Simon Butcher

Being back in Melbourne feels weird. It's been two years since I was last here, but this time around I feel like a tourist in my own home town. Melbourne is a city that has always grown fairly rapidly, and much has changed — new structures and the conversion of many shops into yuppie fruit-shake bars being the most prevalent.

At the end of the day though, is it the city that's changed, or have I changed?

For me, a real Christmas is one spent in nice warm weather in a relaxed atmosphere. The word cold should be applied only to the food and drink, and not the weather; Snow should never enter the equation, unless it's fake.

In quite an atmospheric contrast to last year's Christmas in Bristol with friends, my Christmas this year has been spent baking in the Australian sun. Oddly, this year could have possibly been the most relaxing family Christmas on record, being a simple barbecue over at my sister's house.

˙ʇsǝɹ ǝɯos ʎΙΙnɟǝdoɥ puɐ uns ǝɯos qɐɹɓ oʇ ǝɔuɐɥɔ ɐ
— sɹɐǝʎ-ʍǝu puɐ sɐɯʇsᴉɹɥƆ ɹoɟ suoᴉʇdɐɹʇuoɔ ǝqnʇ ɓuᴉʎΙɟ
Ιɐʇǝɯ snoᴉɹnxnΙΙᴉ puɐ ǝΙqɐɹǝsᴉɯ ǝsoɥʇ ɟo ǝuo uᴉ ʞɔnʇs
„‘pΙɹoʍ ǝɥʇ ɟo puǝ-ǝsɹɐ„ ǝɥʇ oʇ ʞɔɐq ʎɐʍ ʎɯ uo ɯ,I ‘ʎɐʍʎu∀

˙sɹǝuǝɥʇɹoN ʎpooΙq noʎ ‘ʇᴉ ɹǝʌo ʇǝ⅁

¡pɐoɹ ǝɥʇ ɟo ǝpᴉs „ɓuoɹʍ„ ǝɥʇ uo ǝʌᴉɹp
ǝʍ ʍoɥ ʇnoqɐ ɓuᴉuɐoɯ ɟo ʇuᴉod ǝɥʇ oʇ uǝʌǝ
‘ʎΙsnoᴉɹǝS ˙spɹɐʍʞɔɐq ʇsɐǝΙ ʇɐ ɹo ‘uʍop-ǝpᴉsdn
ɓuᴉɥʇʎɹǝʌǝ op suɐᴉΙɐɹʇsn∀ sn ‘ǝɹǝɥsᴉɯǝH
-uɹǝɥʇɹoN ǝɥʇ uᴉ ǝΙdoǝd ʇsoɯ oʇ ɓuᴉpɹoɔɔ∀

A friend of mine has recently started working for Thalys, and therefore she's gained access to some free tickets for the Thalys network as an employee perquisite. We decided to exploit this for some time away from the Christmas-shoppers in Brussels by going to The Hague for a weekend of tourism.

Well, at least the original idea was to go for a bit of tourism…

At the risk of seeming a bit like Seven Up!, I thought I'd have another crack at this day in the life stuff. After last year's effort, I was curious to see what had changed.

Apparently, not much!

I couldn't possibly have a Christmas without my Mother asking for pictures of Christmas lights in Brussels. Not much has changed since last year, although this year's lights on the Grand Place are even more tacky…

Every Christmas, a whole bunch of presents arrive from our various vendors at the office, quite often chocolates, or some chocolate related theme.

I seem to wind up receiving a new toy to play with at the office around this time of the year too: Last year it was the Google Mini 2.0, and this year it's a pair of Sun Fire X4600 servers.

I've always had a penchant for Sun hardware, and while we're normally an HP shop at work, I was able to convince the powers-that-be that these two servers would be ideal to replace our horrible ML350 G4 based SQL server, which was chosen before my time.