sabbie_australia frAnk thank you dear sab, special agent, for your extensive consideration of my question, the judy small lyrics, the intimate look at brisbane, personal info from your childhood. i really appreciate your efforts. i saw libby yesterday at the ski school and sat down with her and said, "i have some questions about brissie." she lit up. it was so much fun because i had all of your info to draw from. i mentioned the "dodgy" pizza place, and she said with eyes narrowed, "does she mean fat louie's?" she's been there and i asked her what dodgy meant. "you don't want to be there too late at night, " she answered. i didn't know much about vegemite, maybe a little from a song way back, she's bringing some in, and the uluru was also new to me. she said people try to take pieces of the sacred aboriginal rock with them, but she didn't recommend it, because of the potential kharma harm involved. she lives 45 minutes from the gold coast and has been surfing since she was three. very cool, i thought, because when fyn, dennis and i were living in california and surfing, we had friends who made trips there. i asked her about the magpies and she said they are in season now and you have to be careful because they will attack you. and about the cockies in the trees, she laughed, knew them well. i asked her about the presence of goths in brisbane and she agreed. she didn't know what you meant by pvc. but above all, it was so much fun talking to her because these things, i could see were conjuring up delightful images behind smiling eyes and mouth. as if for this brief half hour she took a trip back home. and thanks to you that was made possible. please continue to add anything further. 020117 ... sabbie hey frAnkie thank you! im glad it was the kinda stuff you wanted. i had forgotten about magpies swooping! yeah, in spring when their eggs hatch the females sit on their nest and the males swoop anything that comes nearby and all the little kids ride around with big eyes drawn on the top of their huge helmets cos the maggies will only swoop if they think youre not watching. theres always television news items watching yellow.clothed posties on their little red motorbikes (so little their almost scooters) being swooped every spring. i was once walking to work (my sunday job at a hardware store) one fine spring day down the big grassy and tree.y bit in the middle of a main road where i lived and i got swooped from behind. i turned to shout at it and got divebombed by another maggie. everytime i turned i got swooped by another one. then, cos i hadnt brushed my hair before walking to work, one swooped me and got caught in my hair, so i had an angry maggie attatched to my head and im not sure who was the most panicked. im all for mother nature, but sometimes wildlife needs to be enjoyed from a distance. they make a big frghtening noise when they swoop you. my big brother had to have stitches in his head when he was little from a partcitulary nasty maggie. pvc- ive seen it referred to on english websites as plastic goths. vinyl? its very shiny and very plasticy and doesnt breath in any way and you get very very sweaty under it at nightclubs so wearing it during the day in brissie seems on the verge of madness. (on a little aside here i once had a rather small, rather plump goth come up to me at a club and strike up a conversation. she was tightly, tightly strapped into her corset and she was bulging out both ends and had on this really uncomfortable looking skirt on and she placed her hand to her forehead and said "we must suffer for our fashion darrrrrrrrrrling" and then tottered off in her stupidly high stillettos and i thought 'well, no, some of us dont feel the need to sweetheart' but i digress. more a window into sab that a window into aus) uluru was called ayrs rock by which ever arragant white person found it. people used to climb all over it. its very, very sacred to the aborigines. theres a cultural centre at the base where you can learn about some of the aboriginal culture and ways of life. hundreds of people go there still every day, some still climb it (theres a big chain embedded in the red rock like banisters to help people get up it) and some respect the wishes of the elders and not climb it. apparently you can buy two types of tshirts there: 'i climbed ululru' or 'i didnt climb uluru.' for those wishing to enter into the debate. several people a week die from trying to climb it - after all the other stuff, its still this insanly steep rock that unfit people think will be fun to climb. ive never been surfing, we used to go to the beach when we were little but that was a long long drive away. my friend who grew up near brissie said that the gold coast is frightening cos all its about is tourists and themeparks. she hated it. she said you had to find friendly locals to know the beaches that the tourits dont visit but still theyre jsut amazing. its funny, not being a surfer, to watch the dreamy way their eyes glaze over when they talk about the sea (not that you nessacerily have to tell libby _that_) the travel.to.queensland.its.really.good tourist slogan is (or used to be) 'beautiful one day, perfect the next' i actually dont know heaps about queensland. i know they have a big banana in coffs harbour (which sounds very exciting to a small child but you go and its a big hollow banana resting on its curve and you can walk through and read about banana harvesting and its not so exciting after all). we went to coffs harbour when i was very very little and my mum still has the postcard i sent her. it said BIG BANA COFFS HARBOR I LOVE and then there was no more room. theres a big prawn somewhere else in qld (do you get to walk through it too? i dont know)and a big pineapple somewhere else again. theres a big merino sheep in golbourne (near canberra in nsw) that has a resturatunt in it and everything and i often wonder if the souviners you can get from there are big poos. big things were all the rage there for a while in the 80s. i asked him jsut then something about aus and he said 'roads'. its so true. roads and roads and roads. drive 12 hours and still only cover two states. and the countryside that starts off a bit green and slowly fades to yellow the closer to the top you get. up the top end, they only have two seasons, wet and dry. it rains for 6 months, then doesnt for 6 months. its completly tropical weather there, yet down in tassie its freezing all year round, it being the closest thing to antartica. i shall ask my friend for more stuff if you would like more from brissie itself. her sisters are garrollous and would have a ball with this agent sabbie, signing off 020117 ... frAnk with the martin luther king hoilday in full swing, we've been super busy at the ski school, but i still had a small oppurtunity to chat a bit with libbie. i told her of a very, lovely friend of mine from australia who was planning a great surprise for her, although i intentionally didn't mention any details. because when i present them to her i know she will absolutely freak. it will be so amazing, the way she went on about them and all. i asked her about the helmets with the eyes painted on the top and she has seen that, agreeing wide-eyed, while not even blinking, as if to enforce the seriousness of the matter. that would be great if you could ask your friend and her sisters for further brisbane info, agent sabbie, i would love it. 020120 ... sabbie noone gunna get anything if i have nowhere to send it. "pls god, take this package up to heaven cos its been really good and we know a girl that needs it and then rain it down like manna on robin hill. thanks heaps." im pretty sure god doesnt own me that many favors anymore. little kids who dont have hemets end up wearing big white icecream containers on their heads tied with string through poked sissor holes with big eyes drawn on the top with permanat textas. how old is libby? an aquaintance at work said brissie people are extrodanily proud of the valley, which i gather is like a funky suburb or something, something else (damnit, i forget now. i will check that out) and expo. they had an expo in 88. i forget what it was for, but their still talking about it apparently. and the bicentenary was in 88. my primary school put out a special school jumper. instead of the usual brown we had yellow jumpers with a green logo and the fashion was to wear the brown school trakkies tucked into yellow socks and the yellow jumper. i was considered a dag as i had no yellow socks with which to follow the trend. if she is around 24 or 25, ask libby about 'secret valley'. it was a program about a load of kids who ran... erm, like a holiday destination or something, in a forrested valley. there were adventures to be had and bad guys to be thwarted every week. one of the girls at school 9who i think was a leader in the yellow sock thing) had an offical blue secret valley shirt cos her dad worked at the tv station where it was filmed. she was the envy of the school for a while. 020121 ... sabbie reading birman's blathe in sabbie i remembered the other way you can try to avoid a swooping incedent. they go for the highest thing they can, so if you hold a stick straight up in the air they swoop the end of the stick and not you. but then everyone laughs at you for walking along with a stick above your head. laugh on the other sides of your faces you bastards, all safe in your cars. i hope you get eaten by maruding bandicoots and punk bilbys. rar. 020121 what's it to you? who go blather from