OK, so further to the last blog, it appears there is no such thing as an underwater giraffe. Marina pointed this out to me in words of mostly one syllable and four letters, after our second dive of last weekend.

Or, at least, I think that's what she was trying to say. She was once again wearing what might have doubled as a flimsy cocktail dress for exposure protection and her teeth were chattering too much for anything really intelligible to be heard. Tiring of this, I was forced to interrupt her in order to complain about the serious issue I was having with a leaky drysuit which had rendered my right arm slightly damp. A brief silence of one or two days ensued.

The saddest news item this week revolves around the subject of addiction, I'm afraid to say. It's something that ruins the lives of the addicted and those around them, and whilst it probably shouldn't play a part in what ought to be a light-hearted blog, I can't help but mention the events here that have touched, and threaten to destroy, my own life.

Oh, before you ask: there was no option to take the Mighty Wednesday on to mightier things. This is probably because a) everyone would do it and so many of the game's hidden features would therefore remain hidden; or b) it's not possible and trying to do so could create universe-ending paradoxes in the fabric of space-time, or at the very least be unrealistic. Anyway, apart from that obvious point, the only change I would request from the makers for the next version would be the inclusion of the following commentary line when you play M** U****d: "Cristiano Ronaldo has the ball... He's been fouled by Rob! Cristiano Ronaldo has actually snapped in half and Rob is urinating on him as he bleeds to death on the pitch. And the fans are laughing! Everyone is laughing! Even Ronaldo's own family and everyone that has ever known him are laughing as he slowly dies. And his hair looks crap too."

I look forward to hearing from Jonathan on this issue. I bet he still spends his weekends playing football manager as well.

There is good news though: koalas have been taken off the CITES "never-existed-and-anyone-that-claims-to-have-seen-one-is-making-it-up" list and put onto the "actual-real-animals-list" because I saw one this weekend. Sadly, the former list is still large and contains, amongst other things, such wonderful yet sadly mythical creatures as the whale shark, the killer whale (in fact anything with the word "whale" in its name), and the badger. But koalas are sure to be as pleased as bullsharks were a few weeks ago.

I would have posted a picture, but having gone through them, it would expose my photography skills for the shallow sham that they are. Instead, you have a wonderful view of the underside of Mornington pier: in my opinion, one of Melbourne's best dives. In Marina's opinion also, since the other dive we tried was very much like the Wraysbury-esque one of the previous weekend but with worse visibility.

I can't say I really noticed though, to be honest. I was too involved in weighing up the merits of an attacking 3-5-2 formation against a nice solid 4-4-2. Time wasted, as it turns out, because M** U****d beat you 4-0 either way.

I haven't written anything in this blog for ages. Is it because:

a) I was abducted by incredibly hot lesbians who sexually molested me for three weeks, forcing me to perform unspeakable acts now available on DVD from all good Soho stores?

or

b) I forgot?

Answers on a postcard please. The DVD is very reasonably priced.

So, last week I went to watch the sinking of the ex-HMAS Canberra down by the sea (the sea is traditionally believed by many to be an excellent place for wreck-sinking). It was delayed for quite a while which meant lots of sitting around watching news crews helicopter about. Fortunately, they left after a while, at which point the actual sinking happened. Unfortunately, this meant our planned shore dive was delayed.

I say unfortunately because, this being Marina's first dive in cold water, I had rather "bigged it up"*. It has been suggested by some sources (one in particular) that during this particular spree of "bigging", I claimed that the diving in Melbourne was "nothing short of spectacular", that it was "far, far superior" to the "overhyped twaddle" offered by the Great Barrier Reef and that "I actually feel sorry" for anyone who doesn't get to dive here at some point because "when they die their entire life will have been pointless". I won't make that mistake again.

Those with a bent towards the science of psychology might fear at this point that I may have raised Marina's expectations a little too high and, as we entered the water at exactly the wrong time of day for the tide, I began to picture myself imminently concurring with this point of view.

Luckily, I was wrong: the dive was awesome.

OK, in order to illustrate the magnitude of lie contained within that last sentence, the picture at the top of this post is an accurate representation of the visibility we encountered during those 25 long minutes. I have no way to illustrate the cold, but I don't need to because I was nice and snug in my drysuit. One can only imagine how chilly Marina was in an ill-fitting wetsuit and invisible hood in 13 degree water, but to give you a clue she described it as "the coldest I have ever been in my entire life and that includes when I went to Finland for Christmas and got locked out of the lodge for an hour in a blizzard without a coat".

I recorded a maximum depth of 4.6 metres. I believe this was when the surge threw me into some rocks and my computer-wearing wrist was thrust into the peculiarly abrasive sand. All in all, it was worse than Wraysbury. To be honest, I'd prefer to dive on the Great Barrier Reef.

But luckily for you chaps, we're giving it another go on Saturday. This time it's a tried and trusted site, that I personally know to be so good it has even made blind people weep and features, amongst other life, underwater giraffes and a wizard who makes any wish come true if you let him use your torch for five minutes.

I'll let you know how it goes.

*For those who aren't hip enough to know, "bigged up" is a word the cool kids are using these days and roughly translates as "hyped". In this case it means "hyped out of all proportion" and required lengthy apologies for the following four days.

The entire nation will doubtless be relieved to learn that my drysuit has finally arrived, so who knows, maybe I’ll actually do some diving. Stranger things have happened. (That’s a joke, of course: they haven’t.)

Perhaps even more edifying for me was the arrival of my puffer jacket. I’ve been coatless until now as I threw away my other jacket in Madrid this summer because it was very hot at that particular moment and therefore I didn’t need it. Looking back, I’m reminded of the best wetsuit I ever owned, which still resides at the top of a mountain in Nicaragua where I dumped it because there wasn’t any water around. Incredibly, it seems it would’ve come in useful a while later when I did some warm water diving again in t’Egypt, but I didn’t have it so I had to buy a new one.

In any case, I believe it was at the exact moment that I donned said puffer jacket that warms winds started to blow in from the north and the temperature changed instantly from 8˚C to to a sweltering 25˚C+. Luckily, I still have some t-shirts that Marina didn’t let me throw away because it was too cold to wear them. And we have a fridge to keep food cold in, which amazingly has come in handy. I had argued vehemently against buying one because I wasn’t hungry, but for some reason changed my mind when Marina asked me again a few hours later.

I attended an Australian Rules Footballing game at the MCG on Saturday. This was a very different experience to the type of football I'm used to, not so much for the entertaining mayhem on the pitch but more due to the disappointing cultural differences. Specifically the lack of culture that the antipods are generally accused of.

This became immediately apparent on the short train journey to the ground. All the carriages were packed with "footy" fans. Normally one would expect said fans to be bellowing something along the lines of "Come on in and drink with us, We'll drink you to a frenzy, We all come come from Sheffield, And we are Sheffield Wednesday, Na na nana na na na etc." to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy, but these Aussie types showed a marked lack of refinement by simply talking quietly amongst themselves instead.

Secondly, and even more worryingly, there were fans of both teams on the same train and yet there were none of the incitements to violence that the cultured man would expect.

Thirdly, and most troubling of all, they were all sober. I can honestly say I didn't see a single man, woman or child urinate into a beer bottle.

Heathens.

Anyway, the game was good and both Giant Bearded Scotsman (GBS) and I did our very best to make up for the generally disappointing levels of alcohol consumption that were to be seen throughout. And then luckily, at the end, we were made to feel properly at home as a young fan of the losing team (our team also) saw fit to apply a judicious Glasgow kiss to the nasal region of one of the security guards. This caused quite some consternation amongst the other spectators who, incredibly, aren't used to seeing this type of thing at sporting events. Best of all, after this quick scuffle which GBS and I, to be honest, barely noticed even though it was actually occurring at our feet, the securitons broke out the pepper spray. I've never seen it employed before but judging by the reaction of the man who received a face-full, I'd say it might sting a tad. Fortunately, the Brits were there to keep a level head and GBS continued to keep the offending young man (by now pinned to the floor in a painful-looking half-nelson) updated by cheerfully informing him at 30 second intervals that his team were still losing.

In other news, Marina and I have our own lodgings. I imagine this will be particularly useful next time I get incredibly drunk during and after an Aussie Rules game and fall asleep on the train home, winding up somewhere unpronounceable in the state of Victoria. Not that the flat will be useful per se, just that when I finally do get home, I won't have to worry about waking any military parents as I stagger around an incredibly expensively furnished home in the darkness, whilst struggling to keep bodily fluids properly internalised and trying to remember not to sing.

Instead, I can stagger through the front door, slam into some electrical appliance (which Marina persuaded me to spend a fortune on), trip straight over the IKEA couch (which Marina persuaded me to spend a fortune on), stand on the Wireless Router (which I persuaded Marina to spend a fortune on and which doesn't work, which is why I'm writing this in the public library) on the way to the 2nd floor balcony where I can shout lurid greetings to the possums that congregate around the trees outside.

Get in!

Ha! Look at that, eh? Look! Just there on the left. That's right: pictures. 20th Century here we come. Have a flick back through some of your favourite posts; the ones that brought tears to your eyes and bile to your mouth, and you're sure to see that the blog is now infested with pictures with exciting alt-text captions for those who care to scroll over them. You can also add your own photos to your comments. No, really, you can.

I'm in Melbourne now. I left Fat Dan to the lesbians of Tioman, and bought an AirAsia ticket to Oz. AirAsia is the EasyJet of, er, Asia: bizarrely cheap, nauseatingly cheerful and most importantly, not Q*ntas (wankers). Get your tickets now (you can buy a big baggage allowance).

We almost have somewhere to live, despite the fact that Marina seems to have wasted all her time nursing people to health in a hospital and haggling with estate agents whilst I worked my knuckles to the bone in various Asian drinking establishments [insert ladyboy joke here].

Until then though, we're staying with her parents, which means I'm spending all my time trying not to swear, drink until 3am, make careless comments regarding sex with their daughter, or make smells. They've been phenomenally nice actually, which makes me nervous. Her dad's a military man so I expect the pleasantries are just a prelude to him wandering in one afternoon and shooting me in the face. That's what I'd do if my daughter was associated with the likes of me.

For those who've never been; this is what Melbourne is like: exactly the same as Neighbours but colder and wetter. I put this to Marina and she said: "No, it's not, it's... actually, yeah, you're right", and then added in a warning tone: "It's not like Home and Away though". I hadn't suggested it was but agreed with her in a way that made it sound like I had and that I was wrong to have done, since it's never wise to be correct around an Australian. Especially Australian girls. And especially Australian girls with fathers that are trained to kill.

Fat Dan got off with a lesbian last night while I watched...

...Raiders Of The Lost Ark on my laptop. This is what happens when you go to bed early and leave him in a bar on his own.

I have a cold, so that's it for diving and drinking (at least it was last night), but I'll be in Australia in a couple of days anyway and there's probably no water or beer there.

Fat Dan, when not inexplicably making sexy-time with people genetically incapable of fancying him, owns his own Graphic Design business and has worked Phottyshop wonders with my bull shark image. It's now almost recognisable. You can even see his two willies (the bull shark's, not Fat Dan. I expect Fat Dan only has one willy, but to be honest, I've never thought to ask).

Watch this space...

I saw a bull shark yesterday.

We're on Tioman Island in Malaysia. It accidentally took us two days to get here because we're quite stupid.

There was an enormous Singaporian man on the ferry here, built like The Terminator, who was wearing a t-shirt with a dive flag that read: "It's not a sport unless you can die from massive internal injuries." He sat in front of me and with his massive shaven head no more than a foot away, it was very difficult to resist the urge to flick his Cro-Magnon pate. At that point you would have to whinily beg him not to hit you until he turned around and you could do it again, ad infinitum.

So, yesterday, we did a dive at a place called "Tiger Reef". Very beautiful corals but 5m vis. Fat Dan ran low on air after 30 minutes because he spent most of the dive flapping around and being girly, so whilst the DM took him and some other breathers up, I went to the front and dragged a couple of people around.

As I came around the corner of the reef, I looked up in time to see the biggest shark I've ever laid eyes upon (and I've seen a few) doing a u-turn maybe a metre and a half from my head. He was enormous, maybe three metres long and so solid and stocky, there's no way I'd have gotten my arms around him for a cuddle, although I did try.

And then he was gone.

I've seen a lot of grey reefies in my time and had always assumed that a bull shark was just a bigger version of them, but now I see the difference. This chap was seriously muscly and, well, basically bull-like. A bit like the Singaporean except I had no urge to flick his head. I have a terrible photo which I will post here when I get the technology up and running (soon, I promise).

Nobody on the boat believed me, obviously. They haven't said anything but I can tell. The problem is a) I was the only one to see it, b) I didn't really see its head, c) the photo is awful, and d) no one knew you got them here. I suppose it could have been a very vivid hallucination, similar to the one I'm having now that leads me to believe I'm typing all this into the world's slowest internet connection, but I'm a shark obsessive and I've also matched up details and shapes of fins as well as I can from the photo with the reef guide and that's what I saw. Bizarrely, I think people don't see them because the vis is usually much better. This one was obviously swimming in to have a proper look at what was making all the noise, whereas usually he could do it from about 40 metres away and keep himself secret.

Somebody on the boat did ask me if it was behaving aggressively, but I have to assume that since he was so close and already turning when I saw him; if he had wanted to be aggressive, he would probably be still gnawing on my thick skull now, trying to find a morsel of brain, and I would never have known about it.

Surprisingly, Fat Dan and I celebrated this experience with massive amounts of beer. The only thing I really remember from last night was drawing a map of the UK on the dart scoreboard and writing below it: "Special Question for Manchester United fans [of which there are many in Malaysia]. Here is a map of Britain. Where is Manchester?" No one was having much luck and then a Malay guy strolled up, put a mark at just about the right point and wrote next to it "Liverpool".

Excellent. Absolutely excellent.

We went to see some Thai Boxing last night. I was a bit worried because I’d been before some 100 moons ago and it was utterly crap: When they say: “Real fight! Not for tourist! Not show fight!” you begin to suspect that they’re lying because they’re held in the tourist centre and only tourists go except for the odd prostitute accompanying a fat white man. But as it transpired, unlike last time they were real fights, just amateur ones. Irritatingly, there were a group of Americans behind us who became tactical experts after the first round of the first fight, loudly pointing out where everyone was going wrong. Of course, it would be impossible to take them seriously, but this was even more the case because the evidence for their observations was (I’m not joking here): Karate Kid. This line of reasoning has several drawbacks. Firstly, Karate Kid is a movie. Secondly, it’s a kids movie. Thirdly (and following on from one and two), I’m not sure how realistic it is. And fourthly, it’s a movie about karate, not Thai Boxing.

In between fights, ladyboys would dance to tunes like YMCA. I was there with some younger lads who weren’t sure if they were really ladyboys and so I spent much of the night claiming I wasn’t sure either and encouraging them to find out for sure.

Anyway, later there was a white guy boxing. This was the main event, an “International Contest” between a German (“Michael”) and a Thai. The German was massive. He spent the first 45 seconds relentlessly pummelling his opponent, much in accordance with the advice of the Americans, whilst the Thai guy did absolutely nothing. Then, whilst the German was unleashing a stinging volley of vicious kicks, the Thai guy side-stepped, punched Herr Michael once in the face, and knocked him out.

The best part was the “Show” part though: blind boxing. Three aged ex-boxers were blindfolded and pushed around in the ring. When they got close to anybody, they started pinwheeling their arms wildly. They connected more often than you would think, although 30% of the time with the guy doing the pushing. This was wrong, tragic and pitiful. It was utterly hilarious.

We survived the trek, although I’m still unable to walk, a day and a half later.

We decided beforehand that probably the best way for us to bond with our fellow trekkers was if we made helicopter noises (chka-chka-chka-chka etc.) and took it in turns to pretend to be the helicopter pilot or the rear gunner. We could refuse to stop and rest anywhere except in large clearings, communicate by making radio-static sounds before everything we said, and warn people not to approach us from the rear in any circumstances. Sadly, the only way this would properly work was if we kept it up for the entire duration. At first people would find it funny, then weird and hopefully, after three days, quite frightening. But we’re lazy people, so we gave up on the idea.

Day one started badly with an inexplicable trip to an orchid farm, where you could buy expensive jewellery, followed by an inexplicable trip to a snake farm, where you could watch snakes kept in confined conditions and then bullied for a gala show. Fortunately, after that we got to do some walking. Uphill. Quite a lot of walking, and almost all of it very much uphill. This is why I still can’t move my legs properly. At the top, a hill tribe camp awaited us, but the first-hand knowledge I’d now gained as to why they’re called hill tribes wasn’t going to get me there. I was actually pouring with sweat and then, unfortunately, we came to a waterfall where a man was selling, amongst other refreshments, beer. I jokingly said we should have one. Fat Dan took it as a challenge. Fat Dan takes anything as a challenge. He was at the front the whole way, except for one point we’ll come to later.

Assuming we’d gotten the worst part over with, we had a beer each. As it transpires, the worst part wasn’t over, it was next. Followed by the second worst part and then the third worst part, both of which, due to the worsening dehydration and pounding headache, felt in their turn like the worst parts. It’s unlikely I’d have made it except for two things: firstly there was a Jewish girl, more like a princess actually, from LA who started complaining at the bottom of the hill and became even more determined to hate everything as time went on. I had to beat her. Secondly at one point, around the time when I kept losing my footing because I was exhausted and wearing a £7.50 pair of trainers with no grips I bought especially on Khao San Road, Fat Dan hoved up to me and starting making helicopter noises.

There was a guide in all this. You might have missed him. We usually did. He tended to remain just out of sight, around the next bit of jungle, although he was dogged (no, not like that), determinedly by Fat Dan. Mr Whiskey was his name. Not his real one. I don’t know his real name. Mr Whiskey was more appropriate, anyway. He was either massively hungover or incoherently drunk. Every day. When he was actually in view he was quite minimalist and hated explaining or pointing out anything. If you asked him a question he would reply incoherently and then usually laugh and then talk about something else in perfect English that no one was interested in and then stop and have a beer.

We did make it to the top eventually. Trekking is not a race, but I could tell Fat Dan wanted to win it. That’s why, at the last possible moment, I ran past him and up the steps into the village whilst singing the Rocky theme tune and emulating the bit where Stallone reaches the top of the monument in Rocky I and jumps around with his arms in the air.

I was soaked through with my own sweat. So was my bag. I stank. I felt great.

Day two was more sedate. The princess quit. Most of the walking was downhill which meant the competition du jour was to see who would fall over the least. I lost. I still have the cuts. Mr Whiskey had two beers for breakfast and then stopped to throw up after the first incline. He seemed twitchy. That night one of our group asked him how long he’d been a trekking guide:

Mr Whiskey: Fourteen years.

Polish Girl: Are you bored of it?

Mr Whiskey: Yes, very much, but I happy because I drink.

He’s been married three times. He’s single now.

Day three was a fun day but I wasn’t able to properly take advantage of it. My legs were tremendously stiff and most of the walking seemed to involve balancing on logs and other things that required my brain to issue orders to muscles that refused to comply. Also, I felt extremely fatigued, constantly wanted to be sick, and couldn’t open my eyes properly due to the gunge that kept coming out of them which I attributed to the seven bowls of opium I’d smoked the previous night. We wanted more but the man wouldn’t let us because I was staring into space and busily drooling whilst mumbling incoherently and Fat Dan actually fell asleep whilst smoking the pipe. Twice.

Anyway, it wasn’t life-threatening or anything if you fell off the things we had to balance on. All that would happen is that you would slip with a feeling of grim inevitability and smash one of your nuts.

I was limping quite badly and choking back tears by the time we made it to the elephant trekking place. I’ve been on an elephant once before and also once on a horse, after which I solemnly swore never to scale a quadruped again. Quite often they move and it’s usually of their own accord and if I was an elephant (or a horse), at some point I would get pissed off with carrying white people on my back and toss them into the nearest ravine. And ravines, when you’re on the back of a creature, always seem to be alarmingly close by. So, I nursed myself until they came back and got ready for the white water rafting.

White water rafting is excellent, although I later discovered you can get a bit wet. At one point, our captain (not Mr Whiskey, who was drinking elsewhere) ordered us all to jump in the river, so we did. They have very strong currents, do rivers, and when you’re wearing life jackets they’re absolutely perfect for drift dives (albeit drift dives on the surface). After that was the more sedate bamboo rafting, which mostly involves quietly plodding downstream on a semi-submerged raft. I was standing in front, thinking how good I was at it. Then I realised I was very close to being sick. Then we hit a rock and I went flying off the front in a tangle of arms and legs. I couldn’t get back on the raft for quite some time because everyone was laughing too much to steer it.

That’s about it, really. Incredibly, neither I nor Fat Dan got bitten by a single mosquito which is lucky since the only malaria-prophylactic we were using was DEET. I can only assume they were alarmed by his volcanic snoring. And there were only two spiders. Fat Dan has assured me that there are only two spiders in the world and since I’ve never seen more than two at the same time, I can only assume he’s right. Also, there are only five flies, globally.

Chka-chka-chka-chka...

Fat Dan has arrived.

We are in Bangkok. Fat Dan arrived at 9.45am yesterday and we began drinking at 10.15am, which leads me to an interesting coincidence: today, I feel terrible; it's almost as though the two things are related.

Fortunately, though, our time wasn't wasted. You see, when two fantastically creative minds get together and channel fantastically creative substances like alcohol and four billion fags, fantastic things are created. In this case, e-rape. It's easy, convenient and unbelievably offensive. All you need to do is send the following e-mail:

Subject: You're saying no...

Message: ...but it's already inside your inbox.

You've just been e-raped.

Please bear in mind, however, that e-rape is a hate crime: don't send one to your mum or anything. To be honest, I can't believe I have to point that out to you. You people make me sick, sometimes, you really do.

Anyway, we're off to the jungle for a few days now. It's rainy season. I have a pair of shorts.