There’s a ‘Best of 2004‘ so here comes The Best of 2005!!!

	Album of the Year – Jack Johnson – In Between Dreams I’d never heard of Jack Johnson until a group of us went to see him live in a park in Sydney, Australia. The gig was really good but what was more inspirational was the lifestyle that comes with the music. JJ only really sings happy ‘take it easy’ style songs which fits well with a chilled out surf lifestyle that was what I was enjoying at the time. Now the music provides a welcome retreat back into that world as I drive around the chaotic streets of London and face not so welcoming weather.
	Cinema Trip of the Year – Sin City – Cloverdale Probably not the best film I have seen but definitely the most memorable cinema trip of the year. The reason being was I saw it at Cloverdale cinema near Vancouver, Canada. Cloverdale is the town used in the hit television series ‘Smallville’, which is based on Superman’s younger years. What was funny was the people in the cinema reminded me of the characters in Smallville. Everyone looked a little bit eerie, one picture that sticks in my mind is that of an obese woman resting a ‘bucket’ of cola on her stomach whilst watching the film.
	DVD of the Year – Thicker than Water My first Surfing DVD purchase and probably one of the best. Thicker than Water tours some of the worlds best breaks with some of the worlds best surfers. A buy for all budding surfers. I bought it from what is probably the best surf shop in Australia – Six Ounce Board Store
	Book of the Year – The DaVinci Code Actually to be honest this is one of the only books I have read this year. The story line is engrossing but you already know that as everyone in the world seems to have read it.
	Game of the Year – Grand Theft Auto – Vice City I would have put Flight Simulator but unfortunately I used that last year. This game is a bit violent and should definitely not be played by anyone under the age of 18 or anyone of a mental disposition. The ideal is basically to steal cars, trucks, planes, bikes, boats etc.. and commit crimes for gangs that you are in. You can also shoot people in the streets or kill them with swords, knuckle dusters, screwdrivers etc… It’s very violent but strangely enticing.
	Website of the Year – Google.Com Google are branching out in every direction, with lots of new features which are extremely useful. My favourite at the moment is Cinema Search, where you can search local cinemas for film times. Google Maps and Google Earth are also great features which are not only ‘cool’ products but are being used for all sorts of scenarios such as finding roads and villages after an Earthquake in Pakistan.

Have a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas to everyone from Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire

Merry Christmas from Ron and Gary

As soon as I’ve digested Christmas dinner I’ll write some more

Rock on!

Moustache Magnus was in town from Sweden (here, here, here, here, here, here, here and finally here) pretty much a year to the day that I last saw him on a nice sunny day in Sydney airport as he flew back to Sweden via Thailand.

Magnus arrived late on Friday night and I was pretty much still in tired phase from the work Christmas party the night before, so no partying that night just a little chat in the flat and off to sleep for an early start the next night to go and visit Vic and Mica, our friends from Australia who were currently living in Brighton!

Vic didn’t finish work until 16h00 so we had the morning to kill looking around the shops. Brighton has small pretty cool little back street shops which have pretty good shopping. Up there with some of the London shopping, Magnus particularly liked it for its cheap retro clothes that must be all the fashion in Sweden.

We finally met up with Vic and Mica in a random Brighton bar for a couple of drinks, we then continued onto a Chinese “all you can eat” place which included ice cream, it was superb! (Apart from the long drive back to London on a full stomach straight after!!)

Vic, Mica, Magnus, Me

You might not of heard but London was nearly under a big black cloud for most of the weekend ‘toxic cloud to reach London by Saturday’ read some of the papers. It was pretty scarey as you can see from this picture -

Foggy London for real

We didn’t let it stop us. The next day we did a shopping tour of London, starting off in Camden and then making our way down to Neal Street in Covent Garden and then finally ending up on Regent Street to see the Christmas lights this year. They are the best I think I’ve seen and the corporate sponsorship was to a minimum -

Guess the sponsor

In Woolloomooloo, the locals there are always banging on about this ale called ‘Coopers’. Day in day out, Coopers, Coopers, Coopers, that is all you would hear. They drank so much of it you couldn’t go into a room without seeing an empty long neck or some bottle caps with the logo on. One of Woolloomooloo’s oldest tales was Coopers was not available in UK, as it was a ‘stralian ale and so was meant to stay in ‘stralia. Here is Magnus happily purchasing as much Coopers as he could buy to take back on the plane to Sweden from my local Quickie Mart, here in London, England -

Coopers! In London!! In a corner shop!! Not possible!!

That night we headed up to Shoreditch and had a few beers (pretty dead but it was Sunday) and also had some food at Macondo after a huge luncheon meal at All Bar One, so the night drew to a close and we were ready for the final full day in London for some tourist stuff.

We actually went inside the City Hall here in London, which I did not think you were allowed to do. You can only go to the second floor but it was still pretty cool to have a look around at the insane spiral walkway that run through the centre of the building, we then headed to Tate Modern to see some messed up art, including this giant sugarcube maze -

Sugar Cube Maze @ Tate Modern

We then headed to the National Gallery and saw some cool photographs in an exhibition called ‘Living in Hell and Other Stories‘ which was basically modern photographs inspired by old masters.

What would be a weekend in London without finishing up in a Knightsbridge Jazz Club? After pulling some strings with some Jazz contacts we managed to get tickets for Curtis Stigers at Pizza on the Park. I liked the music, I almost went into a Jazz trance a few times whilst listening to the times Curtis was banging out. They were all instrumental legends -

Curtis Jazz Trance

Sadly Magnus had to go back to Sweden, but a trip to Sweden myself has been pencilled in for next summer, providing Magnus passes his driving test! A great weekend and sad to have to wave goodbye to my surfing buddy again! The End.

An ancedote. I am forever reminded by ‘old’ people when you are young to ‘enjoy it whilst it last because life goes fast when you get older’ or something along those lines.

The reality is that time goes pretty much constant for everyone (apart from Matt the Pilot – see Twin Paradox).

However, it does not explain why when I was young I seem to remember having to wait what seemed like an eternity for the next morning to come along so I could eat another one of the advent calendar chocolates. Now, I find myself having to catch up with my chocolate advent calendar by a few days everytime I go to open another one of the doors! So it must be true, time does go faster when you get a bit older.

And finally, on a technical note, fans of Google Personal Homepage who also like to go surfing will be pleased to know they can now have Global Surfari World Forecasts DIRECT to their personalised page via Google’s new Google Homepage API!! Click ‘add content’, ‘custom section’ and then paste in http://globalsurfari.com/gs.xml to get the Global Surfari Module on the personalised page. It will look something like this -

I am in the process of making a video of the weekend, but I currently have the worse cold ever (that or some form of swimming pool disease from swimming in 30 degree water then walking home in 6 degree British winter).

Surfing in Bondi was called off yesterday after a 4-5 metre (2-3 post hype) bronzer or tiger shark was seen swimming in the bay.

“There were 100 people up the top screaming like monkeys,” said Anthony Carroll, one of the lifeguards who went out on jet-skis to alert swimmers.

Bondi Shark Photo: Daniel Matthewson

I would have loved to have seen, or even been one of those screaming monkeys! More on AquaBumps and SMH. Thanks Mike from SpoonaSound, a fearless ‘stralia surfer who was probably out there at the time, for sending me the email.

Matts words not mine. Matt was here again on a stop off from Bangkok and about to fly back over to Sydney via Singapore. It was also his birthday so we all headed up to Shoreditch for a couple of drinks in Hoxton square and something to eat at Macondo. I had a strawberry cheesecake shooter to start off the night with which was a mistake and I knew we were going for a hardcore winter surf session on the SE coast the next day!

I woke up with a hangover as expected, tapas really doesn’t soak up alcohol. Matt came round and we headed on the 100 mile drive to Boscombe, which is a pier very close to Bournemouth ‘a carbon copy with no crowds’ (Storm Rider Guide).

I was very suspicious that we would find a wave, but Matt was talking airplane speak and said the pressure was down to 990mbar so there was a possibility of a wave. To my surprise when we got there, there was something rideable and only about 3 people out (all aged around 11) so it was on, all we had to do was get the wetsuits on, which is no easy task when the temperature outside is 0 to 6C. Fizzer was nice enough to lend us his board and wetsuit so we had all the equipment. His board is 7’2 shortboard style shape and was perfect for the conditions. Mine is a bit too short for 1.5ft waves plus the strength snap from the freezing cold waters and weight and moveability of the wetsuits makes it a problem! Although I did get a few the rides were rubbish compared to Fizzer’s board. I am going to get one.

Ready to go in!

I didn’t wear my hood as the wind was not blowing, I duck dived a wave on the way out and when the water hit me it was like putting your head into a bucket of ice! Woo!! Hangover gone!! You got a bit of a headache for a few seconds when the water hits you from the dilation of blood vessels in the brain but after that it’s fine. The waves were all right handers which I am not as strong on as I am goofy footed but it was still a cool session, we were out for about three hours I estimate.

Matt ‘better than maroubra’ Happy

So this was my first SE Coast surf trip and it was pretty cool (and cold)!! We got some fast food afterwards as we were starving and began the 100 mile journey back to London!! A nice trip and some positive feedback from one of Maroubra’s finest surfers.

You can see fullscreen unedited pictures from the trip here.

Can’t wait for the next trip, need more fitness though, working makes you weak!!

A little winter trip was much needed to get away from the London coldness blues, so we hit Sardinia, which is an island just off of Italy (you can see it here). It was a beautiful little trip and very cheap costing only £80. Although it was out of season so no sun batheing was taking place and we almost got kicked out of the hotel by setting off the fire alarm (I had one of my epic showers that caused such a heat build up that when I opened the bathroom door it triggered the temperature increase detector to set off the alarm – the hotel staff didn’t know it was possible).

In fact it rained a little bit so we got a hire car which was named ‘bug’, because of its quriky characteristics, such as the strange sounds it made when you indicated (sounded like a game of pong on acid).

Bug

I really enjoyed driving on the right hand side of the road, I’m definetly going to try and get the UK to change to left hand drive cars it just feels right!

Oh yeah and guess what Sardinia has….

Med Waves

Lots of rocks though and no surf board so didn’t bother checking out any of the spots, it was a bit windy anyway so they were probably all blown out. We went to a little place called Neptune’s Grotto which is a really magical place that is right at the bottom of a cliff face with 642 steps -

A long way down

Once at sea level the swell from the ocean was hitting the entrace to the cave and we had to wait for the guide to tell us it was safe to cross the entrance, as the water comes over the path and into the grotto. The ocean was pretty rough and you could hear it crashing against the side of the rocks. However, once in the grotto it was very very quiet and a little bit surreal -

Grotto

The lines on the far wall show where the ocean once lapped against the walls of the grotto during the penultimate interglacial period 125,000 years ago, when the oceans where four metres higher than they are today and people lived on hills.

A nice little trip to Italy where I tasted my first Italian pizza (taste just like they do at Pizza Express) and my first Italian cappuccino (tastes just like they do at Starbucks).

Rock on next mainland Europe trip!!!!!!!!!!

Ki joined the revolution and decided to hit London town for his 25th celebrations. The guys all arrived on a cold cold Saturday morning in London. Ki brought down his computer for me to fix but didn’t bring the monitor or keyboard so it will have to wait for Christmas Eve where I will probably spend the best part of the night and early hours of the morning removing spyware and viruses he has got on it from visiting various suspicious sites.

We got the tube to Holborn where we were to see the Shaolin Monks at the Peacock Theatre. We got there early and were all pretty hungry so we headed to Beerodrome and had a drink and dinner, which was lovely.

The Kung Fu that was going on at the theatre was pretty intense, although Dinnie fell asleep during it!! They did the laying on knives whilst breaking slabs of concrete on their backs. One of the guys did a hand stand but using the knuckle of one finger on each hand instead!! Then right at the end one of the guys did about 10 head stands in a row, backwards and landing on his head (no crash mat!), I can’t even begin to imagine how much that would hurt if I tried!! Just the ability to go from a standing position to a headstand (not handstand) is amazing on its own. One guy could also bend his legs in such weird ways that he looked like a traffic accident and made me feel a little sick.

We were all pretty shattered afterwards and it felt like the day was over, but it was hardly beginning! We got back and got ready for the night of comedy that was awaiting us at Jongleurs, Camden Lock. It’s a pretty good night because its a comedy club with good comedians and then turns into a disco. The comedy was really good, my favourite was a ‘stralian guy who was getting heckled loads but could handle it really well. There was also a ‘stralian women that made fun of shortboard surfers in Brighton who had to wait for the ferry to go past before they could get a wave! Great! That was on my winter surfing location list as well!!

Gino, Tommo, Dino, Pacino, Gaza, Anders

We have some very deep inciteful conversations as a group, sometimes bordering on genius, other times a little closer to insane. After doing some heavy editing of the video I recorded this weekend, is a little video of the conversations we have -

Requires Sound..

So after the night of comedy and some seriously heavy disco dancing the comedy continued as we tried to get back home from Camden as no one seemed to want to go ‘south of the river’ at ‘that time of night’ – as if Camden is a nice safe drug free town!!!

The next day we all woke up with very little in the way of hangovers, which was amazing really considering we drank a fair amount, including tequila slammers!!! We headed to weatherspoons for luncheon and all had some decent food. Except for Dinnie as, being a student, decided the best option on the menu was the ‘two meals for £6.50′ and so subsequently ate a lasagne and a beef burger with chips!! Mental!

A nice little time with everyone down in London! The next day I was going to hit the coast for some surf action but found out there was no waves So didn’t bother!

Kelly Slater has won the ASP world championships for the seventh time! It makes him the youngest and oldest winner of the ASP, doing it when he was 20, then five times inbetween, and then onces again now he is 33! Amazing!

Slater wins on points

And here he is in Florida stopping off at his mates house to show him the trophy, sums the guy up really, the best professional competition surfer on the planet but can take time out to do this -

Florida Car Park

Its been TWO WEEKS since an update! What is going on? I have been busy with GlobalSurfari.com the ultimate world surfing forecast website in the world! I just integrated Google Maps into the system, so you can click a location on the world map and get the surf forecast for that destination.

I also got the Global Surfari Google Desktop Notifier accepted by Google and placed on their desktop plugins page, which you can see here. They were nice enough to send me a Desktop Beta T-shirt for “free” (not free because I had to pay a stupidly high amount for postage and packaging).

Using the power of google to search for the remote (whilst wearing Google T-shirt)

So Saturday day I checked out the Lord Mayors Show, something that has been going on in City of London for some 800 years or so. I got there late so only caught the end of it and managing to get this picture of some soldiers -

Serious Business

It’s gone seriously seriously cold in London now, today it was a cool 9 degrees in the West End on Monday, I fear that winter is now here! The sun also seems to be going down at about 17h00 now, oh yes, winter has here for sure!!

On Sunday I visited a dog show at Earls Court, it was pretty cool to see all the different breeds of dogs, including some vulnerable breeds. I only had to take one allergy pill as well!! This was possibly my favourite dog after the golden retrievers -

Buddy Dog

On Monday I thought I would checkout Hayling Island as the surf was looking like this on Sunday and its only 2 hours from London -

West Beach – Hayling Island (c) Sharkbait

Except when I got up in the morning I watched the live web cam from the Hayling Island and there was truely no waves, I double checked this with the South West coast and no, no waves

No waves, it’s getting cold and its getting dark early, I still like London but I can’t WAIT to get into some warm weather and out in the sea!

Next weekend its off to see Shaolin Monks beat each other up and for us to get picked on by the stand up comedian at Jongleurs when all the ‘boys’ come down from Warwickshire!!! The good news is that I have bought a new battery for my little camera which makes the videos, so I will be back making some cool videos – hopefully some next weekend, for the time being, watch this insane video of bodyboarders riding a huge beackbreak in at place called Newport Wedge and then Christian Fletcher going out on a board!! Mental -

Right Click.. Save Target As..

This weekend I swapped the board for a horse and a farm as we set out for North Yorkshire. Yorkshire is about five hours drive North of London so it is a bit like driving to Cornwall but in a different direction (and on a much better road). I loaded the board into the car and the winter wetsuit just in case there was some time to head over to Cayton or Whitby for a Northern surf. I forgot the clocks went back an hour on Sunday so there was not time to do that in the end.

We stayed at Betty and David’s house with my parents and took a tour of North Yorkshire. I was extremely impressed by the ‘Honesty Box Parking’ at Masham where you could put 50p in for parking the car. It beats the £3 that you have to pay for parking at beaches -

Honesty is the name of the game

For lunch on the first day we went to a tea rooms where we had lovely food, I had the bacon and banana sandwich which was pretty mental but also quite nice -

Bacon and Banana Sandwiches!

We visited The Forbidden Corner which is a cool maze type place where you have to find your way around based on clues and also a drive around the Yorkshire Dales which are very pretty.

On the Sunday we had a ride on the old horse, here I am on it with the horse kindly being held by David -

Amateur Horse Rider

A lovely northern weekend!

And it will only get colder from here on in. The Global Surfari Surf Report was putting out 3ft waves with hardly any wind but short periods for the weekend. So it was with a 50/50 decision that we headed to the Welsh capital of Cardiff for an extended surf weekend where Davey was kind enough to put us up at his house.

As it is the end of October, the water is now beginning to cool down to a lovely 13.5C so I also got to buy a new wetsuit! I got the same one as Fizzer (but in a different colour) the Ripcurl Ultimate Fireskin 5mm, some booties, billabong gloves and a hoodie which I can choose to wear and not to wear depending upon my bravado.

We drove to Rhossili Bay late in the afternoon to hit the waves in my new wetsuit, didn’t really catch much because it was getting too dark and I was getting used to my new wetsuit, managed to get some cool photos though -

Fizzer (right), me (left) Heading Out (late)

Surfing isn’t all fast paced and about getting smashed around by a violent angry ocean in sometimes freezing cold seas. You only have to look at the amazing scenery in this picture to see that. I am pretty sure it is more than just a sport, looking around at the ocean, sky and coastline from the sanctity of the line is very peaceful and meditating and maybe explains why closing my eyes after a surf session I can still see the waves on the insides of my eyelids. There’s a thousand surf DVDs you can buy that will tell you the same!

We stayed in for as long as the sun would allow us. I could tell it was time to come out when I got hit in the face by a wave that I could not actually see because it was too dark! We then had to find our way back to the cars without any lights whatsoever, but it was so nice and snug in the new suit that I didn’t mind.

Another cool shot

And to get a sense of temperature difference between England and Australia surfing I give you this comparison -

13.5 degree C water – South Wales, United Kingdom

vs.

24 degree C water – New South Wales, Australia

I know which one I prefer! Can you guess which?

The next day I decided the water was still far too warm for a 5mm so I went back to my trusty 3/2 and wore the hoodie for good measure. This was a big mistake, I got some real nice waves at the beginning of the session but then ended up just sitting out back trying to get the strength and heat back inside me to attempt to ride some more waves. Eventually I realised that I was too tired and too cold to catch any more waves and should have gone with the 5mm! Nevermind! Here is a picture of all of us with ‘Big Blue’ the special board -

Davey, Andy, Big Blue, me and Faiser Chief

We retired to the excellent Kings Head Hotel in Llangenith for drinks and then headed back to Davey’s house for an excellent spag bowl and watched surf DVDs and films before passing out after what was a fantastic but cold surf weekend on the Gower, Wales!

On the way book I took a little de-tour to check out Stonehenge, somewhere I had not seem before (that I can remember). It is funny because from the pictures it looks like it is in the middle of nowhere. When it is actually no more than 20 metres from a major road, which probably isn’t very kind to the site considering the stones were put there approximately 5000 years ago -

Cold, Windy and Wet Stonehenge

If you use Windows XP, click here for a much more summery version, courtesy of Microsoft.

Well that’s it! Off to North Yorkshire next weekend, there might be some surf in Cayton or Whitby, lets wait and see!!