaput computer functioning today.

The order for computers turned out a little more difficult than the usual order. First I had to click on an invisible link. Yep. Sadly, I failed at that. I pleaded forgiveness from Dell, and it was only granted when I attached with my supplications a screenshot of said invisible link. The deity then decided it would be worth emailing me a visible link. That process completed, we are now the holders of fifty thousand dollars worth of credit with Dell. Think of the possibilities! However, the mundane tends to rule, and 37 desktop computers are now ordered and expected in two weeks time. I do confess to some slight excitement when writing such an order – it’s only allayed by the realisation that setting these machines up is a lot less glamorous than the idea.

The time has reached an unsatisfactory post meridian portion of the day by now, and I turn my thoughts to planning the night ahead. Given my initial lazy plan of half a day sleeping has by now turned into a bitter memory of what could have been, I decide the sensible and logical course of action is to find somewhere to stay in the city, as driving back after the concert seems eminently foolish – I am at least learning from prior mistakes, when such a journey late in the evening caused an addled brain to decide petrol was not a necessity, and found me stranded on a roadside – in the middle of empty country, and yet oddly equipped with a staggering number of bright sodium lights (I have since discovered a petrol station and an intersection have been built here, which explains what was a rather odd location at the time).

A visit to Wotif provides much amusement as I quickly scan through the available options. If you were unaware, Wotif is a website that provides ‘last minute’ deals for hotels – providing the hotels with an option to fill what would otherwise be empty rooms – at a discount of course. Sadly, my guess is as more and more people turn to Wotif, the rates quoted will return to the hotel’s usual rate. A few options appear, excluding the self rated establishments – I can choose from a self service apartment, or a standard room at a hotel I have been to before. The familiar wins, as I know there is on-site parking, relatively cheaply - $10. This is important for a self defined country dweller as myself – I seem to, having lived in the country for going on three years, lost all my previous city smarts – in terms of roads to travel, places to park a car, tram routes. So $89 plus booking fee later, I have a room at Parkview On the Lake – just outside the Melbourne CBD.

I set off from my small country town, the excitement again creeping up a notch or two. The drive is a fairly boring and monotonous one, I have chosen the slightly longer but smoother highway route, which delivers me two and a bit hours later into the underground carpark of the hotel. It’s not long before I realise that the cheap room rate was about as good as it would get, as I ticked the box for $25 worth of internet – I start to twitch before too long when my email supply is cut off. The car parking fee and some mini-bar purchases soon see my hotel expenditure climb to roughly double the room rate, but my attitude is one of what the hell, well aware that seeing Simon and Garfunkel will be a once in a (my!) lifetime opportunity. The last time they visited Australia was in 1983!

I consider myself an amateur photographer, and recently expanded my collection of camera lenses with the aid of some government tax rebates, designed to ‘stimulate’ the economy. Sadly it looked as though my camera would not be accompanying me into the concert – the entry conditions stipulated that professional cameras were not permitted – which raised the query in my mind, would security guard (clothed in fluorescent yellow) be wise enough in the way of cameras to distinguish between my definitely amateur K100D and an actual professional DSLR? I decided I would not risk it, all the more disappointing as my new 50mm lens would have been quite useful in the concert environment – 75mm film equivalent focal length, with a very fast f1.4 aperture. So rather glum at the prospect of no photos to walk away with, I ponder buying a suitable compact digital camera – one which would raise no questions as I walked through the doors. A quick check of online catalogues later, and I’m on a tram headed for Teds, with the aim of buying a Canon A480 on special for $164. Figuring I can buy ready to go batteries and a card, and be all set!

Teds however turned out to be rather disappointing, they had neither the Canon nor a similar Pentax also on special. Hindsight being such a wonderful tool, this is where I should have kept walking up the road to try elsewhere. But not to be, I was offered a FujiFilm 10 megapixel camera, for $200. First dilemma, this was not a camera that used AA batteries, instead relying on a rechargeable lithium battery – which while for ordinary use makes a lot of sense (the camera is much thinner than one needing AA batteries) was rather a problem for a concert goer like myself who wished it to be charged and ready there and then. The helpful sales assistant (no doubt pleased he had a sale at all) offered to charge the battery in store for an hour. A quick look at the watch and calculation of times (taking into account my near OCD need to arrive anywhere early) meant this feat would be possible, though I had an hour to kill in the city. Not such a hard thing to do!

After some wandering and sustenance gathering, and leaving disgruntled shop assistants cleaning up my drool in the Officeworks business machines department, I retrieved my camera battery and decided it was time to hitch a tram to the venue – Rod Laver Arena. Also following this plan were some eleventy thousand football fans and concert goers, so the tram ride gave me an appreciation for the suffering of canned sardines. Luckily however, for both myself and the other tram passengers, we were not covered in brine or olive oil (though more people could have squeezed onto the tram if we were).

As I arrived, the crowd outside was beginning to grow, these must have been others who share my penchant for arriving early! Doors opened a short time later, admitting us to the outer circle, a glittering display of merchandise shops, bars and food outlets, occurring every three feet, and entirely circling the inner arena. I walked a full circle, losing all sense of direction and not being helped by the merchandise stalls and bars, all exact copies of one another. Dark now, the outside world only gave scant clues as, with occasional glimpses of city lights. I stopped to look more closely at the merchandise offer, and spent $100 quicker than if I had held a match to it. Walking away, clutching my t-shirt and book, I concluded that concert merchandise is an excellent way to dispose of unneeded money. Actually, on second thoughts, my concert ticket itself at $363 had already done an excellent job.

Both book and t-shirt are excellent however, and I’m happy to have them both – the book is a hard cover compilation of all Paul Simon’s lyrics from 1964 to 2008. I stow these in my bag, then begin pacing around the large circuit – on one such loop checking my bag into the cloak room. With an hour and a quarter to kill before the show, I kept walking my circuitous route, watching the crowd grow larger and noting the wide age range of the audience – it was clearly not a blue rinse brigade, with quite an even age spread. Thinking that walking in a circle was surely far too much exercise, I negated the effects with a draught Heineken, served naturally in a plastic schooner. Finally, eventually, heart in my mouth, the doors opened, and we were ushered into the cavernous venue – my excitement level now stratospheric, my heart thumping.

I had known my seat was in the second row, but was not prepared for how AWESOME it was. It was among a handful of the best seats in the house, so close to the stage. I gaped at it, open mouthed, and checked and double checked the row and seat number... yep, this one was mine!!! Among the first in (naturally I had been at the door before they opened) I relaxed and watched the stadium slowly begin to fill, columns of ants streaming in through various openings into the cavern. I took a few photos of the empty stage, if only to remind me how close my seat was. As the time crept closer to the scheduled start time of 8:00pm, and NASA wondered what my excitement was doing in lower earth orbit, it was announced that due to football traffic grinding everything to a halt, they would postpone the start time by a few minutes. Groan!

Around ten past 8, the lights dimmed, and two “Old Friends” were introduced! A video montage was played on giant screens, photos of Simon and Garfunkel from the early 60’s. As this ended, to thunderous applause, Artie Garfunkel and Paul Simon walked on stage. In seconds, as they sang Old Friends, any notion I had of being disappointed flew out the window – this was genuine Simon and Garfunkel. Garfunkel’s voice has aged more so than Simon’s, it isn’t as strong, but he hits the right notes (almost always) but doesn’t have the reach he once did – some songs received slight changes to accommodate the older voices. Compared to the 2004 tour however, it was far truer to the original album arrangements. Songs like Homeward Bound, which Simon has often rearranged for live performances stayed largely true to the original, ‘I am a rock’ was changed slightly, but all in all, this was exactly what people had come to see – incredible, unbelievably awesome music – the power of hearing it live is something I’ll never forget.

Garfunkel performed the first solo songs, three of his own, including Bright Eyes. There was an anxious wait to see if he could reach the high notes, and he did, if not for as long as he used to! Garfunkel explained that in the last five years, he felt he had become a songwriter, but I wasn’t impressed by his song ‘A perfect moment’. Following Garfunkel’s three songs, Simon came on for his solo, firing up the band and the audience with ‘Me and Julio’, ‘Boy in the bubble’ and ‘Diamonds’. Sadly, he had rearranged Diamonds from the original Graceland album, and made it snappier without the long diamonds vocals we’re used to.

The two told some interesting stories, of how they met performing in the school play of Alice in Wonderland, a play of many lead roles. Simon confirming he began his career as a white rabbit, Garfunkel as the Cheshire Cat. Garfunkel introduced and sang Kathy’s song, what he considers the greatest love song of a generation. As time hurried on, the two began Bridge over troubled water, to rapturous applause and screaming from the crowd. I was particularly interested in how they would perform this live, as in recent years, Paul Simon has sung it solo quite successfully, whereas in decades past, it was purely Garfunkel’s song. In the end, they shared it, Garfunkel singing the first and final verse, Simon the second. There was jubilation and some relief when Garfunkel hit the high notes and carried it off superbly.

Standing ovations and continuous applause brought them back on for two encores, including one of the most famous Simon and Garfunkel songs, and the one that originally catapulted them to success – The Sound of Silence. They performed the original acoustic version, no backing band – pure classic Simon and Garfunkel, two singers alone on stage. The Boxer followed, and the crowd which had done an admirable job at not singing along, burst into life singing the ‘ li la li’ chorus.

Throughout, I had tried to use my newly acquired Fuji to take photos, but sadly this was a dismal failure. The cheapness of the Fuji shone through with its inability to take low light photos and reminding me of the early days of Kodak digital cameras, with its disappointing shutter lag. I took around sixty photos, and they will serve as mementoes rather than great photos.

As Simon and Garfunkel finished their last encore of Cecilia, and departed from the stage, it felt almost like returning to reality, a reverse déjà vu feeling of having never been somewhere before. I like many of the audience found ourselves smiling dazedly and reflecting on what had just happened.

As I floated up the stairs toward the exit, I turned and took a couple of photos of the now empty stage – time hurries on and the leaves that are green turn to brown.