Continuing our quest to discover Brisbane and the surrounding areas, on Sunday we spent the day at Bribie Island. Bribie Island is approx an hour's drive north of Brisbane and the only Island close to Brisbane that is connected by a bridge. We started out at Bongaree which is on the South East of … read more

Back in Sydney again. Just a flying visit this time (24 hours). At the airport I heard the announcement "Darren Gough please proceed immediately to Gate 39". Of course I had a look round to see if, unlikely as it would be, it was THE Darren Gough. The strange coincidence is that when I got to my … read more

http://youtube.com/v/Yg_xa-c9hHY Typical Englishman abroad. Steve McClaren has only been in Holland 6 weeks and he's already doing the pigeon English thing. They should put this stuff in a Rough Guides guidebook. If you are an Englishman on holiday in a non-English speaking country, simply speak … read more

Yesterday it was Father's Day here in Australia, and so for a treat we went for Lunch with George, Julie and Reyce to Icon at Raby Bay. We'll definitely be returning to Icon again. The food was fantastic, especially given it was a buffet. Usually at buffets you end up getting the cheap cuts of meat, … read more

Yesterday, Rach said she wanted to get some spring cleaning done so I took Lauren down to the Manly Harbour Festival. Here's a few pics: A little something for the adults... And a little something for the kids... This is a view of the rear of Rachelle's work. You can see two cranes - one is … read more

A few of our pictures from last weekend... On Saturday we had planned to go on board HMB Endeavour - the replica of Captain Cook's ship which visiting Brisbane for a few days, but we got there a little late as Lauren attended a friend's birthday party in the afternoon. Plus, we couldn't be arsed to … read more

Google has finally entered the Internet Browser market with the release of Google Chrome. Only time will tell to see if it can compete with Internet Explorer in terms of market share. For me, Firefox is the best browser out there but it still only has a 20% share of the market - even IE6 which is … read more

It was only 4 years ago, yet I can remember very little about the 2004 Athens Olympics. Some of the sporting achievements stick out, such as Kelly Holmes winning 2 Gold Medals, the Men's 4x100 team winning Gold, and the discovery of Amir Khan. However, I can hardly remember a thing about the 2004 … read more

I've just been watching this video on the BBC website about supposed Aussie sour grapes over the success of team GB. If you get any Aussies throwing out the same line that 'it's not England, you can only beat us if you combine your countries', just point out to them that most of Australia's golds … read more

The UK Cabinet Office has now made public information from the previously classified UK National Risk Register. This is available at [www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/reports/n...](http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/reports/national_risk_register.aspx.) This seems to backup what many scientists have been … read more

I find it pretty cynical that whilst the rest of the world's media is following the IOC official Medal Table, i.e. ranking countries by Gold, then Silver, then Bronze, which currently puts China at the top, the big US media companies are instead ranking countries by total medals won, which of course … read more

I am pleased to announce that after months of development, our new website - www.ipchitchat.co.uk - is now live! We originally hired a web developer to build this site but it didn't work out too well. His work turned out to be really shoddy. It's our own fault, we should have done better due … read more

First there was the Evolution of Dance. Now there's the Evolution of Wedding Dance. I nearly pissed myself watching this.... [youtube [www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QujA8YYgTWU&hl=en&fs=1&w=425&h=344]) read more

There seems to be a load of christmas movies on TV at the moment. Apparently it's quite traditional over here - Christmas in July. It is the middle of Winter but it's still a bit strange watching White Christmas when it's 23 degrees C outside! read more

After 14 months of trying, we've finally been able to get ADSL. Hooray!! I've been applying fairly regularly ever since we arrived in Oz but kept receiving the same reply - "no available ports on the exchange". However, after being told ADSL had been activated for my line (it only took a couple of … read more

Google is facing a tough time when it comes to privacy. Only 2 days ago Google lost a court case with Viacom (the parent company of MTV and Paramount Pictures) where the judge ruled that they must hand over the log files detailing everyone who has ever accessed a YouTube video. This ruling could set … read more

I've finally found the perfect service for the Expat. Jaxtr is a service which makes international calls easier, cheaper and much more convenient. It basically means that I can now make calls to the UK from my Australian mobile phone at a cheaper rate than calling from my home phone - even cheaper … read more

I'm currently sat in the departure lounge at Canberra airport with a 3 hour wait for my flight. Luckily I'm sat at a table that's near a bar, and also has a power socket I can use, so the combination of my laptop and Crown Lager should see me through. It feels weird travelling home on a Saturday … read more

This week I've made my first visit to our nation's capital - Canberra - for a 6-day course in Hacker Techniques, Exploits and Incident Handling. Canberra is a strange little city. It seems to me to be a cross-between Washington and Milton Keynes, in that it's clearly a Government town; the Federal … read more

This week I've been in Sydney on a training course to become a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) for the Payment Cards Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). The PCI-DSS is a standard jointly devised by VISA, Mastercard, American Express, JCB and Discover that details the security controls that … read more