Last night was Census night in Australia and some of my pals back home were amused that the online form had an option to post to Twitter that you'd completed it. Equally thrilling, I submitted our electricity meter reading on the phone and was invited to Share it on Facebook:
I don't know what to say about all the rioting down south. I think we need more of this kind of behaviour in the streets:
Happy Australia Day! I nicked this idea from the lovely Kathryn in Japan.
How sad that the majority of this list is FOOD.
* There are plenty of great cafés in Edinburgh that have nice brekkies but you don't get quite the same variety of ideas and ingredients. Out here in Dunfermline a bacon roll from Gregg's is about the extent of your choices 
Breakfast is SO good in Australia. I love an American brunch or a British cooked breakfast but the Aussie cafés take bits of those with influences from other places and make morning time MAGIC, I tells ya!
** Specifically I miss going out for coffee and cake after weeknight movie like we used to do in Canberra at somewhere like Gus' or Cafe Essen. Here in Scotland we have some great cafés but not many open late. If you go to a movie, you go to the pub afterwards. I don't want to do that on a school night! I've told my Scottish pals about these mystical late night cafés and they say, "What's wrong with the pub? You should like that, you're Australian!".
Yeah yeah. I always wonder if I got a consortium of expats together to open such a café, would it die on its arse? Or could we persuade that there's an alternative to the pub and kebab combo?
1973 was a very brown year, if our house is anything to go by. I didn't give it much thought over the summer, but now it gets dark early and we're inside more often, so we can no longer deny there's a lot of brown about. It hasn't helped that we also accumulated a fair bit of brown furniture from previous residences.
Gareth is particularly bothered by the brownness and often wanders about singing a mournful version of California Dreamin' that doesn't get past the first two lines:
All the leaves are brown
And the walls are brown* (and the doors are brown)
And the bathroom's brown (and the carpet's brown)**
And the couch is brown (and the chairs are brown)
And the Malm is brown (and the wardrobe's brown)
And the stairs are brown (and the window frames are brown)
And the driveway's brown (and the shed is brown)
And the table's brown (and the speakers are brown)***
* "The walls are NOT brown," I protested, "The colour is called Sandstone!"
"Close enough. It's like living inside a biscuit!"
** "The carpet is not brown! It's a sort of beigey-cream."
"Beige is a breed of brown!" said Dr G.
*** Gareth CHOSE to buy gigantic old brown 1980s speakers from Green Hi-Fi so he's got no one to blame but himself for that one.
Recently we tried to jazz things up a little by painting the dining room a sexy shade of teal. Except it turned out a wee bit darker than hoped, so it is a bit like, to quote guess who, "Like living inside the blue Tellytubby". To which I replied that there is no blue Tellytubby. But if there was a blue Tellytubby it would be the same sort primary blue that the dining room appears to be at certain times of day. But neither of us can face painting it again, so we will put up with the blue and brown for now. Like living inside a bruise!
All that said, I love living at Crooked House. We've almost clocked up a year. This has been the changing view from the brown-now-blue dining room:
Winter…
And now autumn. All the fields are ploughed… now the fields are BROWN.
"Excuse me, is there a bathroom I can use?"
The lady behind the till rolled her eyes at me. "It's doon there."
Doon there was 40 metres underground. We were at Scotland's Secret Bunker, one of Scotland's best kept tourist secrets.
"So you'll just have to wait," she concluded, holding her hand out for the admission fee.
My friend Jenny came to stay in the summer of 2008 (hurrah for timely blogging) and after taking her to the Isle of Skye and the Highlands (where it rained endlessly, of course), we were determined to show off the local treasures of the Kingdom of Fife.
After a brief photo stop at Methil power station, truly the jewel of the Fife Riviera…
… it was onwards to the Secret Bunker.
Shh, don't tell anyone.
This innocuous farmhouse is the front for the Cold War paranoia lurking beneath. Down a 140-metre sloping tunnel lies the bunker, 24,000 square metres of secret accommodation. It was built during the 1950s as a place for important government people to duck and cover in the event of a nuclear war.
On paper the Bunker sounded rather cool. You've got the Cold War, the threat of Armageddon and a secret bunker way down underground. But as we pushed our way through the creaky turnstyle (just like the ones at council pools) and descended down the dark mould-and-mothball scented tunnel, it started to feel a wee bit creepy.
First there was a room playing a spooky 1960s public service film about life after a nuclear war. Then there was a room full of nothing but old telephones. The message seemed to be, "We've got a lot memorabilia and we're going to show you all of it, no matter how random!"
There were also a lot of mannequins, carefully arranged to depict bunker life. In the sleeping quarters, they lay in bunk beds and stared up at the ceiling. In contrast, the control room next door was a hive of activity.
No, you cannae have fries with that. Don't you know there's a cold war on?
At the big map, the man with the stick explained the current situation to the lady with the apparently dislocated arm.
"We are fucked here, here… and HERE."
Another lady with tinted legs warned us of various things.
She liked to break the rules.
In the next room was a truly baffling ashtray display.
Then in another random room we learned that during the 1960s the bunker was staffed by the Civil Defence Corps. Boldly led by VANILLA ICE.
In the final room, perched on the back of an armchair and bathed in an eerie glow was a skeleton in a white coat. Doctor Skeleton MD, apparently, was determined to conduct business as usual despite the inconvenience of losing all his flesh and organs.
There was also a coffee shop, from which came the aroma of burning bacon. It smelled a little too much like the end of the world, so we scurried back up to the surface.
NB: Neep = turnip, traditional accompaniment for haggis.
(Proper post with words on Monday!)
Carnegie Hall Dunfermline: The original and the best.
I highly recommend shacking up with a foreigner, as cultural differences help keep the magic alive. Today is my and Dr G's fifth wedding anniversary and we still manage to surprise each other. At least when it comes to words. Just when I think I've heard all his wacky phrases, he dredges up another doozy. Like STARVE.
I first fell victim to Starve when he was eating a Mars bar and I was staring longingly at it.
"Do you want a bite?"
"What do YOU think?" I said, moving in for the kill.
Just as I was about to take a bite, he yoinked the chocolate out reach and cackled, "STARVE!"
Apparently this originated at his primary school, when little kids would tease other little kids with promises of bites of lunches, only to cruelly withdraw their offers. You can just picture them in the playground all full of glee, "Hey, want a crisp?.... STARVE!"
I'm not sure if the phrase extended beyond his school but nevertheless it's brilliant, albeit incredibly frustrating when you're on the receiving end of it.
Its usefulness extends beyond food - it makes a concise substitute for the likes of "get stuffed" or "over my dead body". Examples:
Etc etc etc.
Gareth's favourite Australian phrase is SHAME JOB. Again I've not heard it used beyond the borders of my rural New South Wales home town - if anyone out there is familiar with it I'd love to hear from you!
Shame Job is a cry of mockery and scorn. In a school full of pimply teenagers there were plenty of opportunities to use it. The basic procedure is:
Hapless kid does something embarassing ==> Nearest gaggle of students point and shriek in unison: SHAME JOB!
* dacked is the act of some cruel bastard sneaking up behind you and pulling down your tracky dacks (sweatpants/tracksuit bottoms) so the general public gets a look at your unfortunate undies.
Shame Job works best with a broad Australian accent. You must bellow it loud and pack as many vowels as possible into the shame bit, so it becomes: SHAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYUM JOB!
Shame Job is now our default phrase for when one us does something stupid or if someone on the telly is doing something stupid. Try it on your friends next time they cock something up - I guarantee you it's fantastic fun.
Today I officially became a British citizen! I attended a ceremony at Dunfermline City Chambers, mouthing the words to God Save The Queen while seagulls squabbled outside.
The Provost told us new inductees that we should be "proud of our achievement". But obtaining citizenship is not so much an achievement as a display of endurance and financial commitment. It's been 6.5 years and about £2,500 in Home Office fees. Now that I'm on the other side I can freely bitch about those stinking Home Office fees.
Cynicism aside, I loved the minor pomp of the ceremony and it's great to be an official Fifer. Eh! KEN!
I reluctantly moved across the water to Dunfermline in 2005, just before I married Doctor G. I thought it was a grotty hellhole – incomprehensible accents, crappy shops and pavements strewn with exploded kebabs. But now The Dunny feels like home. Even if we could afford to move back to Edinburgh I think I'd stay here. As much as I miss Edinburgh's cafes and concerts, I like my tiny commute, my kickboxing club, the countryside access and laughing at the stupid peacocks strutting down the high street.
How could you not love a town that gives you a commemorative mug for becoming a citizen?
It features stunning Fife attractions like historic Culross, St Andrews cathedral, the Rosyth Dockyard and the Forth Rail Bridge (The Greatest Feat of Victorian Engineering™).
And a puffin.
And for some unknown reason, a Chinese dragon thingy.
Catchy slogan, eh?
So with dual UK/Oz citizenship I have permanent access to two lovely nations and my wrestles with bureaucracy are finally OVER! Unless of course we move back to Australia and Gareth can experience the joys of the Department of Immigration 
This chap in our neighbourhood has a ingenious way of dealing with his sloping yard. Or does everyone keep their lawnmower on a lead? I'd not seen it before…
UPDATE: A dude on Flickr tells me Mowers On String are hella common. I plead ignorance as someone who's previously always lived in flat places
