shocking developments in anglo-franco lexicon!

well i mostly seem to talk about french and snow ... yep ... so here's more of it ... i was quite shocked to discover today that "mmhhmmm" has no translation into french ... you know that up-and-downy sound you make in place of the words "i don't know" as you shrug your shoulders ... how could something so naturally simple and obvious not translate!!! the stupid wheather has been bouncing about between plus something and minus something ... so instead of making snow or rain ... it makes craploads of ice! (stay tuned for stacks entry after today's walk to and from school) how is everybody? kate was your dancing talent adequate? wayne is kate's dancing talent adequate? jaan what bbc stuff have you seen? becky where is your next voyage to? peter and trudy (ha ha ha - you are now forever considered as one!) how's the married life? alice i'm lacking info for my alley journal ... i'm waiting for this week when i find out if i got some money from SAYAB to help me pay for uni - so some prayers/happy thoughts/threats of violence upon SAYAB employees would be most appreciated i don't know who else was searching the blogs for adelaide stuff, so this may be old news, but here is a great site that reminds me of home and has some great pics http://alleywaysandsidestreets.blogspot.com/ living a merry old life in canadia, love, love, love benny, benni, ben-E P.S. what's everyone doing for Christmas ... who is where? ... this will be my first away from home ... i think ... well with snow anyway ... P.P.S. why on earth did I P.S. on a blog!?! that's even worse than in an email! P.P.S. in regards to the previous post script .... now that's just getting silly

Stacks Blog

i see alice totally ignored my change of blog theme to white stuff ... and got all selfish and travelly on us ... so i'm changing it again ... people falling over ... it's way funnier than white ... who likes white anyway ... the ice was covered by snow all of today so i had to develop my "snow-step" and quickly forgot my "ice-step" and slipped on my arse in the middle of the street all by myself ... no body laughed at me ... what is wrong with people? .... they just don't know what's funny and what's not! i got lost for an hour in the whiteness today when i got off at an unusal metro stop then followed the street south instead of north the snow has turned to brown mush on the sidewalks so there goes the white snow thing anyway please post the most recent stacks you've had ... love benny p.s. alice - i'm such a sarcastic bastard - i apologize - great to hear from you - look forward to hearing of thailandish adventures and the eight short days leading up to them.

up up and away

only 9 days and i get to jet set like everyone cooler than me! wow! i can be part of the cool club! so yeah. hello sky. fun fun. and singapore airlines have those little tv screens in the backs of chairs with the game boys and stuff, so i wont have to miss out on my tetris whil eim in the air. phew! how could i go 6 hours without my tetris!!! shock. horror. ok, so does everyone agree that jaan should shave off his beard? ok good. no... jaan... just kidding. you look good however you are. even with the weird 3 coloured beard. so scruffy! so cute! ben. make films peter. you're totlaly the office now. are you tim or gareth? its gareth isnt it...? haha! trudes - you're looking so good! how is life in the cold and cold and colder? is it march that you and pete are returning? we have to totally go for a "holiday" whie you're back here! so much fun. even if its just a weekend it will be soemthing relaxing to do! yay! kate. you go so soon too! look at us alll! so fly-y and plane-y and other country-y! you'll love the canada. not that i would know personally... cough cough... but yeah. we must do lunch darling before we part. or even when we get back... or both! o-lay! becky - sounds like you're having a good time in london! fast pace is good and bad i feel. but hey. each to their own. good cos it makes one go faster and bad cos it makes one go faster! haha! how was seeing jaan? give him a big fat hg for me? thats my girl! its good to see you've found your footing in london. its a uge place and can easily be daunting and poo, but you seem happy and grounded. good to see my sweetness! jaan. you are a poo. and i love you lots ok. enough from me. i will totally see everyone with sun in my eyes. woot woot thailand! love love love

White Winter Blog

Official name change everyone! The blog is now about winter and snow and whiteness. Today I walked 45 minutes to school on ice, you develop the "ice step", as i like to call it since two seconds ago, pretty quickly ... but when you hit a patch of dry concrete its like stepping off of a travelator and you look like a bit of a dick head. Winter is going to be great ... people stacking it everywhere ... a guy in front of me had a little slip ... nothing at all dangerous but just a little twitch that made me giggle my ass off when i realised that everyone is going to be slapsticking it all winter. I like to read when I walk - so that makes it all the more challenging, and surely comical when i hit the pavement - almost got hit by a car crossing the lights - will have to pause the nerdosity even if the little man says walk ... you can't trust those guys. I've finally seen my first snowfall (although I'm assured by locals that it was crap) ... snow moves very strangely, like nothing i've seen before ... except maybe ashes. The wind blows from one direction and snow sticks to the sides of trees - it looks like some weird reverse white shadow stuck to the object. Now it's gotten colder it's impossible to see anyone's faces since they're so rugged up - so the people who you never really notice on the street are now harder to notice. I was also rugged up on my hike to school and I learnt a new thing ... when you get a wedgie ten minutes into a forty five minute walk you realise what a pain in the arse (ho ho) layers of clothing and mittens are. Well that's that for the winter update ... you thought I was joking didn't you?

Back in London

Yes, it has been a while. Even after a week, I still think Edinburgh was so amazing I still haven't got sick of reminiscing about it. So much so that I actually got another ticket to go there this weekend. Woot! Really looking forward to that. But now I've almost got the problem of not having enough time in London to do all the things I want, which is quite a change from originally hating the place. Don't get me wrong, I still don't really like it here, but I finally had some ideas to do some stuff and now I might not be able to do all of it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me briefly recap what's been going on the last week or so... I got back from Edinburgh and stayed at Peter and Trudy's for one night before moving my bag to Becky's for the next 5 days. She lives in a very nice place in Hammersmith with some other lovely girls. So staying there was quite nice. The couch was extremely comfy! While there we spent a couple nights out on the town, getting late Italian dinner and wandering the streets. We also went to a birthday/going away party for one of Becky's friends that was definitely the highlight of my time over there. The bar was quite trendy, with pictures of trees in frames. Classy. The music started off with boring dance stuff, but before we knew it we had Bon Jovi and Guns 'N Roses blaring through the speakers! Just awesome! So as you can imagine there was dorky dancing a plenty to be had by me and Pete. And last night, actually, not last night, but my last night there, we went to a Thai place for dinner near her house, and man, it was friggen fantastic. The best Thai food I've had since I can remember. But I'm sure I'll be treated to something of equal niceness when I actually go there in a couple of weeks. Only 12 days to go! Oooh yeah baby! So yes, back at Pete and Trudys. As comfy as the couch was, it's nice to have a bed again. But back to what I was saying at the start. My time here is going to be really busy now. Today is actually not going to be so hectic. I'm going to Becky's tonight to interview her, as well as get my diggie camera which I left there. So quite relaxing really. Then tomorrow I'm going to try and get some shopping done, maybe in Camden Markets again, and then have curry with Becky and a work friend of hers at Brickworks, which should be quite nice. Then on Thursday I've got the Jonathan Ross rehearsal run through, where I'll be treated to the behind the scenes stuff. Friday morning I leave for Edinburgh for the weekend. Come back Tuesday morning, Then on Wednesday night I have the Mars Volta concert. Thursday I'm going to hopefully get together with a German cf friend of mine who is coming to London for a bit. Then I leave on Saturday. Phew! See? From bitching about not having anything to do for ages to having so much in so little time, it's a bit annoying. Oh well, whatevs. The only other thing worthy of note, well, it's not that worthy, but I want to mention it anyway, is that it's friggen cold here now. We've been having day highs of about 5 or so, and the frost in the morning is hanging around in some areas until lunch time. It's been completely clear and sunny days, which is quite nice to be out in, except for the fact that it makes it that much colder. They say there could even be snow on Friday. Now that's cold. It would be great to see some snow though. All this cold thought has really got me hanging out for some sun (warm sun) and the beach. Where am I going to get that?? Hey, wait a minute, I'm going to Thailand. Yeah, that'll do. Health is going pretty nicely. Not too much change there. I've finished the Cipro, so it's back to just phyiso and general looking after myself. But so far nothing too bad has happened, which is very nice. Except for the polyps in my nose (basically a pea size growth that grows in the sinuses - quite common in cf). It's in my left nostril at the moment, and completely blocks the airflow there. However, I've discovered when I lie down on my right side, it miraculously clears up. So at least there is a remedy for the time being. I just have to walk around with my head cocked at a 90 degree angle. Not too bad... I'm going to get Alice to bring my nose spray to Thailand so I can try and control the growth of it there. But I'm thinking the most it will do is slow down the growth, not acutally get rid of it, and eventually I'll need to get them removed again. The only way is surgery, and it involves a general anesthetic. Now, normally that doesn't cause too much trouble. But I've had polyps removed at least 10 times, which means at least 10 anesthetics, and they really aren't the best thing for you (anesthetics). Especially if you have a lung condition. On average it takes me about 10 months to get over a general anesthetic - for my lung function to return to normal. So as you can see, I'm not that keen on getting another one since the last one I had was only a couple of years ago. But we'll just have to wait and see how that progresses... So that's about all I think. Hope everyone is well, and I'll try and be a bit more frequent with the updates.

Hey Hey, how is everyone?

haven't posted for quite some time ... but that's because i'm doing nothing but going to school eight hours a day five days a week and living on twenty bucks a week ... not much time for anything interesting (school is interesting but i'm not going to start writing down my lecture notes) ... i also get the impression that very few people are reading this thing (only the people that write on it ... which are fewer and fewer) waa waa full stop. just thought i'd write to tell everyone that after three months of film festivals ... i finally got to go to one! it was a short film fest with some absolutely amaaaazing stuff ... i managed to find a link to my favourite www.735am.com other than that ... back to school it snowed for a day then returned to a scorching 5 degrees - will update on the wheather when it gets whiter. how is everyone out there? it's not a rhetorical question ... you can answer by clicking on the comment button and let us all know how life is love to you all

Black pudding, haggis and whiskey - Hello Edinburgh! - Updated

Well, after looking forward to going to Scotland all week, I'm glad to say that I wasn't disappointed. Man, that place rocks! So much so, that I'm hoping to get there again before I leave the UK. But let's get back to the story... So on Thursday night I hopped on the sleeper train for Edinburgh at 11:30pm. I managed to get two seats to myself so I could squeeze into an uncomfortable sleeping position. I arrived on a crisp morning, without any rain or drizzle. so I was quite pleased with that. I was meeting Tamara at a cafe at 9:45, so I walked around the city for a few hours to pass the time. I was just so impressed with the buildings and everything there. Such an awesome looking city. After waiting around for Tamara to meet me, we went for a walk about and went back to her place. A very nice apartment next to some parklands. For dinner, I was treated to the fine food of haggis. Man, that stuff is good! It's kinda like a really salty mince meat. Kinda. Not really, but it's all I can think of to compare it to. Anyway, mix it with mash potato and gravy, and it's one fine feed! Anyway, so after that we went to a pub and I got to meet some of her friends and we stayed there until the wee hours of the morning. Saturday was spent sleeping in till 2pm, hanging around the house and then catching the bus to Glasgow for the night. Again, I got to meet some of Tam's friends, who were nice enough to let me crash there for the night. We went to a pub to start the night off, then went to a kidna dingy social club for some dancing. It was really funny - when we arrived there was a band playing. Now, I hear you all laughing, but hold on to your hats. I haven't even got to the funny part yet. They were quite young - prob no older than early 20's. It was kinda crap British punk rock, complete with tone deaf singer. It was really funny - here were these kids rocking their hearts out, sounding quite averagely, and the audience was a mix of old people, young people and middle age people sitting at tables talking to each other. I don't know if I'm managing to get across this image, but suffice to say it made me giggle. After the band finished, a DJ started pumping out tunes from the 80's and 90's. It was a lot of fun. Lots of dancing. Not by me though - not because I'm too cool for such an activity. Far from it. I just wasn't really in the mood. Yep, that's it. Pretty exciting hey? Yeah, anyway... The next morning we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and went for a walk in the park. Had a nice breakfast/lunch, and hopped on the bus back home to Edinburgh. While on the bus, Tam got a call from her friend saying that I had left something there. Then it hit me - my stupid neb. Ah dear, how appropriate. Jaan forgets something else. Then when we got off the bus, I realised I left my beanie on board. Just so typical... The neb was organised to be shipped to London by today, but it still hasn't arrived yet, so I don't know what's going on there... hopefully soon it will come. So yesterday, since it was a Monday, I had the day to myself to explore some more of the city of Edinburgh. I walked around the old city for a couple of hours, then decided to do a spot of shopping and go up to the castle. It has a pretty impressive view of the city from up there. So I managed to get some filming done, and did some exercise in the process. The night was finished off with a fine stir fry, then a quick run out the door to the taxi to get me to the train station. I need a shower so this next part is going to be brief. The train was delayed for about 20 mins, since my carriage didn't have any electricity for some reason. We started off for London in pitch black, except for the glow sticks used along the aisle. But then the train stopped in the middle of nowhere and we were told to make our way up the train. I was quite tired and grumpy, but then my mood lightened up suddenly when I was shown to my own private sleeper room. How cool is that?? We got to have a bed each. As we were walking through the dining cart people were getting really shitty that we were getting sleepers. He he, suckers. So I had a nice sleep on the train, got to rainy London at 7am, and managed to find my way to Peter and Trudy's after much running around London Bridge station getting lost. Lots of fun. As I said at the start, I loved Edinburgh so much that I'm trying to get there again before I leave England. Maybe next weekend... but until then I've also got the Mars Volta on the 29th, so that should be alright. But for now, I'm off to have a shower, relax and do some physio. Considering I haven't had any nebs for a couple of days and I've finished my course of Cipro, I'm not feeling too bad but I have a feeling that I'll need to keep on top of things so make sure I don't get any sicker. But so far not too bad. Not as good as I was a week ago, but no where near as bad as I was when I first arrived in London. Woot! I also have a new goal for my remaining time in London - to try and get to as many free things as possible, which includes lots of BBC shows, like Countdown and various radio shows. It will pass the time and could be entertaining... It should be mentioned that I didn't actually try any black pudding or whiskey, but since they are associated with Scotland, I thought it would make for a nice title for the entry... Yes, this is updated. You read correctly. Just thought you should all know that this morning at a bright and early 10:30am the postie came past and delivered my nicely packed neb! So none of you have to worry anymore about me not being able to breathe in the goodness of tobrimycin and pulmozyme!

A bit of something exciting to report...

I guess you're all wondering "what's this guy on about?". Well, I'll tell you. Last night, Pete and I had the privilege of going to a recording of Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (thanks Ange and Karen!), who is basically England's version of Rove, but he's actually funny. Well, it started with me having to find my own way to the BBC studio's as Pete was working, so that was a bit of a journey in itself. I had to catch a train, then two tubes to get there. I won't excite you all with the details as I think you just may wet your pantaloons, but suffice to say it was exhilarating! Anyway, we got there, got our tickets and made our way to the green room for pre-show drinks. That was a bit of alright. Then we got shown to the studio and got our seats. Pretty good ones too - only about 4 rows back and centre. Now I had no idea who was going to be on the show, but from guests he's had in the past, I was quietly confident that there would be at least SOMEONE that we would have been excited to see. And boy was I right! First up, there was Shane Ritchie, who is an actor here in a soapie. Nothing to complain about. Then came Jimmy Carr, who is a British comedian for those who don't know. Quite a funny guy. Then came the two biggest guests of the night, Cameron Diaz and our very own Toni Collette, who were there promoting their new movie which the title escapes me. I have to admit that I was a bit star struck. Ah, what the hell - I was in the same room, only about 10 metres away from some very famous people! Woot! Alright, now that's out of my system, on with the story. They were really funny to watch, and the interview was quite laid back. Jonathan Ross somehow got on to them talking about how they can burp really well, and halfway through the interview got them to start drinking champagne to try and help those burps out. So by the end they were quite on their way to getting pised, which was very funny for all! They were on for at least half an hour, pretty much just chatting away. It was very cool. Then to finish the night off Green Day treated us to one of their numbers. Now, while I'm only a Green Day fan of old, I'll admit that they played very well and by about halfway through the song, my feet were a tappin'. But yeah, enough of me trying to be a tv critic. It was just damn fun alright?? Get off my case! So again, since we were production guests, we got to go to the green room for post-show drinks. Only Jimmy Carr came in to talk with some people, but that was alright. I didn't really expect the others to come wandering in. But Pete and I got a chance to talk to Karen, who's a producer on the show (she's the one who got us tickets). She was such a lovely lady, and even gave me 4 bottles of beer and a bottle of wine to take home with me. She also said to me that I could come back to the studio to have a look behind the scenes while they do a rehearsal run, which would be friggen awesome! Watching the show really got me thinking that I would love to be involved in something like that. So at the moment I've got a new goal in life to work on a tv show. Movies are fun, but this just looked much more like my cup of tea. But knowing me, this is probably just another fad I'm going through. The only bad thing about the night was that there was absolutely NO photography of any kind. Otherwise I would have gone mad. I was quite tempted though to bring out the diggie and switch it to video... So yes, we ended up getting out of the studio around midnight, caught the tube to Chinatown and got some dinner. Then I realised on the way home I managed to lose Pete's keys, so once again typical hopeless Jaan has made an appearance. But we got home, went to bed, and today I spent doing my washing and watching tv. Hmm, that was quite a anti-climax. Who cares... So health is still going good. I've just about finished my course of Cipro, so I'm hoping I'll keep good once I'm off them. I'm going to Scotland tomorrow night, so looking forward to spending the weekend there and catching up with Tamara, a wicked girl I met in Montreal during the Kino Kabaret. So yes, that's all from me for now. I think that's quite long enough anyway...

Another update from London

at picadilly
Originally uploaded by jaanus83.

Believe it or not, but I've actually been doing some stuff (all the credit go to Pete and Truds for getting me out of the house), so I thought I would let you all know about it. Yesterday I was treated to a... well, a treat. You see, at the same time every night, without fail, there is the ceremony of the keys, which is where they lock up the place where the Crown Jewels are kept. So at 10 o'clock every night, they go through the same ceremony as they have been for the last 400 or so years. It's pretty impressive. And to make the night even more perfect, there were fireworks going off all over the place because it's Guy Forks night, which is a celebration of a guy kinda like the English Ned Kelly. So every year its celebrated by blowing lots of shit up. Heaps of fun! So imagine being in the castle, watching these guards in ye olde clothes and what-not passing the keys and locking up the huge doors, and hearing all this explosions and bangs. It really felt like it was back in war times. Very cool.

So yes, we did that. Then today we went to Hampden Court to have a walk and look around. Now, this being my first palace, I was quite impressed. I'm sure there are many more impressive ones, but I loved it. I'm also sure after seeing a few they will all lose their novelty, but for the moment, it's pretty cool stuff. So hopped on a train, drove there, walked around for a while, then came home. Wow, that sounded much dumber than I thought in my head. Anyway, I put a couple of photos up from today and when I went to that circus place.

I guess the only other thing worthy of mention is that I'm still improving in health, which I can't tell you how happy I am. However, today was a bit crapper, as I had a late night last night, and I haven't done too much physio the last couple of days. My bad. But I promise I will get back on top of it this week. So yes, lungs are getting much better and I'm not feeling nearly as crap as I was before.

The weather is also starting to get a bit colder now as well. Today was filled with clouds and drizzle. Not the most happy weather, but I guess it's what to expect from London. I'm still trying to figure out the cheapest way to get to Edinburgh, it may have to be a combination of bus and train. I don't know why I just said that, but I'm too lazy to delete it (and I am aware of the irony of it taking me more effort to type all that out rather than delete it, so don't point that out to me!).

Pommy land

someone's cathedral
Originally uploaded by jaanus83.

Hey all,

How ya all been? Well I'm coming to you live from London, England. I haven't been doing a whole lot since arriving, but I will let you all know what that nothing has been since it's been a while.

My last day in Toronto was pretty cool. I went to the Human Body exhibition at the Toronto Science Centre. It's an exhibition where there are all these models of people's insides that have been made with real organs from dead people. Pretty impressive stuff! So there are all these manaquins that are made from real people: some sliced up, some stripped back to muscles, some with nothing but bones. Very interesting. So I had to leave there at 3 to make sure I could get to the airport by 6 or so. Man it sucks living in a big city - so much organising for things like flying. Nothing like lil' ol' Adelaide! Oh, how I miss that place...

Anyway, so I got to the airport, and to my surprise I wasn't allowed to check in with the luggage I had. Apparantly my suitcase that had all my meds in it was too heavy. So I had to try and repack all my stuff so that the suitcase was reduced to 6kg from 12kg. I took out all of my books as well as everything else that was in the suitcase apart from the meds. It still came to over 8kg, and I was starting to stress. But luckily the lady said that would be alright and let me on. Only thing is that Paul had to take home a huge collection of books and crap which he'll have to post me. So annoying.

So then the plane was delayed - more fun. But finally we left and were on our way to London. It was only a 6 and a half hour flight, so not too long. However, it was one of the crappiest flights. Not turbulent or anything like that, but the air condition really affected me something chronic. My throat was so dry, as was my nose, even though I was drinking like a fish. Was quite uncomfortable. And I've come to another conclusion - I can NOT sleep on planes, no matter how tired I am. I was watching tv on there, was falling asleep, but then as soon as I actually tried sleeping, I was just stuck in this semi-conscious state where I was aware of my surroundings but felt totally out of it.

Finally landed - now for the next hassle. Because I didn't have Peter's address, no proof of how much money I had in the bank, and couldn't convince the customs people that I just wanted to travel around here for about a month, I was held back in customs for about 2 hours trying to get checked in. They had to go through ALL of my luggage, which meant unpacking my gear that took me half an hour to pack in Toronto airport, then for them to just say "Yeah, that's alright." Oooh, so annoying! But eventually I got through and met Peter with a very pissed off look (I had the look, Peter just laughed).

This is where it kinda gets boring, so I'll be quick. Went back to his place, went on a train to see some of the city, including some palace, some cathedral, some square, some grass, etc etc. Since then I've spent most of my days in front of the tv watching either Chappelle's Show, Family Guy, Simpsons, Extras (a new show by The Office guys) and entire seasons of Scrubs. VERY fun! And I think because of it my health is getting quite better. My cough has certainly dried up a bit, and I don't feel so sick on the inside. But still a bit of a way to go...

The weather here also is heaps warmer than Canada. Man, that place was cold! I couldn't believe it! But anyway, things here are alright. It's cool to see London after hearing and seeing so much about it on tv and movies and stuff, but I don't really think it's my kinda city. I think because I knew nothing about Canada, it was all so new that I just loved every minute of it. Whereas here, especially since I'm staying with more friends, it's reminding me more of home and making me miss it even more. That's alright though.

I have conformation that I have a bed in Scotland, so I'll be sure to take that up sometime soon, as well as catching up with Becky, a friend who moved over here quite a few months ago. But apart from that, I don't think I have too much planned.

I have a few more pics, but not many as I haven't had a chance to reduce the size. That may not happen until I get home... so you guys will just have to wait.