Meeting the Neighbours - Story Telling Sunday

We're having a very floppy day here - Management's back is playing up (probably due to humping the large tent around), Louis is having an asthma flare which is very unusual, and I am still not firing as I would like to after my bug.  We are chilling out and watching the Olympics and loving it all and it gives me a wonderful excuse to join in with Sian's Story Telling Sunday.  

We have so many stories from our Round The World trip but this particular tale is one that I think about every week day when I watch my Aussie soaps.  I popped back to our old Travelpod blog to see what we had written but actually it was unusual that Management wrote this one.  Over to him...

OH MY GOD!

Now, when I was told I was going to a Neighbours trivia evening I thought this would be a sedate affair with a quick pickie with some semi-celebrity. Not a chance! 

We got picked up from the hostel in the most disgusting coach ever with the coach driver doing a very good impression of Les Patterson. After picking up numerous amounts of scantily dressed girlies on the way, we arrived at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow pub in St. Kilder. There was already a large queue. After about 15 minutes we eventually got in and you were seated at specific tables so that they could sqeeze in as many people as possible. Then the drinking began. After quite a lot of the drinking the mc eventually said the stars were on their way and one by one in walked Toadie, Connor and Harold. The noise was deafening as 300 plus drunk Brits screamed and chanted the star's names. The celebs were then asked questions that the crowd had put forward. Many of these were directed towards Toadie asking about rumours that he had been caught in the toilets with various female backpackers on previous evenings and had been banned. The best question though was put to Harold - "Why do you have such a jelly belly?" His answer - "Because every time I slept with your mother she gave me a biscuit!" What a star.

The quiz then started and the stars went round the tables to meet everyone and get photos with them. Harold had a bad leg so he remained on stage and you went up to see him. Most of the questions were about anything but neighbours and our team managed a creditable 7th out of 35. The quiz rounds were interspersed with a number of dodgy 18-30 type games to win trips etc. The most amazing thing about the whole evening was seeing all these young girls wearing a couple of hankerchiefs tied together throwing themselves at the stars in particular Harold! I have to say he wasn't complaining.

At this point I have to say a small word about my wife. Seeing her little face after having her picture taken with Toady was like a small child on christmas morning. She even said "this is the best day of the trip so far" - how sad is that?

Anyway after quite a bit more drinking we splashed out on a taxi back to the hostel (a whole 5 pounds).

After the excesses of the night before we decided on a quiet inexpensive day. We had to be out of the hostel for 4 hours as it was being fumigated! I tried to explain that LJ's socks always smelt but they must have suspected something even worse. In the morning we went swimming at the public swimming pool which was free via the hostel. Now, at home I consider myself not a bad swimmer but here I was put to shame with all the locals bombing up and down the lanes. There was even a man with one leg who was twice as fast as me. The pool was 30 metres and LJ managed 20 lengths!

After swimming we had lunch in chinatown - 3 dishes with rice for $6 (about 2 squid) and then went to the market and bought our tea. We splashed out and got a huge piece of rump steak for just over a quid.

This morning we did the other neighbours tour which was a bit disappointing. The tour takes you to the road that is Ramsey Street (real name Pin Oak). This is an actual street where poor people actually live. Well not so poor as it happens cos they get paid $50,000 a year to let the TV company film there. It seemed very small in real life and not at all how we remembered it from the telly. We then passed the studios and the driver pointed out the actors cars and told us what the ex stars are doing. Rik Alessi is now a tour guide for the outback so we may see him later in our travels.

Neighbours trivia - Erinsborough is made from an anagram of Neighbours. Erinsborough High is a school in real life. When Harold "disappeared" a few years back he was actually sacked and only came back when the producers changed.

Future plots - Kylie returns as a stripper and gets it on with pom newcomer (Management apparently!).

So that was our Neighbours experience as told at the time by Management.  Its really funny looking back at what we wrote about things back then and what we remember now, or the style we wrote in and how we might write it now.  It was 10 years ago now and so much has changed for us since then.  I'm looking forward to scrapping all about our strange experiences!

Bye for now
xx