australian rozie

There is a competition in Grazia magazine to be a blogger for 30 Days of Fashion & Beauty in September. You need to write 300-350 words in the style of a gossip blog. So I did. The magazine (the printed paper version) says to enter, log on to grazia.com.au to submit your entry. What sucks is that I can’t seem to find anywhere on their website to enter the comp - in fact they don’t even mention this on their competitions page. What gives? Such a shame the competition closes at 11:59pm AEST on August 17. I can’t even ring up or email anyone to find out more. AND, their isn’t even any Contact Us details on the Grazia website. AND it’s part of ninemsn which Dave advises me, sucks. Anyway, here is my entry:
On a cold and bitter Wednesday night, Honka Princess and I (Australian Rozie) ventured down to the Rosemount Sydney Fashion Festival for Review Show #1. Firstly we went up to the MLC Centre for pre-show drinks in the Rosemount VIP Wine Bar. We were greeted by very friendly staff who gave us a bag that included MAC make-up and a bottle of wine. We tried to get our hands on as much free food as possible, but sadly the waitress just passed us by, surely they knew we weren’t models and we wanted to eat. Just to make sure that A-listers’ shit don’t stink, they had Jo Malone candles in the ladies toilets!
We headed into the big marquee in the middle of Martin Place for the show. Luckily, I bumped into my brother who had spare tickets. His seats were much better than the ones we had, so we took them. Honka Princess went around to grab the goodie bags that were on the seats we didn’t take, she ended up with three bags - always the frugal princess. We ended up sitting right at the end of the runway, just in front of the the photographers, in the second row behind Simon Lock’s shiny head. The show featured Australian designers such as Alex Perry, Camilla, Easton Pearson, Lisa Ho and Hotel Bondi Swim. The models didn’t smile much. I don’t know why they didn’t look happy, if I had a body like that I’d be laughing. The clothes in the parade covered everything from cocktail dresses to bikini’s. The music was quite terrible, there was a Blondie track (how predictable), some of the mixing was really messy and they played a god-awful electro-clashy song that used the lyrics of Careless Whisper. Could do better! Before we knew it, the show was over and everyone was filing out. I saw the always perky, Catriona Rowntree and the Director of the MCA, Elizabeth Ann Macgregor (please, you’ve got to lose the tartan, even Isabella Blow changed her hats).

Dave said it was a bit negative, but I was just being a bitchy gossip girl.
You can see some more photos of the night here

Pivot @ the Oxford Art Factory

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie

Supported by Kirin J Callinan - he was different, unusual. I actually found him to be quite entertaining, though it felt like he and his band may have not had many gigs before, if you know what I mean. It was kind of a cross between Boy George, Joy Division, Placebo and I don’t know what. I found it amusing when he couldn’t get the guitar strap on properly just before he needed to play a song and he screamed into the mic “freakin strap” or something like that. Dave said that it reminded him of a scene in 24 Hour Party People where the Hacienda has just opened and they have booked these odd avant garde indie bands to play but there are hardly any people attending.
Next up were Fabulous Diamonds - they were OK, sometimes the vocalist sounded a bit like Sinead O’Connor lite which wasn’t bad. The music was instrumental (keyboards and drums) and minimal. Wasn’t really paying attention at this stage as the room was filling up and getting crowded.
Finally Pivot came on (I’ve seen them about 4 times which is quite an effort for me - it must mean I like them a lot). They played mostly new stuff which was quite interesting. They seem to have got into a psychedelic, electronic with guitars style (sorry Matt, I am terrible at describing music). My favourite band member - the one who holds his guitar like Sting, now does some vocals as well. It was more like primal screaming with fx over it. I really like their podcast which seems like a mood board for their new album ‘O Soundtrack My Heart’. You can check it out here: http://www.pivotpivot.net/ Honka Princess came along too but she had a nap near the end.

I can’t believe Baz Luhrmann and Hugh Jackman were doing some filming for Australia at Moore Park yesterday (right up the road from home) and I didn’t know about it! For some reason, I am obsessed with seeing Hugh Jackman in Sydney. I don’t actually think he’s that hot, I just want to see him. I read in the Sun Herald that someone said that Hugh Jackman saved their life, because if he wasn’t sitting in Bill’s (cafe) on Crown Street, she wouldn’t have driven around twice to look at him, therefore missing a car crash further up the road that she may have been in, if, she hadn’t have needed to drive by again. So there.

I think I saw Steve Toltz out the front of a cafe on Crown Street yesterday. You know sometimes you see someone “famous” and you want to talk to them, but then you think, they’ll probably think you’re an idiot and you’re not quite sure if it’s them or not, so you don’t say anything. I wanted to tell him about the pubes but I didn’t.

State Theatre waiting for Chris Rock

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie

My bro kindly invited Dave and I to see Chris Rock on his No Apologies Tour. We hadn’t seen any stand-up comedy for about 8 years because stand up can often be a waste of money and of time - if they are not funny. I was really looking forward to seeing the creator of Everyone Hates Chris live on stage. His warm up guy Mario Joyner was great, he got everyone laughing and ready for the main man. Chris Rock was fantastic - really, really funny and as expected, he used lots of rude words Obviously, this kind of humour is not everyone’s cup of tea, especially when he kept going on about getting laid, but anyhoo… Other topics covered were Australia’s Stolen Generation, George Bush, Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton, airplane service, being married, getting laid, getting laid and getting laid. There were some guys in front of us who were just loving it, I bet they’ve got all his DVDs. Dave particularly enjoyed the Flavour Flav joke. Overall, it was a great evening, with lots of laughs. Thanks JME.

A fraction of the whole

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie

I was happy to hear that Sydney-born Steve Toltz has been selected for the long list (as opposed to the short list) for this year’s Man Booker Prize.
From what I have read so far of A fraction of the whole, it is fantastic and hard to put down. I’ve only read about a quarter of the book.
Why? This is gross but you asked for it. In my attempt to be a Compacter, I borrowed it from the library - it is a really big book (I didn’t think I could read 700 pages in 3 weeks but I borrowed it anyway). As I started reading the book I found… wait for it… it’s gross… I found pubes. Yes, pubic hair in my library book!!! I was like, gross! So I flicked the couple of hairs away and tried to forget I ever saw them, but they kept appearing randomly through the pages of the novel and I decided it was all too disturbing and returned it to the library. I did tell the librarian about the pubes and suggested they find the last person who borrowed the book and give them a DNA test. The unfortunate thing is, that I was really enjoying the book. I hope one day to finish reading it because it is so funny, compelling and witty. So good luck Steve Toltz for the Booker Prize.

This morning I was upset to hear that the Sunday program has been axed. Ever since I retired from clubbing and starting waking up at an early “grown up” time on Sunday, I have enjoyed watching this program in my PJs while having breakfast. Now it’s gone… boo hoo. I’ll have to watch music videos of scantily clad women singing terrible songs.

http://photojojo.com/timecapsule/

It digs into your flickr photos, and twice a month, it’ll send you an email with the most interesting handful of photos that you took a year ago. It’s kind of magic.

You seriously need to try it or we’re not friends anymore.

Josie invited a group of us to try the Monday night 2 for 1 mussels at the Gazebo Wine Garden. I think that back in the day, the Gazebo was a famous party place for rock stars visiting Sydney. Now it is all new and renovated into apartments. In the S section of last Sunday’s Sun Herald there was coverage of the Gazebo Wine Garden’s 2nd birthday party. I had not been there before, I guess it’s not really my scene. It was an extremely cold and wet night (was it the coldest day this year?) but we still managed to get ourselves over to Elizabeth Bay (thanks Nads for the lift).
When we arrived, we seemed to be ignored by the attractive wait staff for about 5 minutes (that seems like a long time when you are waiting). I think that the manager would have normally greeted us at the door on arrival but he was caught up in the kitchen. Once he came to the front, the service was excellent for the rest of the night. To be honest, I was expecting it to be a bit “obnoxious” there - like Hugo’s or something. The waiters were very cute, friendly and funny (wishing Josie a Happy Birthday all night - even though it wasn’t her birthday). Unfortunately, there was a bit of a stuff up with Joanne’s order not coming out, so they offered a round of some “special drink” (that smelt delicious, like Christmas and I wished I could have tried it) after dinner. At most restaurants, they would possibly give you an apology if you’re lucky and that’s it. (Please refer to my post “Customer service in this town has been flushed down the toilet”).
The mussels were very tasty, I had the white wine & chive cream sauce (most IBS friendly flavours). As a regular mussel eater, I’d say these were better than those offered at Bungalow 8 (that place gets so busy on their all-you-can-eat mussel nights, it’s really churn and burn).
The highlight of the meal was the dessert, Apple crumble crunchy cup & ice cream. I think it was made fresh because the pastry was so light and fluffy (and it took a while to come out).
After an initial bad start on arrival it turned out to be a top night with great food, good friends and very friendly service.

I have been very busy doing lots of research on my new and improved career. I’ve been checking out courses I want to do and finding out about potential companies I might like to work for. Then I came across this hideacious site for The Neil Clugston Organisation (Established in 1989, The Neil Clugston Organisation Pty Ltd is an Entertainment Management and Entertainment Consultancy company). This website looks like it was designed in 1989 (ha ha)! If only I had the technical skills to fix something like this. I’d also like to have the writing/communication skills to rewrite his blurb as well. Hmm…. you’ve just given me an idea