I meant to post this a while ago but the worlds first Space Beer (or perhaps the galaxy's) is going to be a local Sydney brew. Specially designed for space and intended for tourists when the Virgin Galactic trips start to get going, it's the first beer designed for zero gravity ..apparently. The design process was not without issues. Another issue is the lack of gravity to separate air and liquid in the stomach, which Mitchell explained could cause "wet burps" in space.. When you're on Earth, the gravity actually separates the air and the liquid such that if you burp, you burp the air, whereas when you're just floating around in space you can do what's called wet burps, which are little suspended balls of liquid just hovering around," he said. Yuk. Read more

In an unprecedented move of Australo-philia it seems that they're going to introduce that slightly more modest drinking vessel, the Schooner, into British pubs. I kind of liked them when I first arrived here because it let you get away with ordering less than a pint without ending up with one of those skinny curved glasses that back home would have been laughed at. But I thought the original reason for having them here was to make sure beer was never lingering in a glass long enough to get warm. There's absolutely no chance of that happening in the UK these days. link

Tis the season to go whale watching. Or so I thought. Around this time of year whales pass by Sydney harbour on their way to escape the freezing water of the Antarctic. The cruise companies at the harbour have brochures with big glossy photos of humpback whales breaching and twisting in the air. The reality was a little different though.          Look at all those whales!! At the start we managed to find a pod of dolphins and they swam along side us for a while. Trying to take a photo was impossible though - I have plenty of shots of empty sea, taken about a milisecond after they've disappeared under the surface. We were in a fairly small katamarang boat which was easily knocked about in the swell of the ocean. Actually, that part was kind of cool - I'd never been in a boat that felt so vulnerable to the open sea. And it was also interesting to watch the previously loud and cheery fellow whale watchers reduced to wretches, sitting with their heads on their knees and clutching sick bags. Interesting only because I escaped the worst. Watching other people get sick is only so much fun though, and while we did follow a couple of whales for a while, mostly they were just sprays of water a few hundred meters away. Stayed out for a long time, but after three hours and lots of sick stomachs everybody was glad to head back. Finished the day in a nice city centre micro brewery with lots of weird and expensive beers. I haven't taken to a lot of Sydney bars because the outsides of a lot of them, for historical reasons, resemble the insides of pub toilets back home - not exactly inviting. But this place was pretty cool and probably worth a return visit. Most of the time here at a cashier for coffee or juice or something, they ask for your name so they can give you a shout when your order is ready. Unfortunately for me this has lead to a few embarrassingly loud misunderstandings when they don't get my name right. So recently I've just decided to go with a name-of-the-day system. A couple of days ago I was "Joe", and today I was going to be "Chris" until the eejet in front of me decided to be Chris as well which forced me to come up with an improvised "Andy". The cashier gave me a squinty look, but I think she bought it.