Vive la France

What can I say? It's been a bit of a hectic couple of weeks as we've moved out of our house and ultimately left the great land down under. We arrived in France yesterday and picked up our little Kelpie (iconic Australian dog) from the pet transport company - thanks to Swissport Import and Eric over there - brilliant people. 

There are a few things that have immediately hit me as I settle back in to European life, and here's a sample

1) Oh my God its f***ing cold!

2) It feels like Christmas here, the weather, the decorations

3) People are a lot nicer than I remember

4) The TGV and Eurostar is the best train experience ever

5) Central heating rocks 

But, as it all starts coming back to me, as I watch BBC breakfast News (eat your heart out Kochie) and I hear about all the news from this great continent of hours, well....it feels great to be back.

Normal service will resume soon, Tinternet Treats, Video of the week and my usual observations on all things digital.  Off to London for some interviews and meetings today, so if anyone fancies meeting up, ping me!

 

Throwing one last shrimp on the barbie

Less than a week until I leave the Harbour City and as I mentioned in my previous post, I have complied a list of all the things I’ll miss and the tings that I won’t. I have to ay that if I didn’t limited the lists to 10 each, then the “miss” one would have been much longer, while I struggled to finish the “won’t miss” list. At the end of the day, Australia has been very good to me and my family and I have experienced so much in the three and a half years I’ve lived here. Hell, if Australia was just next to Europe I’d probably never leave.

Miss
1) Mateship – you can meet a bloke in a bar and the next minute he’ll invite you to stay at his beach house over the weekend and enjoy a few cold ones and a bit of fishing
2) A spade is a spade – they don’t mess around, it is what it is!
3) The weather and the surf – They’ve got more beaches than you can poke a stick at
4) Thongs (flip-flops) – the are listed on the “appropriate attire” list for flying on Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Air Services)
5) Stubby holders – someone was thinking when they invented that
6) The open road – jump in your car and head out of the Sydney and you get to see some of the most beautiful country on God’s green earth
7) Get up and go – There’s no sitting on your ass in this country!
8) The Harbour Bridge – one of the most amazing structures I have ever seen, I still get goosebumps when I go over it
9) She’ll be right – There’s still a bit of the Wild West out here, so you might just have to make do with a few things
10) Pride – I have never met an Aussie that isn’t proud of their country

Won’t miss
1) TV – Get foxtel or die, the TV here is damn awful
2) David Koch – hands down the most annoying man ever to grace a TV set
3) Baby names – everything gets a “baby name” here – breakie, Chrissy and so on – we’re not 5 years old you know
4) Both barrels but no back-up – it’s not uncommon for an Aussie to give you a piece of their mind and then scamper off before you’ve had time to retort
5) AFL – what is the point
6) The Australian Cricket team – hands down the most arrogant sportspeople on the planet…I’d have gone fishing too if I was Andrew Symonds
7) News – If it doesn’t happen in Australia, it doesn’t get covered – we live in a little place called Earth people!
8) Christmas – it’s just not the same in 30 degree heat
9) Distance – it’s a long way to anywhere else
10) Water shortages – I cleaned my car 3 times in the entire time I had it

So, my fair Australia, here’s to you and yours and all the fun I’ve had, the beers I’ve drank and the mates I’ve made.

The Book beats the Space in Aus

Alright - so I'm a bit late posting on this.  But the news is that it's all about the book and not the space.  What I mean is that Aussies prefer Facebook to MySpace, at least that's what a new survey commissioned by B&T says.  According to the results, 23 per cent of respondents favored Facebook compared to just 11.5 per cent for MySpace, while YouTube came in with 11.5 per cent and Bebo at 2.6 per cent.  Perhaps the more interesting figure from the study is that over 40 per cent of respondents stated that they didn't visit any social networking sites - which basically means there's a hell of a lot of room for growth.  

My Take - Facebook has struck a chord with users offering them a unique blend of functionality, flexibility, privacy and....fun. Build it and they will come, put on a party, and they'll stay.