Updates?

Sorry guys, have been flat out the last month!

Just came back from holiday in Sydney - whilst the weather, on the whole, was pretty bad (though we got two days of sunshine which gave us false hope), it was a much-needed break!

I think I'll go back to the UK, as I've a pretty good job lined up for next September, which beats anything that the Aussie companies can offer me! It's not in security or policing either, which is a further bonus!

WA really isn't the place to try and settle down right now - it has some of, if not the highest, rental rates and house prices in Australia, without the wages or salaries to match. Sure the weather's great, but when you're working 50+ hours a week just to make ends meet, you don't get much time to go outside and enjoy it! This also means one is not able to afford a house, since the savings intended for a house deposit are instead spent on increasing rent prices, so that one doesn't end up on the street. Add to that a casualised labour market for most industries, and you don't know whether one week you'll be working full-time and the next you'll be ringing around the 5 or 6 companies you're on the books for, asking for hours!

For the next couple of months I'm financially comfortable, but should the landlord raise the rent if and when we renew the lease, then I don't know what position I'll be put in! Thus I'm taking any available hours that are going, in the hope that I'll have reserve savings should the worst happen. Meanwhile I'm putting money aside for my flight ticket and to get a bit of money behind me for when I return to the UK.

On the security front, I'm STILL doing nightclub work, but in different bars to the usual ones. I've now got a set routine of Friday and Saturday nights at an upmarket wine bar, with great staff, high-class clientele and not much trouble. During the week I'll fill in elsewhere, but have got permanent hours as in-house security on a well-known site. So that'll keep me going for at least a month, after which I'll see where I stand.

I had a run in with some gang members, or alleged gang members, or people who other people think might be associated with gang members, or people who people think might not be gang members at all. That's what I hate about this industry - too much 'word of mouth' and insufficient independent verification thereof. They tried to charge the door of a club I no longer work at, then assaulted me (twice) when I tried to stop one of them. No serious injuries, but an unpleasant experience nonetheless. One of their 'connections' then threatened me to drop proceedings when I got the police involved. Not going into too much detail as it is ongoing.

This incident has helped fuel my decision to return, since it proves that Perth isn't the safe, clean nirvana everyone who doesn't live here seems to think it is. Whilst the nighttime economy is small, it tends to attract a certain crowd to a certain style of music, who act in a certain way. To put it less cryptically - it attracts scam to crap music who act like idiots. I saw the worst excessess of it whilst working at the casino, and am seeing it to a lesser degree at other venues. Add to that the presence of the bikie gangs, or people who claim to be associated with them, and it makes for an uncomfortable city to go out in if you want to keep that sort of underground activity at arm's length. Regrettably, they've permeated most if not all night-time dealing, be it clubbing, pubbing etc. that one cannot avoid running into them or hearing about them. Even trendy restaurants in Subiaco have seen the ugly public manifestation of previously internal tensions.

Sydney, on the other hand, was different. I walked around Kings Cross, which would be their equivalent of Northbridge, and not once did I feel unsafe or threatened. Granted, I don't go there week after week and it was the middle of a terrible weather cycle, so I may well have caught the place on a good weekend. However not a night has gone by when I've found myself in Northbridge, by work or pleasure, that hasn't involved witnessing a fight or scuffle of some sort, which can often rope in unwilling bystanders.

I have a friend from the casino I used to work with moving in on Sunday, whom I also went to Sydney with. It should be good fun and I'm looking forward to it, since we hang out all the time anyway when one or the other of us isn't working. I think it works better that we are no longer at the same place of work, otherwise we'd have to work together, then live together, then hang out together, which is excessive no matter who you are.

Since the Sydney 'goal' has been achieved, I'm working now towards the 'UK' goal. It is a style of productivity that suits me well. If I set my own goal and have something to look forward to and work towards, I'll do better than if I'm merely 'drifting', and going along with the status quo, which a lot of people I know are normally content with. However, if the targets are arbitrary or I don't believe them necessary, it saps my motivation. Annoys the hell out of management, no doubt, but that's just who I am.

Right, off to pretend to do some work - can't surf the net and watch TV all day without doing a little bit of patrolling!