Here comes summer...

Sydney is experienceing a mini-heatwave at the moment, with temperatures hitting 37 degrees at lunchtime today.
Subsequently, I've been to the beach twice in 24 hours.
I've not been to a beach in Sydney for almost 18 months - a combination of figure envy and work fatigue - but David introduced me to Maroubra beach in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, and I am hooked.
Don't get me wrong, Bondi, Coogee and Manly are great, but are over-run with Poms (!) and lager-louts. Race-riots aside, Maroubra seems 20 years behind the bigger Sydney beaches in terms of development, and I'm now re-focusing my property search in that area.
A Pom by birth, it seems almost criminal to live in Australia and not be by the sea.

Home is where the heart is...

I've just completed my first week back at work. And I'm sure its no great surprise to everyone that I'm desperately seeking a new job. After two years at the Tele online, I feel in need of a new challenge. After all, after I won the News Ltd Online Journo award for 2005 there really is nowhere else to go in my current role.

However, I've accepted that I'm going to be in this job for the forseable future, so am pondering when is an appropriate time-period to ask for a month off - having just had 14 weeks off.

I'm desperate to return to the UK and Spain to see my Dad, sis, Ruick, niece and brother. Oh for the plane that takes two hours :-)
I'm considering going over for all of June 2007, mortgage savings permitted. June would mean I'd be there for my birthday, my mum's birthday and Fathers Day which are on the same day, and Charlotte's birthday the following day.

So if anyone has any suggestions about when it would be appropriate to submit a leave form (I already have the leave accrued), drop me a line...

Paperback (and hardback) writer...

My book is out. I've seen it, held it and read it. I can't believe it. I'm chuffed!

Terrorism revisited...

I remember exactly where I was when I heard about the Twin Towers being hit in New York on September 11th 2001. I was in a beach bar in Spain, having just walked four kms from my parents' place, and watched the incredible images unfold on Sky News. I know I rang my office in London (I was senior editor of a news and entertainment portal in London) and then my parents, but I don't remember now if I realised then what a monumental change the world had undergone in the split second the first plane hit Tower Number 1.
Five years on, and Oliver Stone has brought out his much malined movie World Trade Center, revisting the attrocities that affected the US and undobteldy changed the world forever.
World Trade Center is an amazing movie. It is harrowing, horiffic and, well, you know it isn't going to end with the usual Hollywood schmaltz.
What amazed me was my own reaction to the movie - I was in tears throughout, almost as if I was seeing the drama unfold for the very first time. Certainly my fellow cinema-goers were equally disturbed by what they saw, and it was a very solemn crowd that left the theatre after the credits.
It's certainly worth a look - if you get past Nicholas Cage's ridiculously annoying moustache.