An anxious few days followed, during which he managed to keep almost nothing down. Our first journey out as a family turned out to be to the Mater children’s hospital, where the doctors diagnosed ‘Gastro’ (a word more commonly superseded by ‘pub’ in my experience) and reassured us Casper was dealing with as well as could be hoped, no biggy.

A week since the hospital outing and Casper has fully recovered and is enjoying life down under nearly as much as I am. Which is more than can be said for some of the unfortunates he passed the bug onto.

Nowadays the city is known colloquially as either “Brissie” or “Bris Vegas”, the latter seemingly used affectionately, disparagingly and occasionally a curious blend of the two.

I was dissapointed not to find either of these nicknames mentioned on visitbrisbane.com.au the city council’s latest attempt to lure tourists to the Queensland capital and the originator of the dubious “Australia’s New World City” tag line. Whilst lacking in this area, the site is goldmine for fans of amateurish grammar, shocking spelling and bloated, flowery copy.

I’m sure you can find plenty of examples for yourselves but this one sentence illustrates beautifully my problem with the site:

The ever-busy barristers fill the air with an irresistible temptation that is hard to escape and the mix of welcome visitors and the business set create a lively thoroughfare through the Queen Street Mall – Queensland’s largest retail precinct with over 700 specialty shops, restaurant, cinemas and live music. http://www.visitbrisbane.com.au/Travel/Destination-Maps.aspx

I don’t know, maybe members of Brisbane’s legal profession really are moonlighting as drug dealers and prostitutes, but I suspect what they were trying to get across is that “hey, the coffee smells good!” As for the rest of the sentence, I don’t think even the writer knows what’s going on. I imagine the first draft went something like  “urrr…people…shops?”

My attempt to alert the visitbrisbane people to the error of their ways didn’t extend beyond a sarcastic tweet bemoaning the apparent shortage of proofreaders in Brisbane and mentioning the site’s URL . I was delighted to receive a tweeted reply thanking me and I replied, in turn, with a slightly more detailed critique.

A week later and they have not corrected a single mistake.

Meanwhile, the unending quest to elicit a smile from the mouth of my son has led me to attempt increasingly bonkers strategies. The latest method involves me bouncing around like a kangaroo, stopping periodically to look nervously from side to side and making skippy-like noises

Casper clearly thinks this is hilarious. Mind you, he hasn’t been following the news from Australia like I have.

Well I’m here today to tell you that the Jazz Dad Chronicles will no longer lie discarded on a dusty shelf at the back of the internet. This weekend I’m leaving my lucrative role as customer service team leader to embark on a new career, as a stay at home parent  in Australia’s “New World City” of Brisbane.

To mark this event I will be relaunching the blog, complete with a cliched reference to my new country of residence and a picture of a koala or something like that. No worries!

Well you can understand my delight upon discovering that, now he can drag himself about (using what the paediatricians call a ‘commando crawl’), he will chase objects i dangle in front of him – a bit like a kitten.

You probably know that babies cry. They cry when they’re hungry, they cry when they need changing and they cry when they’re tired. They also, it transpires, cry for no other reason than because they can. Now I’ve no real problem with this, for I too do a number of things for no better reason than because I can. I ride my bike without holding the handlebars, I jump in the air and click my heels and I use the word ‘cunt’ frequently. All for no good reason whatsoever.

But sometimes, despite my innate appreciation of pointless behaviour, I can just do without the tears and the screams. I’ve discovered that simply throwing (well, placing) the little fella over my shoulder and moving in a rhythmic fashion, frequently has the desired affect. Occasionally I can get away with just rocking from side to side but at other times I must energetically waltz through the flat, singing Cliff FUCKING Richard’s Mistletoe and CUNTING Wine. (It seems that songs in 3/4 are more effective and for some unfathomable reason it’s always the first song in waltz time i can think of when I’m under pressure.)

In addition to the obvious mental strain I’m under (as evidenced by the aforementioned singing of Cliff Richard songs) about a month ago I began experiencing  pains in my left arm and shoulder. For days on end I yelped and moaned like a wounded dog heroically endured the pain until Deb The Wife booked me an appointment with Deb The Physio.

Three trips out to leafy Chingford and several unusual stretching exercises  later, I feel pretty much myself again. I’ve even managed to stop myself from singing Cliff FUCKING Richard.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m not neglecting my fatherly duties or anything. My weekends are crammed full of bloody nice family fun and I fit more quality time into my pre-work routine than I would have ever imagined possible.

It’s the rest of the time I struggle with. As the number of people I stalk  follow on Twitter steadily increases, so too does the number of links I follow. The more I read, the less time I have to write and worse, as my reading broadens it dawns on me how little I have to say. It sometimes seems that nearly every thought I’m ever likely to have is not only unoriginal but has been expounded multiple times throughout teh interwebs. 

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll start following fewer Twiterers and see if that makes a difference.

Meh.

‘Well then why don’t you have Vegemite or cornflakes instead?’ suggested Deb.

I paused for a moment. ‘That’s a bit like you saying “there’s no custard!” and me saying “why don’t you have gravy or a Twix instead?” isn’t it?’

I opted for the cornflakes option. I’ve nothing against Vegemite but it’s no substitute for Tiptree Tawny.

This one. The one you’re reading at this very moment.

Actually thinking about it, it’s probably not a good idea to start treating  my blog like a baby. It could attract the wrong sort of attention from Social Services. Or, like, hamper my efforts to build a lasting relationship with my flesh and blood child or something or whatever.

Anyway as I was saying, I know I’m doing it and I just wanted to acknowledge the fact and apologise if, for some crazy reason, this has inconvenienced you.

Rest assured, I will be blogging in full effect once i’ve got this gig out of the way. (Promotional assitance, attendance and alcoholic drinks all gleefully accepted)

It’s good news for cyclists visiting Broadway Market; cycle theft has been slashed by a simple, yet effective operation by the Queensbridge Safer Neighbourhoods Team.

Sergeant Chris Scott explains: “In the past, cycle thefts have averaged about 30 per month. We have tried other things, but this time we designed a warning card to attach to the handlebars of cycles in our hotspots, such as the market.”

The cards not only warned criminals that the team are patrolling the area, but they also incorporated security advice for the owner. “We needed to let the public know their bikes are at risk, people will then lock up more securely and won’t take any chances.”

Thefts fell to 12 incidents in November 2008, and were down to just two cases by early February 2009.

http://www.teamhackney.org/pj36572_queensbridge_news.pdf

Now I’m not an expert on crime statistics but it’s conceivable that November’s figure is low when compared to the monthly average due to fewer people using bikes, compared to a summer month like August. Surely they shouldn’t be talking up any achievements without also quoting  the figures for November of the previous year? And where are the figures for December and January?

As for the boast that “thefts were down to just two cases by early February” well, where do I start? Hmmmm…Oh look! A photo of Broadway Market in early February:

#FAIL