Well, quite amazing, the newspapers have been delivered absolutely immaculately for the past week or so. They’re even put in the mailbox, rather than being thrown all over the driveway. Anybody would think the newsagent had read what I wrote about him!

Well Rugby arrived in Melbourne with a bang this weekend. The Bledisloe Cup - Australia versus New Zealand, played to about 90,000 people last night at the MCG. And all served by three pie sellers, which I thought was impressive. Actually it’s just as well the roving sellers don’t sell beer too. At least people have to be able to walk up to buy the beer, probably preventing anyone who has already drunk enough from getting more.

And watching the big game last night on the telly, I must admit I felt a lump in the throat as the Wallabies ran onto the arena. They stood respectfully as the All Blacks did their terrific haka. But hey, the Australians pretended to sing along to their national anthem much better than the New Zealanders did.

The Wallabies were primed. They were ready. Although there were plenty of New Zealanders in the crowd, it must have been a huge boost to our national Australian team to be playing at home. And so as play began, we all knew that our team would be as prepared as they could be to meet the challenge of the Kiwis. We knew that if New Zealand were to stand any chance of beating us, they faced an uphill battle.

They beat the shit out of us.

Ah well, maybe next year.

One thing that appeared to be missing from the rugby circus was the normally ever-present Whitman’s Blimp. Probably not a good idea for it to be flying around in the vicinity of fireworks, it might end up flying all over the place like a balloon deflating. Ah, it just clicked, Cadbury/Schweppes is a major sponsor of the rugby .

But the blimp was around on Sunday, following me about as usual. It passed by this morning near the Botanical Gardens, and flew over our house early tonight. This specifically targeted advertising still isn’t quite working though. Yes, I’m nibbling chocolate. But it’s Cadbury. Face it folks - their ads are cooler.

Last year I wrote, just slightly incredulously, about the Outback Steakhouse that we went to in Phoenix, Arizona. It purported to be Australian culture and food, but while the food was undeniably great, there wasn’t anything especially Australian about it except for the very silly names.

Well, today I went to the reverse - The Lone Star Saloon & Steakhouse here in Melbourne. Maybe it’s easiest if I compare both locations using the following table:

Outback Steakhouse	Lone Star Saloon & Steakhouse
In the suburbs of Phoenix, AZ, USA	In the suburbs of Melbourne, Vic, Australia
Won’t take bookings ‘cos they have no trouble filling the place	Won’t take bookings ‘cos they have no trouble filling the place
Staffed by Americans who attempt to do Australian accents when greeted by Australians	Staffed by Australians who attempt to do American accents when greeted by Americans
Decorated with Australian memorabilia	Decorated with American memorabilia
Drink beer while you wait for your food	Eat peanuts while you wait for your food
Serves "Australian" food with very silly names	Serves "American" food with very silly names
Speciality is a suspicious looking but delicious fried onion concoction called "Bloomin’ Onion", which no Australian has ever heard of before	Speciality is a suspicious looking but delicious fried onion concoction called "Texas Tumbleweed", which no American has ever heard of before
Serves Australian beers	Serves American beers
Bar TV with sport (baseball, from memory!)	Bar TV with sport (hmmm.. horseracing, rugby and cricket?!?)

We asked the waitress about any link between the two chains, and I think she said that they were started by the same people, which should come as no surprise! I wonder what the story is with the onions… did they order 40 million by mistake or something?

Given the incredible range of stuff people can own - coats, books, magazines, shoes, everything - it can be quite disconcerting when you spot someone who has an object identical to something you own.

This morning sitting opposite me on the train was a woman chuckling her way through precisely the same Bill Bryson book that I’m currently reading (except that I left mine at home today). As usual (for me, anyway), the first thing I thought was "hey - that’s my book!"

The newsagent rang today, to let me know that the newspaper has stuffed up my subscription, and that he honestly hasn’t messed it up himself. Honest. Really. And he said he was very very sorry, and offered to lick my shoes.

Well, okay, not quite, in fact he wasn’t apologetic at all, but hopefully my subsequent call to the newspaper’s subscription department has fixed things up. Evidentally the carrier pigeon they use to communicate subscription information from Sydney head office to us poor slobs down here in Melbourne got lost. Pretty cheeky considering they managed to bill my credit card, but the helpful and ingeniously named Danielle assured me that all would be well by next Tuesday. We shall see.

Surprise surprise, The Australian didn’t show up this morning. So I rang the newsagent as promised (even though I would be walking straight past later on) and got him to bring one out. Okay, so it may cost me 25 cents for the phone call, but it’s a small price to pay for the satisfaction of knowing that he was inconvenienced.

Last week some new people moved into the flat below us. There’s a good and a bad side to this.

Bad:

• They’re smokers. Just like the people before them, and the people before that. Will we be doomed to live next to people who smoke for the rest of our lives, with a nicotine smell wafting up into our place? If those new adverts featuring pictures of peoples’ aortas aren’t enough to stop people smoking, there’s probably no hope for them.
• Why is it we keep getting neighbours who seem to be unable of emptying their own mailbox? It wouldn’t worry me but junkmail delivery people never figure out for themselves that a mailbox is already full and there’s little point in adding their contribution because it will never get read. And after the three hundredth piece of junkmail has been jammed in there, a sudden gust of wind usually comes along and distributes all of it around the carpark.
• They also seem to be unable to keep the foyer door shut, despite a notice requesting it. Apart from stopping the wind, rain and fire (well, okay, not fire, just wind and rain) getting in, it might also lessen the prospects of our pram getting nicked when we leave it down there rather than lugging it up and down stairs several times a day.

But of course, there’s a good side to having neighbours again. Apart from the fact that they may be nice people (I don’t know, I haven’t run into any of them yet), there’s the all-important:

• Central heating. We don’t have central heating, but our neighbours do. The great thing about poor insulation is that their heat comes up through our floor and heats most of our place up. At the very least, it makes walking on the hallway tiles in bare feet an absolute delight.

And actually that’s probably the only good point, but in the middle of this cold winter, it really makes up for all the others.

Got off the train to go home this evening and presto! The blimp is back in town. Hovering over my head again, badgering me to buy Whitman’s chocolates.

It seems like only yesterday that The Pot Spot, a local business, finally shut up shop after holding their closing down sale which lasted well over six months, and through several "we’re really closing!" deadlines.

Now, I’m not for one second suggesting that other local businesses would try this. I don’t know if this is something they teach them at courses for running retail businesses. But I noted with some suspicion the "Closing Down Sale" that now adorns the window of another local shop, the "Glenhuntly Variety Store".

They don’t seem to have set a date on their closing down, so it’ll be interesting to see if they’ve vanished by next week, or if the Closing Down Sale ends up going until the end of the millennium.

Also in our neighbourhood, I notice since the local Safeway’s been opening every day that the 7-11 down the street seems to be losing business. It’s a bad sign when you go in and don’t have to queue to wait for that icecream you so oddly decide you want on a cold winter’s day. But the really bad sign that the 7-11 might be struggling is an almost complete absence of kids on skateboards hanging around in the carpark! Maybe they’re all working extra shifts as Safeway instead.

Our newsagent is a moron. We used to have great, friendly newsagents - I’ve mentioned them before - Irene and Hercules, the man with the strength to lift a dozen Saturday Age’s. But they’ve gone, and Mr Moron has taken up residence.

We get newspapers delivered three times a week. The Age and Australian on Tuesdays, for the computer section (okay, so most of its online, but this helps me go through the week’s news all in one go, and I can read it on the train), The Age on Thursdays, for the Green Guide (that’s TV, radio and computers, for you out of towners) and The Age on Saturdays, for something to read and to keep the recycling pile growing up towards the ceiling.

Last Tuesday, they delivered The Age, but not the Australian, which we got on Wednesday instead. Not much use on Wednesday, so we returned it. This morning, they again delivered just The Age, and when I dropped past on my way to the station to get The Australian, the newsagent argued with me that last week we’d returned The Australian on Tuesday!

"No, it was Wednesday’s."

"No, it was Tuesday’s."

"NO, it was WEDNESDAY’s!"

Arsehole! Does he think I’m a complete idiot? Why, if I specifically want The Australian on Tuesday for the computer section, would I return it if it was correct? Why was it not sitting in the driveway on Tuesday with The Age, but showed up in the driveway the next morning? Does he think I can’t tell the difference between Tuesday and Wednesday?

Right, that does it. Not only will I cease buying my various computer magazines from there (ah, the joys of company expenses), I’m also going to take every opportunity in future to not drop past when a paper doesn’t get delivered, but to ring up and make him deliver it personally.